A few days ago, I wrote about “having a good laugh”. Can you picture you and God having a good laugh? Seriously. After all, God did name him! Laughing with people… those delightful moments, when, with your family and friends you are laughing so hard, it is joyfully painful.
Read MoreAny deep fears in your life? I don’t mean something sudden, like being held up at gunpoint. I mean some deep-seated worry or fear that rarely emerges... but when it does, you act irrationally.
There are one or two things in my life, that if they emerge, completely derail me. Why do I bring this up? Because that is what is going on with Abraham. Why I am convinced that Abraham has a “deep-seated fear”?
Read MoreHow many news stories are there, that when you hear them, you cringe?
And the reality is, they are not really new. You know what I mean. Certainly, the names of the people involved are new, but the base story isn’t. Same stuff, different people, year after year. Yet no matter how many times we hear the story, well, we still cringe.
I cringe as I read these eight verses from Genesis 19. They chronicle “the end of the line” for Lot. We won’t read any more of him.
Read MoreThe phrase “a house divided cannot stand” was powerfully used by President Abraham Lincoln in his acceptance speech to become the Republican candidate for Senator for the state of Illinois. Sam Houston had used the image years earlier…and Jesus many years earlier. How about our hearts? What does it look like when our hearts our divided? Are we “able to stand”?
Why do I bring this issue of division up? Simple. There are a few different ways we could look at the text today.
Read More“Can’t I stay up for just 30 more minutes?” Ever heard that request from one of your kids? Ever made that sort of a plea to your parents when you were growing up?
As we get older, we weave logic into these pleas. We point out that we did all our chores, or that our friends get to stay out later, or… You know what I am talking about.
This sort of wrangling takes on a different tone in the Bible. A tone that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Read MoreEvery now and then I will laugh—a lot. After, whatever was so funny has passed, I always think, “I don’t do that enough!” Has that ever happened to you?
I am around people that laugh… some of them laugh a lot, and loudly.
Laughter: it is good for us. Sometimes we laugh “with” people, and other times we laugh “at” people. I wonder what God thought when Sarah laughed at His promise…
Read MoreLet’s play a quick game. Let’s make a list of things that we all would agree are not great for casual party conversation. Most people say religion and politics. Let’s try and be more specific.
Would you add circumcision to that list? I would. I cannot picture myself walking up to someone and saying, “Hey, don’t you think circumcision is great!” Or, “What do you think about circumcision?”
I like church sermons. Not so much the ones I preach, but the ones I hear from others. I have quite a few that are memorable. Some because they cut me to the heart. Others because they opened God’s Word for me in a way I have not seen. And a few… a few that were just downright funny. One such sermon was on circumcision…
Read Morehere is this inner (spoiled) child in me that shouts, “I want it now!” How about you? Now before you tell me you are not like that; can I just point out how “two-day free shipping” has become the norm? For a quick up-charge, you can have it tomorrow!
Then there are the drive-thru lines. Are you good at waiting in them? Do you have an internal clock that at some point starts alarming because your personally established 45-second wait limit has been violated? Don’t believe me? Time yourself next trip through.
Today I want to ask you to observe that Abram’s five encounters with God cover 24 years. In each encounter God is making the same promise—and He has yet to fulfill it…
Read MoreAs you read Genesis 16, did you just get a sense, “This is not a good plan”? I did. I don’t care that it was 4,000 years ago. And even if you ignore the fact that God promised Abram… and Abram said he believed… and then Abram asked how he would know… and God did that “cut the animals in half thing”…
Even if you ignore all that, you just have a sense that this (sleeping with your wife’s maidservant) is not a good idea.
Read MoreOkay…straight out teaching…I just have to do it! I love these verses. First off, just yesterday I am gushing all over Abram and how he is believing God and how God is counting Abram a righteous. I went “on and on” about belief. And then we come to Abram saying, “How will I know…” Really? Isn’t this the same thing as “Help me believe”? Not quite. There is a difference.
Read More“Believe in yourself!” This mantra is a favorite for coaches seeking to encourage, cajole, and use whatever means they can find, to help their protégé excel.
To be sure, self-confidence goes a long way to success. Not too many people stood at the start of a race and said, “I’m going to lose”—and then actually won. I’m sure there are exceptions, but more winners began with a positive outlook.
