Devotions
Getting Pecked – Isaiah 40:31
I’ve felt pecked at a lot these days. Have you? Pricked by the not-good-enough vibes. Cut down by hasty words spoken, negative thoughts zinging, social media feeds touting unrealistic pictures of beautiful women with smoother complexions cooking better meals saying catchier catch-phrases than what I could ever possibly achieve. All I want to do is pull the covers back up over my head sometimes. At least when such soul jabbing comes ‘as the crow flies,’ [...]
Swim Time – Joshua 3:8
This summer I’ve been trying to teach my daughter to swim. She’s terrified of deeper water, however. In fact, one day after many lessons and hours of practice, I challenged her to wade out with me to a deeper area of the pool. We both could still touch the bottom, yet she screamed, “Why are you doing this to me?” To be honest, I was startled by her reaction. How did asking for a few [...]
Count It All Joy – James 1:2-3
The last conversation I had with my mother before she died was about picking blackberries that grew wild in the fields out behind our farmhouse. We talked about picking them by the bucketful. We talked about those delicious cobblers she would make with heaping cups of sugar. We also talked about all the scratches our arms would have to endure to retrieve each plump and juicy berry after reaching into the thorny brambles, deep under [...]
Father Love – Luke 15:22
Many years ago, the famous author Hemingway began his short story "The Capital of the World" with two boys named Paco. One Paco is fatherless. The other Paco, however, has a father desperately searching for him. This dad is so lovesick, in fact, he travels all the way to Madrid, Spain to put an advertisement in the newspaper. The advertisement reads: “PACO, MEET ME AT HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY ALL IS FORGIVEN, PAPA." Surprisingly, in [...]
Reach Out – Matthew 26:38
I came across a news story not long ago about an extraordinary rescue at sea. A family had gotten caught in a riptide and was unable to make it back to shore. As they drifted further out, the parents frantically screamed for help. Holding their children above the waves, they flailed their free hands, desperately hoping to attract the attention of other beachgoers before it was too late. By God’s providence, someone did see them [...]
Plant Anyway – Ecclesiastes 11:4
I’ve always wondered why planting season and storm season coincide so precisely in the Midwest. As the weather warms up and the ground becomes ideal for seeds to take root, monstrous hail and tornado-producing supercells roll through. These storms wreak havoc on the plans of even the most experienced farmer. And for those wannabe gardeners like me, the threat itself—just the possibility of a storm—can keep us from planting at all. Yet planting must happen. [...]
