One of God’s least talked about miracles is his miracle of making an iron axe head float (2 Kings 6:1-7). The head accidentally becomes a mini-Titanic when a seminary student is using it to help build a dormitory. Somehow it flies off into a river and sinks. Since it’s a borrowed axe the situation’s as […]
God is the wonder-worker (Psalm 136:4). He keeps a burning bush from being consumed, preserves three men in a fiery furnace so that “the hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them,” and causes a young virgin girl to conceive and give […]
Good, Good Father is the title of a Chris Tomlin song. I first heard it when my grandson Andrew James Chase went to be with Jesus after 4 ½ days of earthly life. The song was a musical Good Samaritan to our family as we lay bleeding on the Jericho Road of grief. The song’s […]
Imagine you’re on Family Feud. The category’s “People Who Are Really Well-Off.” Steve Harvey asks you, “Name someone the survey says is really well off.” What’s your answer? How does Jesus answer this question? After all, he’s the only really well-off-ness expert there is. Like everything else, when it comes to answering the question “Who […]
I read my Bible every day. I miss a day about as seldom as a teenager goes a day without texting. Not often. I read my Bible because I am a Grace-Focused Optimist and it’s the Operating Manual for Grace-Focused Optimism. Living as a Grace-Focused Optimist is living with The Christian Attitude toward life. It’s […]
When evil goes public as it did in Las Vegas last week—brazenly, tragically, and fatally—many Christians feel they need to do for God something God doesn’t feel the need to do for Himself. They become His Perry Mason’s. They make Him their client and seek to defend Him in the court of human opinion. That court’s […]
How do you stay optimistic about God in a painful situation that isn’t going to change? For example: arthritis that laughs at Aleve; singleness making you bluer than George Jones’s He Stopped Loving Her Today; a job so boring it makes watching someone else’s home movies seem like skydiving; a Pharaoh oppressive boss. You get the point. […]
Pessimism is to our spirit what kryptonite is to Superman. It weakens us as that green rock weakened the Man of Steel. Optimism about God—that grace-sired assurance that God is with us and for us—is to our spirit what momentum is to a football team, wind is to sails, and a tough-to-please dad’s “great job” […]
Staying optimistic about God is crucial to living for God. Jesus couldn’t face Good Friday without being optimistic that it would be followed by Easter Sunday (notice in the gospels how He talks about His resurrection whenever He talks about His death). And we can’t live the abundant life Jesus came to give us (John […]
I can because Jesus can is a single sentence pep talk we ought to give ourselves whenever life makes us feel like a team in the locker room at halftime down by three touchdowns. Sometimes a command from God makes us feel this way doesn’t it? Orders from Him like forgive someone who’s wronged you […]