The point: belief is powerful.
Today, I want to invite us to ponder the power of Genesis 15:6. Abram believed—God noticed. In fact, God “counted it to him as righteousness”.
Read MoreAfter you accomplish something really hard, what do you hope for?
For some it is the satisfaction of a job well done. For others it is a simple pat on the back by your boss. Perhaps it is a bonus or pay raise. Maybe a trophy. The list is long.
Why do I bring this up? Because in Genesis chapter 14, beyond all the names (which are meant to ground us in the fact that a war really happened), we see Abram not wanting an excessive reward. Why?
Read MoreManagement gurus study what makes people successful. The goal is to learn and share the lessons, so we can all be more effective. Throughout the years, while there have been a variety of lessons and techniques identified, Focus and Discipline consistently appear.
It is not that successful people never get off-track. They (we) all do. It is that they know what their Focus is supposed to be, and they have the Discipline to ask if they are indeed focused! (Harvard Business Review, What to Ask the Person in the Mirror, reprint R0701H)
The same is true with our walk with God. In Chapter 13 we see the One Thing we need to do to stay connected with God!
Read MoreNowadays, most TV and Movie superheroes have human character flaws. Not so when I was growing up. My superheroes were perfect! That had (and ridiculously continues to have) an effect on me. I have unrealistic expectations for myself—and somehow think everyone else has these expectations—not just including God—but especially God. Up until recently, writers for centuries would present heroes to be super-terrific people. They would wax over their flaws. It is why I love the Bible. It presents real people: complete, with all their warts. The people of the Bible remind me of me.
Read More“I think God is leading me to be a pastor” I informed my wife. Her response: “Funny, God hasn’t talked to me about it!”
Her next question: “So, how long has God been talking to you about this?” After a big gulp, I said, “About a year.”
Now, as an aside, here is a tip for husbands—don’t wait a year to tell your wife this kind of news.
But what do you do when you are trying to determine whether it is God’s voice, or simply those really old leftovers in the fridge that you ate last night, telling you do something crazy?
Read MoreBy this point, I am not sure if I find the list a break from some of the global catastrophes, or not. Regardless, we have another list. At times in my reading, I welcome passages like this one. They give me a bit of a break. They slow me down. They let me ponder the text. Pondering lets me move from information to understanding. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want more Bible information, I would rather have such deep understanding, that my life is transformed by God. So, what is God up to in chapter 11?
Read MoreIf you pause for a moment, you will notice that we have gone from a world-ending flood to a ginormous earth-shaking-language-confusing-event of sorts, that has scattered humanity across the globe. The Bible is like summer blockbuster movie season! I write that not to be derogatory towards God’s Word, but to point out that you should not be finding this story boring… quite the opposite! More than entertainment, what might you and I be gaining from our reading in Genesis 11?
Read MoreI know, I know, you are trying to read Genesis and keep up with these posts—and then you hit another list of names here in Genesis 10. You’re thinking, “Didn’t I just read one of these?” Answer: Yes. Yes, you did. Beyond reading them, it is pronouncing those names. The question might be, “Do we really have to bother with them?” There are at least two quick reasons I can offer you to read these lists.
Read MoreIf you have been reading along, you may be concluding I am one of those “Bible people”—yeah, I am. After all, I just told you I believe the Flood really happened. Here’s the deal. If I am going to take that sort of a stand, then I better be willing to deal with some of the strange parts of the Bible—like the verses we read today. So just what is going on in this part of Genesis 9? Noah proclaims a curse for what Ham did to him because he “uncovered his nakedness” or “saw his father’s nakedness.” The tricky thing about that is how best to understand what this phrase means.
Read MoreI am a dad. My shortcomings are ever-present in my mind. Please, don’t try and talk me out of them. Partly it is how I am wired: seeing what could have been and lamenting what wasn’t. Partly it is this “bit in me” that wants to not duck my responsibility. Partly it is being raised on TV shows that portrayed families in such an idyllic way, that my sense of reality is warped. (Right now you are probably thinking you need to pray for my wife—you should.) I have written about family before, here, and here, and here, and here… Family is important. Noah and his three sons begin the human family again—or do they?
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