Whispers of Truth

It has been around much longer than the current # IYKYK social media trend, and you’ve probably seen the acronym if you have been anywhere near the Internet or a social media account. As early as 2016 urbandictionary.com had a pretty good bead on its meaning being not only an explanation for why you might not “get” what is being discussed as well as one that excludes those not “there” as being out of the loop, not being “in the know”—essentially it is a new generation’s reprisal of the “You would have had to have been there” that my generation often used. A few years later, the definition morphed a bit to include the rather juvenile aspect of the saying when used on social media as well as its potential for inciting drama and fear of missing out ( fomo for the uninitiated) the use of it tends to create. Luke 12. Jesus’ words to His disciples about life and ministry, about anxiety and readiness and thriving in this world. The backdrop is set. A crowd so numerous one cannot move s...

The eternal quest of a temporary guest cannot be easily described,                    but t he matter of the heart is the matter at hand. The unguarded heart,  defiled and dishonored,  Is full of treacherous deceit and lies in wait for sin’s opportunity to spew forth false-hearted hate. The guarded heart broken,  muzzled mouth mute,  withholds its fiery tongue and cries in supplication to God instead who sees man’s frail estate. The desperate sojourner, lifting sorrowful prayers, chooses to lay them at God’s feet and begs for extrication from a situation only he could create. The mere breath, the vapor, crying in conflicted rage, cannot escape the travails of this world yet hopes confidently in God, He who disciplines and rescues from sin, on Him the transient sojourner waits. Look away, Lord, See my sin no more! Instead see Jesus’ blood shed for me on the cross and saving me from loss, f...

  Scripture echoes from Old to New, resounding the truth of God across the ages of man. The more I read and reread and reread and ingest and study and chew on Scripture, the more I see these echoes, and they serve to increase my faith, assuage any doubts that try to rise up, and fill me with hope. As our congregation has moved in our corporate reading of the Bible this year from Old into New Testament Scriptures, the gospels pick up the loud echo. Christ’s words speak the same words spoken to God’s chosen people centuries earlier. Christ says Moses wrote of Him; indeed, the whole Old Testament conceals (and yet still points out clearly in retrospect) the Christ that the New Testament reveals.  Two echoes resounded today.  One of them is a question Jesus asks that I constantly chew on as I encounter in people and in myself sin that begs to be dealt with: “Do you want to be made well?” (NKJV). It is a question I come to over and over again (and feel quite sure I have w...

Often the soaked words come like  endless drops of water  to an ocean at full pool, flowing, and I think they will never stop.  Other times the parched words come to a desert,  an empty canteen,  halting. Occasionally the stilted words come  and stand staunchly like pines in a forest of managed timber, sentinels standing tall, guarded. But today . . .  Today the wild words splay in chaotic black ink,  eating  acres of  pristine paper,  escapees running free, unfettered . kbp '22