“Why?” we cry out when we suffer. While we cannot understand all the reasons for pain. There are comforting answers to consider. Many of you have prayed recently for our niece Michelle who underwent major surgery last week. Michelle (the…
Early Book Gift Ideas
Hopefully, you are buying a present for at least one reader this Christmas. Here are a few ideas to consider. Happiness by Randy Alcorn just came out. Odds are good that your book lover friend doesn’t already own this. I…
The Jesus Storybook Bible on the Hope of Christians
The final pages of The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name: One day, John knew, Heaven would come down and mend God’s broken world and make it our true, perfect home once again. And he knew, in some…
Why?
In the context of life’s most difficult moments, we want to know “why?” We might at as well ask to to pluck the planet Mars from the heavens between our thumb and forefinger and flatten it between our hands like…
Reflections on the Road During Our Time of Grief
In our sermon this morning, I used “The Road” to picture the journey God’s people are making which will one day end in the Heavenly City. (You will be able to listen to the sermon online soon). So “The Road”…
Images for the Broken-Hearted in Stillman Valley
As we mourn the loss of one of the young people in our community, and the loss of a man from s surrounding community, tomorrow at the Red Brick Church (9/6/15 at 9:00 AM), Pastor Chris Brauns will preach on…
The Danger of Cherry-Picking Only Praises from the Psalms
Suffering with incurable cancer, J. Todd Billings points out that contemporary hymnals tend to have a far smaller proportion of laments than the book of Psalms does (Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ, 40). While psalms…
Incurable Cancer and the Problem of Good
Suffering with incurable cancer, J.T. Billings points out that the way we see and interpret life must account for goodness and beauty as well as suffering. J. Todd Billings is a theologian who has been diagnosed with incurable cancer. In…
Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ
I haven’t yet read Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ, but I’ve ordered it. J. Todd Billings, the Gordon H. Girod Research Professor of Reformed Theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, describes his…
The Christmas Truce of 1914: 100 Years Ago This Christmas
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.…