It is true that the older one becomes, the truer the great truths of life become.  Those great truths usually congregate under the rubric of The Classic Virtues, because Truth and Virtue share an umbilical relationship of shared genetic material.  Honesty is always going to be honored, surreptitiously if not overtly.  And that goes for all the other primary virtues as well: nobility of conduct, and nobility of conception, will forever raise in the beholder a sensation that elevates and... Read more

It’s the long slog through the desert that is the most depressing and debilitating for many believers – that interminable “race” (in Paul’s words) that seems to be much more like a crawl through parched  sand traps, spiritually speaking.  It is when there appears to be no advancement in sanctification that one is most defeated – or at least that is when I’m most tempted to see no hope in the Christian life of (apparently) overblown promises. If day after... Read more

There is a meme currently making its way around social media that sounds appealing – if you don’t think about it too much, that is.  At first glance it seems to be quite on the money and actually a bit inspiring.  In part it says: “If you KNEW how [Jesus] can transform you, how He can take away all that bitterness, that sorrow, that hurt, that depression, anxiety[!]”.   If you only knew that He could do all that! (with, of... Read more

Beloved brothers and sisters, let us reflect for a moment on the extraordinary magic and significance of something not being us.  How wonderful it is that the trees and the lakes and the mountains are not me, and – what is infinitely more important – that they are not God.  I rejoice in the fact (the thankfully undeniable fact) that there is a gulf and a chasm that yawns between myself and the world of Nature – personify her as... Read more

In John 16:33, Jesus tells His followers that “in this world” they will have troubles or afflictions, but not to worry: He, Jesus, has “overcome the world”.  Which I take to mean that whatever trouble you face as a Christ-follower can be easily overcome by the Lord, depending on how He weighs the relative advantages of your ongoing chastisement or your immediate succor. Now earlier, in Luke 8:7-14, Jesus had told “the parable of the sower”, in which He had... Read more

“Your ‘if’ is your only peacemaker: much virtue in ‘if’” — Shakespeare     This may not be the place to launch into the eternally-convoluted battle over predestination, but it might be worth considering for a moment the sheer number of times the word “if” is used in scripture.  I haven’t counted up all the instances of its occurrence in The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, but they spread like lines of sprinkled pepper on page after page.  According to one... Read more

Imagine you and a friend are hiking through a large Northern California forest, and the two of you are immersed in a deeply-involving discussion of philosophy.  Lost to your surroundings, you both stop for a moment, face each other, and expound your points enthusiastically.  You put an exclamation mark on your last sentence and turn around.   You walk smack into the largest, tallest Redwood tree on earth.  You look up: the monster tree looms like a skyscraper and is wider... Read more