John 11:35 – “Jesus wept” – grabs our attention not only because of its brevity, but also for the image of a God who mourns. Although we know the Bible says “God is love”, many believers conceive of God as being mainly cold and distant. Many have a hard time imagining God as experiencing any emotion outside of anger or disappointment. But here is Jesus weeping before the tomb of His friend Lazarus. And Hebrews 1:3 tells us that “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful…

In the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11), there’s one thing that everyone seems to agree on regarding Lazarus’ illness… Martha says to Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (v.21) Mary says the exact same thing to Jesus minutes later: “If you had been here, my brother would not have died.” (v.32) The Jews who were with the grieving sisters say to one another, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” (v.37) And Jesus says to his disciples: “Lazarus is…

Mission Resource quietly worked this past year to rescue an existing microfinance ministry in Ghana from going out of business.  It wasn’t being discontinued because of poor performance – in fact, it was growing and doing incredible work.  For some reason, though, the program’s originating sponsor – a U.S. based mission agency – decided they wanted to put their attention elsewhere and pulled out.  Mission Resource has been able to keep the doors open and retain the ministry’s topnotch staff. It is now operating under the name of The Empowerment Fund and, with Mission Resource behind it, we are serving…

Over the last few days, I have been gifted with two self-published books, one on fasting and the second a spiritual memoir. Both were of sufficient interest to me that I did some reading, finishing the first and making good progress on the second. Both are written with passion, insight, and wisdom. Both are very engaging. But neither author knew a good editor, apparently.  One author seemed to have an excess of commas he was trying to use up. And he sprinkled typos everywhere – including two chapter titles. The other author’s work would have been greatly strengthened by removing…

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday (as well as Valentines Day).  For decades now I have practiced “giving up something for Lent” and I always find it a valuable exercise. In studying up on fasting over the last few weeks, I came across a handful of Bible “experts” who looked down their noses at this practice as being “not a real fast”. A true fast, they said, means eating no food and drinking nothing but water for 3, 7, 21 or 40 days. Not giving up soda for a few weeks.  Certainly, giving up chocolate for 40 days is not as hardcore…

Today I listened to an recently filmed interview of John Piper, famous apologist for Calvinism via both pulpit and page.  The title captured Piper’s major thrust succinctly: “You Don’t Plan Your Life”.  I’m not sure what the audience thought, but Piper’s talk gives the perfect example of the contradiction inherent between two positions which Calvinism holds dear: 1) God decrees absolutely everything. Nothing happens – no action, thought, or word – apart from His will.  And yet… 2) Humans have enough of a type of free will to be culpable for their actions and inactions. Here’s what I mean: At…

The more I think about fasting, the more I wonder how importance the practice is to the “walking in the spirit” that the New Testament speaks so much about.  If the flesh is the seat of all that wars against God and His will, and fasting is feeding our spirits while denying our flesh, then it is hard to avoid the conclusion that fasting is incredibly important to a life of “walking in the spirit”.  I do believe that fasting should be encouraged, if for no other reason than because it is biblical. But perhaps fasting is all the more…

The story is told of a woman who happened to be a big sports fan who was in a small shop one day when she spots a rather large, athletic man. She thinks he looks familiar – like he’s some celebrity – but she can’t quite place him. Maybe he’s a professional football player.  There’s only one other person in the shop, a “smaller weird-looking guy”, but this woman decides to saddle up beside him and ask, “Do you happen to know who the big, fit guy is over there?” The small man answered, “Yes. That’s my bodyguard.” The weird…

Last week I heard that an old friend of mine named Eli has developed an online community devoted to “recovering historical masculinity”. He calls it “The Roosevelt Society” after his role model for ultimate manliness, Teddy Roosevelt.  I don’t know how many guys he enrolls at a time, but it is filled and there is a waiting list. I am dying to know what Eli is teaching. I plan to write him an email to see if he will give me a glimpse inside. His website gives some clues to his approach  to the masculine ideal by setting up this…

I woke up at 3:00 am and couldn’t fall back to sleep. I don’t know if that was fast-related or not. I do know that I was having breakfast by 4:30 – some strawberries, a fried egg and some toast. Usually I am one to dump extra sugar on sliced strawberries, but this morning, seeing as how they were the first things I had eaten in 3 days, the strawberries were incredibly sweet without added sugar. This is one of the benefits I have noticed with fasting – a day or two in and you start craving real food. Fruits…