Grains of Sand

Pixabay Some of us are ready to swear off watching, reading, or listening to the news. Just when we think things couldn’t get worse, they do! You can’t fix stupid, and apparently stupidity is contagious. And it can be distressing, disturbing and dangerous to our mental and spiritual health to spend too much time focusing on the evil that men do. It’s enough to deal with my own evil let alone carry the burden of that which others engage in. It is helpful instead to dwell on the great truth of Scripture. Here is one for today: “ His eyes are on the ways of men; he sees their every step. ” (Job 34:21) We often live as though God isn’t aware of what is happening. We often live as though God doesn’t care. We often live as though He is powerless to do anything about the evils happening in this world. And that makes us anxious and upset. But in addition to reading the verse from Job this morning, I also read Romans 2 and the chilling words from verses 5, 6, 8, 9: “ But because of your stu...

Pixaby My friends in the north have already had their first skiff of snow. When I went downstairs to make my coffee this morning I noticed that the car had frost on it—the first of the season. The inevitable is happening. Winter happens. Be it mild or fierce, it is sure. Just as surely comes the inevitable need to face a much bigger issue than frost and snow flurries. At some point in life every one of us has to face the offenses we have committed against God—what the Scripture calls sin. One of the ladies we worked with in Caracas was always quick to remind us that David, often held up as a godly example, was not perfect. If Elizabeth knew nothing much else about the Bible she certainly knew the story of David's sin against Bathsheba and her husband, Uriah. God did not seek to hide the sin of one of His own. In recording David's sin, and its consequences, the Almighty also provided the backdrop for a wonderful description of the remedy for that sin. Psalm 51 descri...

Google Images Most of us have been told many times not to be judgmental. Often that warning comes with this quote from Matthew 7:1: “ Do not judge, or you too will be judged .” So we don’t say anything to anyone about anything. But in the context of this verse we get a different message. From verse 3 on, we read that Jesus said that we are to help our brothers and sisters to see what doesn’t glorify God in their lives, (which requires judgement) but only after we have examined our own lives. When we do that we might discover that our faults are bigger than the ones we are pointing out in them. “ Why do you look at at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your bother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, FIRST take the plank out of your own eye, and THEN you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye ” (7:3-5, emphasis ...

“ Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall ” —Proverbs 16:18, NIV. I remember a now very famous theologian who misquoted this verse. Mind you, he wasn’t famous then, but he was considered the brightest star in our seminary. I really enjoyed correcting him. Years ago I came within inches of throwing away my career because I thought I was better than my colleagues. I convinced myself that because they were behaving badly God couldn’t possibly want me to be around them. If I worked a little harder at this I am sure I could come up with several more personal examples of just how easy it is for pride to slip in, take root, and grow into something not so beautiful, like a competitive spirit or an attitude of spiritual superiority. “Self-esteem” is a word that can provide rich soil for the root of pride because it highlights “self.” But even in Christian circles, self-esteem has become the “north” to a generation of people who have been crushed by the circumsta...