“Truly God is good to the upright, to those who are pure in heart.” (1) Thus begins Psalm 73. The psalm ends with words of confident trust, “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.” (26) But the path to reach this faith […]
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When you or a loved one are sick, it’s easy to become impatient with the slow healing process. You can’t wait for them to get better. The writer of Psalm 70 knows about being in a hurry! Dealing with Sick Kids When my kids were in grade school, it seemed that between snow days, special […]
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Years ago, when I was a child and TV was young, there was a game show called, “To Tell the Truth.” Three people claimed to be the same person. The object of the game was for contestants to determine who was lying and who was telling the truth. At the end of the show the […]
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In high school I read the short story “The Misbegotten Missionary” by Isaac Asimov. In the story, a small alien hitched a ride on a space ship. His mission: to save us from our own aloneness and destructiveness by making all “one,” a precursor to the Borg Collective on Star Trek. This alien had the […]
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It was my first time riding this section of the Falling Waters Trail. The path was tree covered, providing ample shade from the sun, when to my right I glimpsed blue. Lime Lake? I had been looking for the lake but so far had only seen a swampy pond. As I road further, more blue […]
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Several years ago, we had an unseasonably warm winter followed by a lost fruit crop because trees bloomed too early and the buds were killed by frost. The following year though was a boom year as the trees made up for the lost crop by producing in abundance, overflowing. Farmers had a difficult time harvesting […]
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Yet another lament. Enough already! Like Michigan winters, they just go on and on. I look for relief and see weeks of snow, freezing temperatures and freezing rain in the forecast. I look for words of quiet and repose, yet I get words of sorrow and anger with little end in sight, including this week’s […]
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Psalm 50 and Paul in Hebrews 13:15 speak of offering God a sacrifice of praise (“Through him, then, let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name.”), but what does that mean? How can praising God be a sacrifice? Isn’t it a joy and […]
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“Next year in Jerusalem!” So ends the Jewish Seder meal. Pilgrimages to the holy city of Jerusalem were an important part of the Jewish faith in Old Testament times. There was only one Temple, the Temple in Jerusalem, David’s city. The journey was meant to give pilgrims plenty of time to reflect on God; the […]
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Anyone who watched the TV series Bones, knows that you can learn a lot about a person by studying their bones. As someone who has been diagnosed with osteoporosis, I take bone health seriously. Is it any wonder that I found myself drawn to verse 20 of Psalm 34: “He keeps all his bones; not […]
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