God Gives and He Takes Away

My wife wrote her devotional today from the lectionary texts (After Pentecost 23C). I note that the post number is 6000, and though I know that number isn’t actually the number of posts (revisions run the number up), that’s still a lot of devotionals! The conclusion: God truly pours out in great extravagance upon His children. He…

All You Need is Love

Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21 While I confess to be a love teacher, I am often puzzled by the way Christians speak about love as though it is the easier way.  It is as though they might try following some rules, but that would be too hard, so they’ll try love instead. But a love that is an…

Tell Your Story

I talk about this quite a bit (here, for example), but I don’t think it can be emphasized enough.  It’s very difficult to get people to listen to your theology, your theories about how God works.  It’s much easier to get them to listen–and understand–when they hear your story. Psalm 107 from this week’s lectionary (Lent…