Whispers of Truth

When one becomes a Christian, he or she is no tabula rasa . I write this as I wait in anticipation for my first grandchild to be born. Brantley Mark will be here soon, less than a month, and his brand new life will begin. People often believe that children come as blank slates waiting for the imprinting on their lives that will determine who or what they will become. In some ways, they do. Children learn from their parents, the world around them, society . . . each one has a normal that varies from all other normals. However, each child comes already broken in the sense that he/she is born a sinner, inheriting Adam’s sin upon birth. There has never been a perfect child born who is free from rebellion before Jesus was born, otherwise, mankind wouldn’t have needed Jesus to save us from our sin. Think about it. Even the first children born to man had issues. Cain killed Abel because “his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous” (1 Jn. 3:12). One of the first babies born to m

Each year dictionaries publish lists of new words added to the English language as well as words with different connotations that have previously been published. Recently I began hearing of Merriam-Webster’s list of the 840 new words added in September to its dictionary. One of the new entries I came across is the title above: TL:DR . For the uninitiated in this kind of text speak abbreviation becoming common to this generation, this means “too long; didn’t read.” Unfortunately, this entry (and many others more disturbing) shows the change in our world from actually reading newspaper articles, books, and the Bible to reading nothing longer than a Tweet or a brief rant on Facebook or Instagram (or fill in the blank with your particular social media poison). What these publications lack in quantity of words, the quantity of “posts” compensate for leaving today’s readers with a huge quantity of words that are disturbingly disconnected. Also rather troubling to me, not only as a regula

In reading Beowulf with my seniors this past week, I came across one of my favorite images in literature: the idea of Beowulf unlocking his “word-hoard” (Roberts ed.) and speaking his storehouse of thoughts.   Thinking on this seems to have unlocked my own, as this summer was quiet, reflective, and restful, I had taken to writing my thoughts on paper instead of blogging them. In retrospect, all of my studies this summer have been tied to THE WORD. Genesis and John and Revelation all reveal the power of the Word at creation, on the earth, and at the end, and Psalms reveals His glory, Proverbs His wisdom. Today, as I sit reading and pondering John 17, the recorded prayers of the Word Himself offer me encouragement. When Jesus finishes the work that God had given Him to do, and He had spoken all of the words the disciples needed to hear from Him in order to believe and obey, he lifts them (and all the ones to come in the future as mentioned in verse 20) up to the Father in prayer

I really like literature and reading, and as such, series often appeal to me. I like to know the breadth and depth of a story, the whole complex mess. This year at school, I immersed my seniors in the idea of story and its heroes, beginning and ending with the idea that we create heroes because we live in a fallen world that only Christ can redeem.   As such, I have immersed myself in studying the heroes of literature and comparing them to the heroes this generation is creating through its favorite media forms—TV and movies. It was only natural that when Avengers: Infinity War by Marvel Comics debuted in the spring that my students would go see it and want to talk to me about it. However, at the time I was moving, so I told them to hold that thought until I could go see it. Well, yesterday I finally had a chance to go see it, and I have been stewing on it since. Warning: Plot Spoilers Ahead . . . My first reaction to the movie was to engage it on the level of enjoyment. I can e

In the summer I blog often because I have much more time to type my thoughts about the way the Lord is working in me, but this year I’ve scribbled them down instead, going back to an old-fashioned journal. I had forgotten how rewarding that can be, but it is the reason for my extended silence this summer. I’ve pulled back and plugged in to where I need to be, God’s Word. After the business of moving and the end of the school year, it has been much needed. My husband has been preaching through the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) for the past two months, and I am facilitating a ladies’ Bible study this summer about the same, so the intersections have been frequent up to this point, and the impact has been significant. However, today’s study took me beyond where he has preached into the territory of the scribes and the Pharisees. Part of my homework today was to define both the words scribe and a Pharisee , so I went to my go-to, Webster’s 1828 dictionary of the

Many have heard an epigram attributed to Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr but haven’t heard of this French teacher and writer of the 1800s. Until today, I would have to lump myself into the same category. The one I’m referring to is this: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” His original epigram was “the more it changes, the more it's the same thing.” Hmmm. This is relevant yet hard to grasp. Much like life. Life is perpetually in motion. If it stops, you’re dead or decaying, yet many who claim to like change (clearing of the throat, me) will resist change that is unwanted or unsought. Life can feel like a constant changing sameness at times. I get older, gain weight, but everything still rolls on. My life this past year has been on the rollercoaster of change.  First, God called my husband (undeniably) to preach, a definite God thing. That itself required a change because with his call, I was called to minister alongside him. It was change that felt the same at th

