Whispers of Truth

For a while now, I have been studying Job. It began with my daily reading last year, but I kept being drawn back to it, and when it came time for a new study with the women on Tuesday nights this spring, I suggested this. Yes, they groaned realizing that I tend to dwell quite a while wherever we land, and small books tend to take months, but I promised to move quickly (for me at least) through these books, and th ey agreed (while groaning on the inside), but we are learning so much through Job’s sufferings about how to live in this world.  We are nearing the section now where Elihu speaks. He is the young man who has watched the arguments of his older, wiser friends provide no answers for Job—instead making Job angry in his defense of his own righteousness and a desire for an audience before God. Elihu, after listening to the insanity of his friends “wisdom” and Job’s defense of his righteousness, finally rebukes Job. After chapters of his own “wisdom” being spewed forth, God’s ...

In II Timothy 2:3:1-5, Paul writes about times that seem eerily similar to our own: But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. How many times have men pondered at whether or not these are the last days, wondering if the time is near for Christ to return and claim his own. I think it is human nature for us to wonder about such things, especially when times are difficult, and no one denies that “these” days are different than the ones our parents faced. Each generation has its own struggles, and the offspring of each generation reaps those struggles. As our pastor often sa...

When I began writing this blog years ago, it was at the close of a year. Many years later, the beginning of a new one compels me to write again as I think about how to encourage a young friend beginning her journey into motherhood as she impatiently awaits the birth of her son later this month. When I think about how to encourage another mother, I must think of my own journey and the lessons learned along the way. Have I done it well? At times. Have I done everything I set out to do? That would be a resounding no! Have I failed miserably? Many times over, and I would spare you the pain of it. So life goes; yet it goes in the way God has ordained— He who “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Ephesians 1:4). Do I even pretend to totally understand how that works . . . uhm, no; however, it doesn’t mean I can discard what I don’t understand. Mostly, I understand that I am to offer encouragement to others as long as “it i...

I’ve thought often lately about the feathers that pad our nests.  Early one morning while sitting on a bench waiting for a meeting at school one day, I looked up and noticed that birds had made their nests in the rafters of the porch right in the midst of the long spikes that are intended to discourage that very thing from happening. A bird’s God-given instinct to seek out a safe place, build a nest of the materials available, and raise baby birds had managed to overcome the seemingly impossible obstacle in its way. As I sat pondering the stubborn ingenuity of God’s creation to do what it was intended to do regardless of the obstacles, it hit me that sometimes we humans do the same thing, but much to our detriment. In seeking out desirable situations, what appeals to us is often not what is best for us. The best place for those birds would’ve been in a sheltered place away from people and the deadly looking spikes placed as a deterrent to nesting there. Likewise, the bes...