My extended season of Advent
“Let all that has breath praise Yah. Hallelujah!” (Psalm 150:6) This is the last verse in the book of Psalms, and it was the last verse I read to complete a more than five-year journey through the Hebrew scriptures (Old Testament). It is wild for me to think about where this Bible reading challenge, given…
An Open Letter to the Psalmists
Dear Psalmists, Sometimes I delight in your comforting words of God’s grace and compassion. You paint an alluring and alleviating picture of a loving, caring and ever-present shepherding God who loves us and knows us. Sometimes I am assured by your confident words of God’s power, protection and steadfastness. You’ve built a strong case for…
To be no longer known
Psalm 103 contains familiar and beautiful lines that speak of the Lord as being gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. They’re lovely, but that’s not what struck me in my most recent read-through. Instead, I was surprised by: “For he knows our devisings, recalls that we are dust. Man’s days are…
Mightier than the mountains of prey
I love the outdoors, but I’ll admit I’m far from being able to call myself a legitimate outdoorsman. I romanticize the idea of living out in the bush, being off the grid, being self-sustaining, focusing on survival. But I know it’s not as lovely as I make it out to be in my imagination, nor…
Deciding where to drink
Would you rather drink from the fountain of youth or the fountain of life? Why is our culture so obsessed with the many iterations of the mythical fountain of youth? Is it a desperate desire for more time, or a chance to do over what’s past? Or maybe it’s a way to avoid a fear…
Paths of kindness and truth
I grew up believing that God’s will was specific. God had a plan for my life and I was either living faithfully along that path or veering from it. It wasn’t necessarily defiant disobedience that caused one to fall off the path. I feared that even a faithful attempt to follow God could result in…
What more could I want?
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). Despite regular self-reminders of my abundance, I want. Despite the ongoing conversations with my children about our relative wealth, they want. Despite overflowing shelves of books and games, and complaining about lack of storage space, and instruments that barely see the light of day,…
Within a shadow of doubt
I have so inextricably linked Psalm 22 to the words of Jesus on the cross that I don’t think I have ever really read the Psalm in its own light before. Yes, Jesus quoted “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Psalm 22:1) on the cross, and there are quite incredible messianic parallels…
A shielded sleep
What keeps you up at night? Do the anxieties of your day taunt you as you lay awake? I don’t usually have much trouble falling asleep—my wife can attest to that—but sometimes if I wake up in the middle of the night my mind will start playing through something in life that I’m anxious about.…
When inadequate is enough
Scripture credits King Hezekiah for reestablishing Passover. Apparently, the temple had been shut down and it had been a while since any regular worship routines had been practiced. So, good king Hezekiah decided to turn things around and get Passover back on the menu. Except there was a bit of a problem: because it had…
