Whispers of Truth

When we encounter anything contrary to our comfort, for most of us the knee-jerk reaction is to complain about it to anyone and everyone who will listen. We complain loudly and bitterly and often. Even if complaining really doesn’t change anything, it gives the illusion of action—not passively taking whatever is troubling us lying down. The children of Israel had the act of complaining down to an art. A mere three days after seeing Pharoah’s army drown in the Red Sea (Ex. 14), they found themselves at Marah, where the water was bitter and undrinkable (Ex. 15). I can almost hear their reaction: “Moses! What are we to drink? This stuff is nasty! What are you going to do about it?” Fortunately for them (and us), God is gracious, and when Moses cried out to him for help, he showed him a piece of wood to throw into the water to make it palatable. Act II of the same play occurs midway through the second month after fleeing slavery in Egypt. While in the Desert of Sin (been ...

While we know few things in life for certain, we live as if we do. If we were really honest with ourselves, there is nothing about the physical world in which we live that is absolutely certain. I think about this sometimes as I drive across the longest curved truss bridge in the U.S., Tallassee’s Benjamin Fitzpatrick Bridge, which was dedicated in 1940. Other bridges like it, built in the same time period, have collapsed or been torn down, and the amount of traffic flowing across our bridge simply weakens it over time, but I take it for granted that each time I make the trip that it will offer safe transport. God is the only One who knows anything with certainty because He is God—sovereign and omnipotent and omnipresent and all the other qualities that we as humans are not. In Genesis, when speaking with Abram before cutting covenant with him, God tells Abram that he can “know for certain” that the nation that would issue from him would be enslaved, that the nation that ens...

As much as I could wish it were true, life does not get easier with age, and Christianity is not a panacea either…as much as I would like for it to be. Wrestling with God over issues and circumstances seems a necessary part of walking the road of faith because events and people inevitably enter our lives and wreak havoc in places that we could never have foreseen. Sarai did not wrestle with God physically, as Jacob did, but she wrestled with Him spiritually in regard to the promised heir. Honestly, just reading about Sarai makes me feel tired because I see so much of myself in her. She knew God’s plan was for Abram to bear a son, and she knew that God had closed her womb, and yet she decided to take matters into her own hands in order to make something happen (Genesis 16). The resulting chaos has echoed through the ages, and all of Sarai’s manipulations did not help one bit; in fact, it made things far worse. I can relate to Sarai in many ways. Like her, I am sometimes seeming...

(from The Revelation to John) 1. The time is drawing near. (Rev. 1:3b) 2. Jesus has the keys of death and hell. (Rev. 1:18b) 3. The overcomers get to eat of the tree of life with God’s permission. (Rev. 2:7) 4. Did I mention the tree is in Paradise? (Rev. 2:7) 5. The one who persists and overcomes won’t “be hurt by the second death.” (Rev. 2:11b) 6. I’ve always wanted to eat manna. (Rev. 2:17) 7. He’ll give me a white stone with a secret new name written on it. (Rev. 2:17) 8. I’ve always been bossy, so authority over the nations sounds like it might be right up my alley…(Rev. 2:26) 9. He’ll give me the morning star. (Rev. 2:28) 10. Jesus will confess my name before God and His angels. (Rev. 3:5) 11. So that no one will take my crown. (Rev. 3:11) 12. God will make me a pillar in God’s temple, and I’ll get to stay there, and God will write God’s name all over me, as well as the name of God’s city, New Jerusalem, and Jesus’ new name. (Rev. 3:12) 13. Jesus says I can sit down ...