Today is Epiphany mdash the event described by the carol ldquo We Three Kings of Orient Are rdquo It rsquo s the time when Gentile wisemen visited the child Jesus Yet they weren rsquo t kings they weren rsquo t from the Far East as Orient formerly meant and it rsquo s unlikely there were three of them There were however three gifts and the carol considers each When the magi arrived in Bethlehem ldquo They opened their treasures and presented Jesus with gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh rdquo Matthew The gifts symbolize Jesus rsquo mission Gold represents His [... more]

Ronit came from a religious but non-Christian family Their discussions about spiritual matters were dry and academic ldquo I kept praying all the prayers rdquo she said ldquo but I wasn rsquo t hearing from God rdquo She began to study the Bible Slowly steadily she inched toward faith in Jesus as the Messiah Ronit describes the defining moment ldquo I heard a clear voice in my heart saying lsquo You rsquo ve heard enough You rsquo ve seen enough It rsquo s time to just believe rsquo rdquo But Ronit faced a problem her father ldquo My dad was [... more]

The letter from ldquo Jason rdquo an inmate surprised my wife and me We ldquo foster rdquo puppies to become service dogs assisting people with disabilities One such puppy had graduated to the next training phase which was run by prisoners who have been taught how to train the dogs Jason rsquo s letter to us said ldquo Snickers is the seventeenth dog I rsquo ve trained and she is the best one When I see her looking up at me I feel like I rsquo m finally doing something right rdquo Jason isn rsquo t the only one with [... more]

Their precise ages are unknown One was found on the steps of a church the other knew only that she rsquo d been raised by nuns Born in Poland during World War II for nearly eighty years neither Halina nor Krystyna knew about each other Then DNA test results revealed them to be sisters and led to a joyful reunion It also revealed their Jewish heritage explaining why they rsquo d been abandoned Evil people had marked the girls for death simply because of their identity Imagining a frightened mother who leaves her threatened children where they might be rescued [... more]

It was and something was killing thousands of people in London It must be the bad air people thought And indeed as unseasonable heat baked the sewage-fouled River Thames the smell grew so bad it became known as ldquo The Great Stink rdquo But the worst problem wasn rsquo t the air Research by Dr John Snow would show that contaminated water was the cause of the cholera epidemic We humans have long been aware of another crisis mdash one that stinks to high heaven We live in a broken world mdash and we rsquo re prone to misidentify the [... more]

Kelly was battling brain cancer when the COVID- crisis hit Then fluid developed around her heart and lungs and she had to be hospitalized again Her family couldn rsquo t visit because of the pandemic Her husband Dave vowed to do something Gathering loved ones together Dave asked them to make large signs with messages They did Wearing masks twenty people stood on the street outside the hospital holding signs ldquo BEST MOM rdquo ldquo LOVE YOU rdquo ldquo WE ARE WITH U rdquo With the help of a nurse Kelly made her way to a fourth-floor window ldquo All [... more]

In the early s a prominent astronomer who didn rsquo t believe in God wrote ldquo A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics as well as with chemistry and biology rdquo To this scientist rsquo s eye the evidence showed that something had designed everything we observe in the cosmos He added ldquo There are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature rdquo In other words everything we see looks as if it was planned by Someone And yet the astronomer remained an atheist Three thousand years ago another intelligent man [... more]

Today apos s Our Daily Bread Devotional [... more]

A decade ago they didn rsquo t know the name of Jesus Hidden in the mountains of Mindanao in the Philippines the Banwaon people had little contact with the outside world A trip for supplies could take two days requiring an arduous hike over rugged terrain The world took no notice of them Then a mission group reached out shuttling people in and out of the region via helicopter This gained the Banwaon access to needed supplies crucial medical help and an awareness of the larger world It also introduced them to Jesus Now instead of singing to the spirits [... more]

Friday was market day in the rural town in Ghana where I grew up After all these years I still recall one particular vendor Her fingers and toes eroded by Hansen rsquo s disease leprosy she would crouch on her mat and scoop her produce with a hollowed-out gourd Some avoided her My mother made it a point to buy from her regularly I saw her only on market days Then she would disappear outside the town In the time of the ancient Israelites diseases like leprosy meant living ldquo outside the camp rdquo It was a forlorn existence Israelite [... more]

In the late th century William of Orange intentionally flooded much of his nation rsquo s land The Dutch monarch resorted to such a drastic measure in an attempt to drive out the invading Spaniards It didn rsquo t work and a vast swath of prime farmland was lost to the sea ldquo Desperate times call for desperate measures rdquo they say In Isaiah rsquo s day Jerusalem turned to desperate measures when the Assyrian army threatened them Creating a water storage system to endure the siege the people also tore down houses to shore up the city walls Such [... more]

A post-surgical stroke had robbed Tom of his ability to speak and he faced a long rehab journey Weeks later we were pleasantly surprised when he showed up at our church rsquo s Thanksgiving service We were even more surprised when he stood up to speak Searching for what to say he jumbled his words repeated himself and confused days and time But one thing was clear he was praising God It rsquo s possible to have your heart break and be blessed at the same moment This was that kind of moment In the ldquo pre-Christmas story rdquo we [... more]

He was an aging military veteran rough-edged and given to even rougher language One day a friend cared enough about him to inquire about his spiritual beliefs The man rsquo s dismissive response came quickly ldquo God doesn rsquo t have space for someone like me rdquo Perhaps that was just part of his ldquo tough-guy rdquo act but his words couldn rsquo t be further from the truth God creates space especially for the rough the guilt-ridden and the excluded to belong and thrive in His community This was obvious from the beginning of Jesus rsquo s ministry when [... more]

In one of Dr Seuss rsquo s whimsical stories he tells of a ldquo North-Going Zax and a South-Going Zax rdquo crossing the Prairie of Prax Upon meeting nose to nose neither Zax will step aside The first Zax angrily vows to stay put mdash even if it makes ldquo the whole world stand still rdquo Unfazed the world moves on and builds a highway around them The tale offers an uncomfortably accurate picture of human nature We possess a reflexive ldquo need rdquo to be right and we rsquo re prone to stubbornly cling to that instinct in rather [... more]