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“And blessed is he who keeps from stumbling over Me.” Matthew 11:6 NASB Isolated. In prison. For doing the right thing. The hope of the coming Messiah had blazed like a torch as John the Baptist called Israel to repentance. One is coming whose sandals I’m not worthy to untie. I baptize with water. He…

Mary held the bottle with trembling hands. She’d planned this for weeks. Martha saw her, smiled, and nodded. Deep voices bantered over sweet figs and salty cheese. Mary slipped into the room and knelt behind Jesus. The men reclining at the table gave her little more than a nod. Until she broke the flask. The…

Flocks of lambs frolic, bleat, and bleed their way through Scripture. Old Testament fathers paint the doorframes with the blood of the first Passover lambs. Priests butcher lambs, following Moses’ instructions to the letter for sacrificial atonement. Fast forward to the New Testament. A roughly clad figure in need of a haircut points a grubby…

I love movie trailers, and as a writer, I know good ones use foreshadowing. God mastered the art of foreshadowing long ago. Let’s look at the preview of thorns He gave us in Genesis: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will…

Blameless. Without fault. Beyond reproach. And music to my ears. My daughter shared a book from her psychology class with me: The Road Back to You by Ian Cron and Suzanne Stabile. The book explores the Enneagram (pictured above), an ancient personality type system. Uniquely, the authors tie this personality system to a person’s spiritual…

Check out this quote from C. S. Lewis: This reminds me of three demon apprentices who were being trained by the Devil on how they might be able to better populate hell. One demon said, “We can tell them that there is no God.” The Devil says, “No, that won’t work . . . people…

Coffee dates. A luxury I savor as much as a chai tea latte. Though they require some schedule juggling—deadlines wait for no one—the schedule contortions merit the pain. Time with friends refreshes my spirit. It gets me out of my home office where the walls can close in, my only companions wear fur, and they…

In Mark 6:30-32, Jesus called the disciples for a getaway. Remember those? Getaways? You and your sweetheart. Time alone. No interruptions. No responsibilities. Getting away with God has some challenges. Even Jesus had to search for a quiet spot, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house…

February points us toward chocolate, Valentines, and love, so this month, our training centers on dating God. Jesus gave this warning to the church of Ephesus, “Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first (Rev. 2:4 NIV).” We do well to heed this one, because we live the…

Refusing to love? This quote from the author of A Wrinkle in Time stopped me. “The refusal to love is the only unbearable thing.” Madeleine L’Engle Like a tiny gift that gets lost behind the larger packages and is only found when the brittle Christmas tree is hauled away, I knew I had discovered something…