"For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope." --Romans 15:4 I've been spending a lot of time with the prophets lately and finding them strangely comforting. Something about their unwavering confidence to speak God's word has been a …
Author: HJBlack
Crow Flow
I have not had much appreciation for the crow. Squawkingly loud and mostly obnoxious, I have viewed them as primarily as annoying, if not a little bit creepy ("Quoth the Raven 'Nevermore'"). During my time in the Pacific Northwest, I learned that crows are revered by native cultures, but I couldn't really understand why. My …
Advent Expectation
Waiting, longing, anticipation . . . these words express one of the primary themes for the Advent season. In our own lives, we are not unfamiliar with waiting. Waiting has its simple forms: queuing in a traffic jam, sitting through soccer practice, or taking number 98 when they are serving number 32. But waiting also …
Duck Delicious
The air is cooler and the birds are starting to move. A couple of weeks ago, NB hunted his first teal season in Kansas with good success, about a dozen birds over 3 mornings of hunting. Blue-winged and green-winged teal are the first of the ducks to migrate through these parts to their winter home. …
Hope
"Let the Amen sound from His people again"Joachim Neander (1650-1680); Translated by Catherine Winkworth Today is a day to sing "Amen." Let's affirm with generations of saints--"Yes I believe." When Jesus tells the Pharisees to render to Caesar what is Caesar's, he also tells them to give to God what is God's. To give to God …
Power
"There is no fight He cannot win, no far place from which He cannot bring His children home."--Amanda Bible Williams, The Lord Is Our God It's pretty easy to recognize that we are currently living in a very hostile, public battle for power. But how often do we recognize the equally hostile, but much more …
Healing
"Wherever the brokenness of sin touches, wherever fragmentation and alienation occurs, the mission of God looks like putting back together what evil has torn apart."--Glenn Packiam Physical injuries often require external intervention to facilitate healing. Washing a laceration to remove impurities, soothing a wound with the application of ointment, the surgical alignment of bones, (in …
Repentance
"Our greatest need and God's greatest gift are the same thing: forgiveness of sins. And to receive it, we have only to ask and pass it on. But to ask for it, we must first admit that we need it." Pete Grieg, How to Pray, p.170 The brokenness of our world has a source. It …
Lamentation
"Not to grieve is to deny the reality of love."N.T. Wright In as much we know the deep goodness of this world, we know too that it is deeply broken. Our communities are frayed by disease and violence. Our families are untethered by social separation so that our elders shrink in isolation and marriages dissolve …
In the Beginning
"At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, …" —T.S. Eliot from Burnt Norton, Four Quartets If you were to ask me to name the primary force shaping the conversation of our world today, I would say fear. No …
