The focal prayer of Advent is: "Come, Lord!" Remembering the yearning of Israel, we prepare to celebrate the first coming of the Messiah at Christmas. We also look forward to his second coming. And...
"Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus," was written by the prolific eighteenth-century hymn writer, Charles Wesley. Brother of John Wesley, the cofounder of Methodism, Charles wrote over 6,000 hymns,...
Chris Patton takes some clues from those who serve as foreign missionaries, and applies it to his workplace. Here’s his plan: ...
Every family has unique traditions around holidays, but especially when it comes to Christmas. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve? Attend a worship service? So many times it's the little details...
As we move through the final days of Advent and into the season of Christmas, I'm going to take a two-week break from our devotional study of Ephesians. From today through the end...
As a father, I love to hear my children sing. This would be true even if my kids couldn't stay on pitch...
People who get in my car notice the Bilbo Baggins action figure sitting in the console. With the inevitable grin, they ask...
Have you ever been in a prayer meeting when someone sneaks in some preaching into a prayer? I have, more times than I'd like to count. I think, for example, of a time...
I pulled off the road along US Route 11 and into the parking lot of a no-name service station, the sort you’d expect for rural Virginia: dirty windows, questionable service—and people who made...
In yesterday's reflection, I considered the implications of Paul's enthusiastic use of language when he prays that we will know God's power...
For years, I never understood my mom and step-dad’s television-watching arrangement. Though my mom doesn’t really like sports or hunting or wild...
By the time we were speeding west from Farmland, Indiana, to St. Louis and beyond in the borrowed red Mustang, my brother and I lived such separate lives that we could amuse one...
Words are fantastic tools for communication. But, sometimes our words fail us. When someone has done something unusually wonderful for us, "Thank...
In yesterday's reflection, I began considering Paul's prayer that we might know "the riches of [God's] glorious inheritance in his holy people."...
In the introduction to Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, Tim Keller and Katherine Leary Alsdorf share the story of Leaf by Niggle, a short story written by J.R.R. Tolkien.....
It’s always interesting to see how uncomfortable companies get this time of year. Many go to great extremes to make Christmas just another winter day, instead of a Christian High Holy day. ...
God owns all parts of life, all parts of reality. He’s not confined to the church. He owns the culture, government, the economic system, everything. We all nod and say that’s true. It’s...
Periodically, I get emails proclaiming good news. I have received a glorious inheritance. Someone formerly unknown to me has died and left...
Editor's Note: According to Ecclesiastes 3, "There is a time for everything...." Not everything on that list, however, comes to us easily...
Hope is in short supply these days. In this morning's newspaper, I read about growing tensions in the Middle East and the...
