Abraham Lincoln confided to a friend ldquo I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go rdquo In the horrific years of the American Civil War President Lincoln not only spent time in fervent prayer but also called the country to join him In he proclaimed a ldquo day of humiliation prayer and fasting rdquo And he did so again in stating ldquo It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God to confess their sins and [... more]

As I was helping my sixth-grade grandson Logan with some tough algebra-type homework he told me of his dream of becoming an engineer After we returned to figuring out what to do with the x rsquo s and y rsquo s in his assignment he said ldquo When am I ever going to use this stuff rdquo I couldn rsquo t help but smile saying ldquo Well Logan this is exactly the stuff you rsquo ll use if you become an engineer rdquo He hadn rsquo t realized the connection between algebra and his hoped-for future Sometimes we view Scripture [... more]

When my friend Floss lies awake at night she thinks about the lyrics of the hymn ldquo My Jesus I Love Thee rdquo She calls it her ldquo middle-of-the-night rdquo song because it helps her to remember God rsquo s promises and the many reasons that she loves Him Sleep is a necessary mdash but sometimes elusive mdash part of life At times we may sense the voice of the Holy Spirit bringing unconfessed sin to our mind Or we begin worrying about our job our relationships our finances our health or our children Soon a full-scale dystopian future starts [... more]

In memorializing his grandfather rsquo s work Peter Croft wrote ldquo It is my deepest desire for the person who picks up their Bible whatever version they use to not only understand but experience the scriptures as living documents just as relevant dangerous and exciting now as they were those thousands of years ago rdquo Peter rsquo s grandfather was J B Philips a youth minister who undertook a new paraphrase of the Bible in English during World War II in order to make it come alive to students at his church Like Phillips rsquo students we face barriers to [... more]

ldquo Watch my fairy princess dance Grandma rdquo my three-year-old granddaughter gleefully called as she raced around the yard of our cabin a big grin on her face Her ldquo dancing rdquo brought a smile and her big brother rsquo s glum ldquo She rsquo s not dancing just running rdquo didn rsquo t staunch her joy at being on vacation with family The first Palm Sunday was a day of highs and lows When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey the crowds enthusiastically shouted ldquo Hosanna blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord rdquo [... more]

On his twelfth Christmas the boy eagerly awaited the opening of the gifts under the tree He was yearning for a new bike but his hopes were dashed mdash the last present he received was a dictionary On the first page he read ldquo To Charles from Mother and Daddy With love and high hopes for your best work in school rdquo In the next decade Chuck did do well in school He graduated from college and later aviation training and became a pilot working overseas fulfilling his passion to help people in need and to share Jesus with them [... more]

The small country of Iceland is a nation of readers In fact it rsquo s reported that each year it publishes and reads more books per person than any other country On Christmas Eve it rsquo s a tradition for Icelanders to give books to family and friends and then read long into the night This tradition dates back to World War II when imports were restricted but paper was cheap Icelandic publishers began flooding the market with new titles in late fall Now a catalog of the country rsquo s new releases is sent to every Icelandic home in [... more]

When Johannes Gutenberg combined the printing press with moveable type in he ushered in the era of mass communications in the West spreading learning into new social realms Literacy increased across the globe and new ideas produced rapid transformations in social and religious contexts Gutenberg produced the first-ever printed version of the Bible Prior to this Bibles were painstakingly hand-copied taking scribes up to a year to produce nbsp For centuries since the printing press has provided people like you and me the privilege of direct access to Scripture While we also have electronic versions available to us many of [... more]