分类: Disobedience

2/10/2026 1 Comment

When Experience Doesn't Matter

In Dad’s journal entry for August 6, 2000, I read, “A schoolteacher claimed to have 25 years of experience, but her head teacher said of her, ‘She has just one year of experience 25 times.’” Ouch.

Meditation
Lamentations 3:47-48--We have experienced panic and pitfall, devastation and destruction. My eyes flow with streams of tears because of the destruction of my dear people.

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9/20/2025 1 Comment

Understanding Hate

The topic of hate is quite prevalent in our society. I decided to do a study on the word and see what Scripture has to say about it. First, though, let’s define the term. Whether used as a verb or a noun, hate basically means “to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest.”[1]

In the Old Testament, there are two Hebrew words: śānē’ and śin’āh, used a total of 148 and 17 times respectively, with the English words hate and its variation 107 times, combining both words. The other English words used are foes, enemies, malice, adversaries, dislike, enemy, unloved, abhor, am not loved, shunned, detest, hostile, malicious, not loved, not, refuses, and a total of three untranslated words.[2] In the New Testament, the Greek words apostygeō and miseō are translated as hate 39 of 40 times and once as detestable.

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9/2/2025 0 Comments

A Phony Request

God is a heart reader. Imagine Jeff goes to his God-fearing sister and says, “Julie, I’ve got to make a decision. I need to either move to Montana for a new job opportunity so I can escape the toxic work environment I’m in or stay put and trust God to help me get through it. I’m not sure what to do. Will you pray and ask God to reveal His will?” So Julie prays for Jeff, and God impresses on her that he is to stay in Vermont in his current job and trust Him. God is going to turn what is a current mess into a blessing. But if he moves, it will not go well.

Julie reveals to Jeff God’s message, and he gets mad at her. He says he was better off when he trusted his gut. He accuses her of trying to manipulate him to stay in Vermont. “I’m moving to Montana, you are lying, and I know it will be better there than here.”

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6/12/2025 0 Comments

He Couldn't Handle Success

Have you ever known someone who had the traits of likeability, kindness, and concern for others until they were promoted or achieved some recognized measure of success? The person you thought you knew is now impatient, less approachable, defensive, self-absorbed, and uninterested in your life and the lives of others. You try to imagine what happened to make this person so different.

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3/19/2025 2 Comments

Overflowing Hope

L-R: Bill Wadley, Dan York, Laura Wadley

He had a pretty rough upbringing with three different mothers and two different fathers.[1] His dad was an alcoholic and gambling addict. His 16-year-old birth mom was a drug and alcohol abuser. At the age of five, he had to take care of three half-siblings in the apartment, and if anything was broken or went wrong, he was beaten. He was seventeen before he found out his stepdad was not his real father.

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1/21/2025 0 Comments

The Lips of a Priest

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand was arrested and thrown in a Romanian prison for fourteen years.[1] For two of those years, they placed him in solitary confinement. A political prisoner in an adjoining room taught him Morse Code. Using this knowledge, Richard was able to share Bible verses and proclaim Christ to other prisoners. One day, a neighbor tapped that it was Good Friday. Richard found a nail in the lavatory and inscribed “Jesus” on his cell wall, hoping it might comfort someone later assigned to the same room. A guard caught him and angrily placed him in a carcer for two days.

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1/7/2025 0 Comments

Not to Do Dumb Stuff

Pastor Brian led the children in a short message at Agape Church. One of his questions for the kids was if they had any New Year’s Resolutions. Several girls and boys shared before one young boy raised his hand and said his New Year’s Resolution was “Not to do dumb stuff.” That elicited quite a chuckle amongst the adults.
Inspired by the young boy’s answer, I called and asked my West Point classmate, Randy, what the dumbest thing he could think of that he’d ever done. It did not take him long to answer. “I got a car, a California customized van, as a Cadet, before it was authorized. I kept it parked off campus but decided to drive it around school one day before graduation.” Unfortunately, someone reported him, and he became a Century Man. This meant that on top of the hours he had already walked for other infractions with his rifle across a cement apron, he would surpass 100 hours of marching.

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6/23/2024 2 Comments

Bad Company

Judas Iscariot had a great life going. Selected by Jesus, the world’s only perfect leader, he joined a team of eleven others to follow God’s Son. We don’t know much about Judas, but John 12:4-6 is revealing.
Then one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot (who was about to betray Him), said, “Why wasn’t this fragrant oil sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor?” He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief. He was in charge of the money-bag and would steal part of what was put in it.
Was Judas a rebellious, immoral man? Or was he a confused follower who occasionally stole money for his pursuits? Why would he betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver when he could have prolonged their time together and continued his successful pilfering?

