life. faithful.

  You probably know the story of Lazarus--he was sick, and his sisters sent word to Jesus. Jesus loved these three siblings...but He waited two more days after He got word about Lazarus' illness. By the time Jesus got to the town of Bethany, He received word that Lazarus had been dead and in the tomb for 4 days. This is the story that gives us one of the most fun sentences to read in the King James version: " Lord, by this time he stinketh" (John 11:39) Don't ask me why that amuses me, I guess I just have an odd sense of humor... Anyway, the story of Lazarus ends when Jesus commanded Lazarus to walk out of the grave, and that was exactly what happened. Tucked into the story, though, is something that caught my attention recently. We met Mary and Martha before the story of their brother's death, when Jesus had visited Bethany earlier. That visit showed Martha rushing around, doing all the work to make sure Jesus and His disciples were comfortable and fed, while Mar...

  Thousands of years ago, centuries before the brilliant minds of Galileo, Newton, Schrodinger, and Einstein helped to reveal hidden aspects of the universe, the men God used to write the Scriptures tucked physics into the pages. Have you ever noticed it? We'll start at the smallest level, with subatomic particles. There are people who study these and have named all sorts of particles out there, but we'll just focus on the main 3: protons, neutrons, and electrons. For all practical purposes, these 3 particles in different combinations make up everything in our universe, from the sun to the flowers to you. So these tiny, invisible particles? They are talked about in Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we understand that the universe was created at God's command, so that what was seen was made of what was unseen." So these tiny particles can be thought of as tiny little one-sided magnets. Neutrons are neutral, so we'll ignore them right now, but protons and electrons are lik...

 It's springtime in the Arkansas Ozarks, so that means it's time to play in the dirt! Well, I guess it's not technically playing in the dirt...I was actually working on prepping the ground for our garden. We've had a small garden the past few years, one we've tried to extend a tiny bit each year.   And because this is Arkansas, expanding a garden means digging up a whole lot of rocks. Sometimes, I think that's actually what my garden grows...just rock after rock. I've tossed rocks out each year that I've worked the ground, but that doesn't stop them from working their way up to the surface. I don't mind it too much, though. There's something almost meditative about tossing the little rocks out of the soil, knowing that it will make my garden better. This year, though, I decided I wanted to try something new. We've got a bunch of farm animals, and I would love to be able to grow some of the things we feed them through the winter when they ...

  Here in my little corner of the woods, the election yesterday left us facing a lot of uncertainty. It leaves us with a ton of questions about the future, both immediate and long term, and it affects a lot of the people I care about. There are a whole lot of people facing choices they never intended to make. When you're in the middle of uncertainty, the questions seem to hang over your head like storm clouds. Your thoughts race, but they are just circling the same things over and over. It's hard to focus on anything else, despite the fact that the rest of the world with all its problems just keeps right along spinning. But God is still good, and God is still in control. No matter what life throws at you, that doesn't change. So I'm sharing my prayer, hoping that if it is your prayer, too, you may find it helpful. *** God, My mind is racing right now, but my thoughts aren't making any progress. I know you are in control. I can look back through the years and see wit...

Here in Arkansas, it's definitely not spring yet...but there are glimpses of it. The first thing you see are the jonquils, and they seem to pop up out of nowhere. They are bunched across the countryside, along back roads and creek beds, many planted by early settlers to the region and a whole lot of others that have spread through the decades along flood paths.     Then there are the frogs singing at night--not loud yet, but there, calling out with tentative voices. The chickens take notice of the days growing longer and egg production starts to pick back up. They also take notice of the green starting to sprout--oregano is a favorite.   But inevitably, the hint of spring is followed by another freeze. It comes almost every year, the false spring that leads to early buds on trees and the danger of frost killing off the delicate buds. I've heard people talk about how bad the false hope is, how these early nice days only serve to get their hopes up and then the winter retur...

  The story of David and Goliath is a familiar one, even if you don't really know a whole lot of stories from the bible. It's referenced all the time, a picture of standing up to the giants in your life, facing your problems head-on, knowing you can conquer anything you come up against. Or at least, that's the common understanding. We're shown David, a young man, who isn't afraid to fight the giant no one else will stand against. And on the surface, that's true. But what really matters is what we see when we dig a little bit deeper. Yes, we're shown David. We're told he was a young man (though I tend to think he was a bit older than is usually depicted, possibly closer to 20) who was home tending his father's sheep instead of serving in the army. We know that God had used his time in the fields protecting the sheep as preparation for what he would face--he had killed both a lion and a bear, and he was willing to stand against the giant. It's easy...