You Have Value

Our society assesses value to everything and everyone. Tangible and intangible items alike all have a value we assign. What is valuable to one person may not be valuable to another. Certain rare items have such a high value that we compete to attain them. We may even battle for them. The Lord said to…

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The Next Chapter

I often write about the seasons of the Church. Today is the last day of a season, but not the last chapter of the story. During Great Lent we read three books from the Old Testament. All three books have come to an end today, but the story is not over. Next week begins a…

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Evil is not the End

Since evil entered humanity in the Garden, it has been at war with God. We remember from the first week of Great Lent that God promised evil would not prevail. He promised that it would eventually be destroyed. Our Great Lenten Journey is about the war. It is about victory over evil. When Joseph came…

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Plans Change

The saying, “The best laid plans of mice and men,” struck me today. No matter how much we plan, we cannot control other people. We can only control ourselves. Sometimes even our family will betray us along the way. That’s ok because God is on our side. When Isaac was old and his eyes were…

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Questioning God

I hear it often, too often really. “I can’t believe in a god who would do that.” It doesn’t even matter what ‘that’ is. The very idea that God doesn’t have the right to do and act as He please shocks me. He is either God or He is not. Thus says the LORD, the…

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Negotiating with God

We all do it. We try to broker a deal with God. We promise the moon and deliver a dim candle. Then we still expect God to ‘do for us’ what we wanted in the first place. We forget that God is all knowing. We forget that He already knows we will fall short. Yet…

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The Promised Land

It seems there is perpetual war in the Middle East. Although history reveals certain periods of peace, the reality that people have been fighting over a sliver of land for centuries should make us ponder. Where is the promised land that God offered to Abraham? When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to…

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Follow God for another Promise

I keep referring to Great Lent as a journey. Every journey needs a destination. Traditionally we think of the destination of our Great Lenten Journey as Pascha. Our fasting leads to feasting. Our prayer leads to the Altar of God. Sometimes our idea of a destination isn’t a destination at all. Sometimes it is just…

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Humanity is always Rushing Things

It started in the very beginning. Adam and Eve wanted to rush being like God. The result was the Fall of Humanity, and death. It wasn’t that God didn’t want humanity to be like God. He did. It was that humanity wasn’t ready to be like God yet. That is always our story. We rush…

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The Power of Pride

Our daily struggle during Great Lent is much more than fasting. Great Lent is a struggle against pride. We all have it. We all struggle to subdue it, or at least we should. We all fall to its power through temptation and ego. It is what holds us back. The sons of Noah who went…

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