Whispers of Truth

I have fairly long arms, but yesterday when I was in Wal-Mart trying to reach the top shelf they weren’t long enough. What I wanted was just out of my reach; on my tiptoes, I was millimeters away from being able to touch it. Fortunately for me, a terribly tall giant of a man walked by just then, saw my struggle, and said in a deep voice, “Ma’am, let me get that for you.” Within seconds, with a thank you, I had what had formerly been out of my reach; he easily provided what I could not attain for myself, his kindness filled my need because he had the ability I lacked.   This morning I was reading from Leviticus (I heard you groaning, but Leviticus gets a bad rap. Dealing with mankind’s sin is never an easy subject, and reading Leviticus is often like reading an old, dry law book with all the listings of sins and the remedies the law provided for them. Anyway . . .). I got to chapter five in the Amplified version that I am using this year for my read-through of the Bible, and I foun...

We live in a world that wants to be distinguished, noticed, or elevated in some way from everyone else for varying motivations, but in Exodus 33:16, Moses wanted the people he accompanied in the wilderness to be distinguished from all of the other people on the face of the earth because a very real danger existed. If God in His anger over their actions did not choose to go with them, Moses knew that they would become the target of other nations. Without God’s tender favor and the mercy He has already shown them in removing them safely from Egypt, they have no hope.   It is the word distinguished that has caught my eye this morning. Just a few verses before, Moses pleads with God to know Him more intimately after God declares He will not make the journey in their midst anymore because of their “stiff-necked (stubborn, rebellious)” behavior out of the very real probability that if He stays in their presence He “might destroy [them] on the way” (Ex. 33:3, AMP). God is not abandonin...

The oddities of tracing a thought in anyone's head. Who can really know, right? Yesterday while making bread, I came across a reminder in my recipe to make sure my bowl was well-oiled before placing it in the wooden bowl to rise. The phrase kept running through my head to the point I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget. A well-oiled bowl. However, I kept substituting soul for bowl until this was the refrain running through my mind: a well-oiled soul . I thought about it off and on all day as I didn’t have another chance to sit down and write, which is the way I work through things I am pondering. Is my soul well-oiled?   What does that even mean?  I thought to myself. I wrestled all day and talked to a friend about it for a few minutes after church. I came home and slept on it and asked myself if my  soul is well oiled , and here I am after reading and revisiting the thought again this morning. My first thought ran to the anointing oil mentioned in the Bible. In the O...

On this cusp of a new year any social media feed one could possibly look at reeks of resolutions and wishes for happiness as well as woes and laments for the past two years full of trouble and sorrow and isolation and disruption of “normal,” whatever that is. Change, while inevitable, is not optional, and humans tend to either love it or despise it depending on our bent. Change is also not always in our control. As I finished another read-through of Genesis today, I couldn’t help but look at change in light of the season of numbering our days and measuring them and looking forward. Numbered Days No matter the numbering or length of our days, they will always be short in light of days unnumbered, of eternity spent with Christ before God's throne.  Abraham’s days were numbered at 175 years, an amount of life we can barely conceive of today. Genesis 25:8 tells us he was “an old man who was satisfied” (AMP). He left all he had known behind him in favor of following God to a place tha...