I have a friend who asks the question, “So, what does that look like?” often enough that we have teasingly and rather fondly named it after him—the Keuhndorf question. Especially in teachings that seem rather abstract, he wants a tangible application for his life. I absolutely understand and often feel the same way; if I am honest, this question has become a go-to, a kind of touchstone for me when I consider hard scripture. I don’t always have a firm answer, but it keeps me focused on the application instead of just gathering knowledge as I read and study. This week I was looking closely at Jeremiah 18-19 in preparation for Bible study. The chapters’ content (if not their numbers) is familiar—they are about the potter and the clay and demonstrate in a very simple way that God is sovereign. Period. God sends Jeremiah to the potter’s house/shop for some serious object lessons not only about his nation but also about the individuals that make up the nation (himself included). One

When I was young, heroes were ubiquitous, and some were actually flesh and blood heroes, like my god-father and god-mother. Jerry and Linda could do no wrong in my eyes, and I worshiped them because they loved me and indulged me and made me feel special and seen.   My paternal grandparents, Vernon and Cap, were my heroes, too. I followed my bustling grandmother around her kitchen and garden, and my gruff, silent granddaddy climbed into the tents my grandmother would hang about the house and yard (replete with stuffed animal friends) when he came home from the field for lunch. My young uncle (only thirteen years separated us) and still childless aunt lavished attention on me as well. My mom and dad seemed larger than life and slightly removed at the time. They were often busy working and earning and learning, which allowed me to spend time with my “other” parents and family members. The thing all these heroes of my young life had in common was a focus on me. I fully admit that I w

Today my two youngest children drove away from home in a caravan of three vehicles packed with their belongings. It’s not as if they went very far—just thirty minutes down the road. It’s not as if I won’t see them, but they aren’t here now. I will no longer wait up to know that all are safe within my walls (or abdicate that late-night task to my husband, the night owl of the family). All my babies have grown up and flown the nest. (Well, maybe these last two were pushed, but they’re gone.) They took their beds—the many-times painted iron bed that I inherited when I moved away from home and came to Auburn. Daddy sanded and spray-painted that bed mauve; it was the color at the time and I loved it, but now seeing the same color kind of makes me sick because I still remember how much of that pink color existed in my bedroom. The queen sleigh bed we couldn’t afford to buy but that I was so excited to buy to replace the full-sized iron bed went, too. They took the high-backed oak ba

When people say, “It’s the thought that counts,” they really mean it. I’m not just saying this because I’ve given subpar gifts that I put no thought into or even received gifts that were less than stellar. I’m saying this because when it comes to sin, thoughts really do matter. As I was reviewing the first seven chapters of Jeremiah for tonight’s Bible study, I came across a verse I’ve read many times, at least four recently; however, as often happens, the same verse doesn’t always speak the same way twice. This time I was reviewing the early chapters of Jeremiah in a NKJV chronological Bible looking for all the ways Jeremiah’s writings intersect with the writings of the other books of the time period. In Jeremiah 6:19 God says this: “I will certainly bring calamity on this people—the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not heeded My words nor My law, but rejected it” (NKJV).   I looked at this verse in parallel translations, some literal, others more interpretation,

The focus at school this year has been to live like a warrior . Pray like a warrior. Teach like a warrior. Play like a warrior. Serve like a warrior. Maybe you’ve seen it looking something like this after a victory with a visual in the form of a picture and hash tag: #fightlikeawarrior. Personally, I love the unifying nature of a good motif running through literature, and I can’t help but feel the same way about the one attached to everything related to my school this year. You feel it though, don’t you? The but running through the last statement I wrote. But even warriors fall. That’s what I was thinking as I sat in church yesterday. The thought ran across my mind fleetingly that warriors get defeated in a war—at least the warriors on one side of the battle do. If there is a war, two parties are fighting because peace is unattainable, and short of an armistice, one side is going to be declared a winner and the other a loser. When there is a war, there are always casualties, l

It is tax season. Gotta love it, right? Most of us would say, "Not!" as the definition of something that is taxing is associated with the physically or mentally challenging. Bear with me a moment while I share what I came across about taxes today in my reading. I’ve read Matthew 17 verses 24-27 before, and I know I will read them again many times over, but today, they struck me for several reasons—not just for tax purposes. J Matthew 17 relates that while Jesus was in Capernaum, probably staying at Peter’s house, collectors came to try to gather the temple tax from Him. This practice, which no longer strictly enforced at this time, originated in Exodus 30:12-16 where God tells Moses to number the sons of Israel and then tax those numbered from age twenty and upward. This ransom or tax was unavoidable because those who didn’t pay would find themselves beset by a plague. God Himself set the amount, which by the time Jesus is asked to pay in Matthew 17 is a sum equivalent