FamilyFire

The psalmist calls on each generation to commend God’s works to the next. It’s a precious gift when grandparents can be actively involved in the lives of their grandchildren. This is even more true when they share their legacy of faith with the next generations!… (more)

Paul reminds the Christians in Ephesus that they are no longer who they were. They are new creatures, renewed in Christ! They used to find it acceptable to be selfish and greedy, but now they are different. They used to find it acceptable to tell… (more)

Returning from a week-long cycling trip, Steven badly wrenched his ankle on our own front steps while unpacking the car. What a welcome home! In a moment he went from feeling athletic to hobbled. How quickly things change! Yet he was well cared for as… (more)

Buying a house or a car can be scary. The financial stakes are high, and we want to be sure the seller is not hiding something or shading the truth. In Leviticus 25, God is talking about business. Through Moses, God instructs his people on… (more)

I sat just feet from the bullet holes in the wall that had been made hours before in the middle of the night. The bullet entered this quiet suburban home uninvited. Whizzing through the air it passed within twelve feet of the father of the… (more)

With whom do you connect in the story of Jonah? Maybe you feel like the sailors who don’t seem to recognize God until they are desperate for help and their troubles are looking like they might swallow them up.  Maybe you feel like the people… (more)

Reading the story of Jonah, I am struck again by God’s patience. God persists with Jonah through his running, his time in the fish, and even while Jonah sits and waits for the destruction of the city. God could force Jonah’s obedience, but he patiently… (more)

Gazing at the lobby of the Rookery building in Chicago, I marveled at the talents seen in the designer Frank Lloyd Wright.  Wright had an eye for reimagining traditional structures and creating artistically stunning buildings that used nontraditional support structures. The Light Court, as the… (more)

I marvel at God’s great love for his people, that he desires for them to come to faith and to be restored to him. You can hear God’s heart breaking with compassion for the people of Nineveh, even though they had lived in sinful disobedience… (more)

The very God who called the universe into being and created order out of nothing places his light, his very presence, within us. How blessed are we that God himself should dwell within us.  He does not do this because we are so great and… (more)

" They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They… (more)

Psalm 16:5-8 5 LORD, you alone are my portion and my cup;    you make my lot secure. 6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;    surely I have a delightful inheritance. 7 I will praise the LORD, who counsels me;… (more)

We live in a culture that idolizes physical beauty. Health is discarded as we try to achieve a figure that our society considers attractive. Eating disorders are common as women struggle to maintain unrealistic body proportions. We are confronted everyday with advertisements trying to sell… (more)

Our tongues are a dangerous weapon. What power there is in something so small! The tongue is a difficult thing to tame. We know the pain of having been called names or labeled in a less that kind way. Those things impact us deeply and… (more)

Cleaning carpets around our house yesterday was eye opening. It is shocking how much dirt hides in there! It made me think of how much dirt is hidden in our own lives. We look good on the outside yet we hide a lot of dirt… (more)

This is such a simple sentence and yet it is packed with truth that can be challenging to live. When we find ourselves in conflict we forget some aspects of this instruction.  In an argument we tend to only see truth through our own eyes… (more)

God calls us to faithfully serve others. So who are the others and what kind of service is God expecting out of us? We are each gifted with talents and abilities that God wants us to use for his service. This is more than just… (more)

Prayer is one of the most powerful spiritual disciplines. It is the opportunity to bring the cares of our hearts to the very throne of God.  What a blessing it is to have an audience with the God of the universe who cares about the… (more)

How does the day start at your home? Do you hit the snooze on your alarm clock a few times until you are late enough that you need to run out the door to your morning obligations? Coffee may appear to be a higher need… (more)

I find Job so impressive. He was able to praise God when God was giving AND when God was taking away. Sometimes it can be easier to praise God when things are working in our favor. When things are going well and we are not… (more)

We spend the working hours of the day tending to all of our responsibilities and when we meet at the end of the day we are exhausted.  Our work is not over when we enter the door.  The responsibilities of home and family call for… (more)

Life is so unfair. We hear this complaint all the time.  Our culture will tell us that if we are in conflict then our spouse is not our soul mate and we ought to start looking for someone else.  The Bible has a very different… (more)

This is a text that shows up at weddings all the time. It is a beautiful poetic picture of how love ought to look. It strikes us as so idyllic that it is unattainable. In our own strength it is outside of our grasp. We… (more)

Are you feeling weary today? We find that there are times when we are too exhausted to function well. Life starts getting crazy with so many projects and responsibilities calling for our attention. Sometimes we just want to yell “Stop the world I need to… (more)

We live in a culture that says we are supposed to always be happy in our relationships; that if there is conflict, then it must be time to move on. The reality is that conflict does not mean you are with the wrong person; it… (more)