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4/21/2024 1 Comment

Swerving

Driving today requires more situational awareness and alertness than ever before. Too often, I am behind a truck or a car and notice it crossing into adjacent lanes—sometimes even going off the road onto the shoulder. Virtually every time I pass the veering vehicle, the driver is texting or engaged on their phone and not paying attention to their surroundings. For this reason, I no longer bicycle on roads, even if they have designated lanes—it’s simply too dangerous.

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9/30/2023 1 Comment

How Could I Hinder God?

There may come a time when God asks you to do something that takes you out of your comfort zone and violates your religious beliefs. For example, what if you are a pro-life conservative, and God calls you to minister to abortion advocates? Or, perhaps you are a pacifist and democrat, and God leads you to present the gospel to Marines, a group trained and willing to take lives. What will you do? How will you explain to all your friends or those like-minded believers you fellowship with about your actions?

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7/3/2023 1 Comment

"The Sparkle Creed"

Edina Community Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation in Edina, Minnesota, celebrated Pride Sunday led by their female pastor in reciting the sparkle creed whose words state:
I believe in the non-binary God whose pronouns are plural. I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads, and who saw everyone as a sibling child of God. I believe in the rainbow Spirit, who shatters our image of one white light and refracts it into a rainbow of gorgeous diversity.[1]
This creed is a gross perversion of theology. It represents the misguided attempts of a congregation to fit God into their inclusive agenda that will spare no expense to accommodate a world fully intent on making sexual sin something to celebrate and force upon all those who take God’s warnings seriously and strive to obey Him.

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10/3/2022 1 Comment

When the Sea Rages

Hurricane Ian unleashed its rain and winds upon Florida, and conservative estimates think the cost of damages could exceed $55 billion.[1] That is a horrific blow to the lives of all affected. Ian did not catch Florida by surprise because sophisticated satellite tracking and imaging allowed meteorologists to be pretty accurate in tracking the storm’s course and speed. That is a good thing because it allowed people to prepare for the storm and, if necessary, escape to safety. But imagine if you were on a boat with your smartphone and a mobile weather app that called for clear skies and warm weather when suddenly a furious squall came out of nowhere and threatened everyone’s lives? That is what happened to Jonah (except none of them had smartphones).

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2/17/2022 0 Comments

Life

Satan shrewdly deceived Eve in the garden. Just eat the forbidden fruit and you will be like God and know the difference between good and evil (Genesis 3:5). The deeper implication behind his temptation was that Eve was somehow deprived. At this point in her existence, she had no knowledge of evil. What Satan did not tell Eve was that it was her relationship with God that was most important. Having her eyes opened would make her like him—a fallen creature out of God’s favor. His intent was to sever Adam and Eve’s relationship with their Creator by cunningly convincing them to disobey His command.

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7/29/2021 1 Comment

Nebulous

I have a theory for which I would love to get your feedback. Earth’s inhabitants all spoke the same language when they were created. That ability to easily communicate fed their pride and they decided not to spread over the earth in obedience to God’s command (Genesis 1:28). They preferred to build a prodigious city with a colossal tower where they could make a name for themselves or, in essence, do whatever they felt like doing (Gen. 11:1-4). Because of their pride and idolatrous hearts God came down to their city, called Babylon, and decisively acted.

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5/31/2021 0 Comments

Wilderness Lessons

If one were to find a synonym for wilderness in the Bible it would be fairly safe to substitute hardship. The Holman Christian Standard Bible uses the term wilderness 150 times.[1] The majority of references applied to Israel wandering through deserts that resulted in all but two adults over 40 dying and a whole lot of complaining and suffering. The fascinating thing is that God has a penchant for leading His people through wildernesses, to include His own Son (Matthew 4:1). Why does He do this?

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3/22/2021 0 Comments

Baal

The Israelites were living in mountain hideouts, caves and strongholds to escape the Midianites, Amalekites and Qedemites who frequently attacked them (Judges 6:2,3). Before God would use a young man named Gideon to deliver Israel from these aggressive raiders, He needed to wrest the weakest house in the tribe of Manasseh from their allegiance to Baal. Gideon’s own father and family members were engaged in idol worship. So an angel of the LORD appeared to him and gave him a mission.

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1/7/2021 1 Comment

1 & 2 Kings: Inauguration

It might seem strange to start the year with a devotional on 1 & 2 Kings but it actually is quite appropriate. In this new year a president-elect is soon to be inaugurated. Somewhere around 1010 B.C., David, arguably the nation of Israel’s greatest king, just before he died passed great wisdom to his son Solomon. His words if heeded by any newly elected leader or monarch in modern times would make a significant difference.

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5/30/2020 1 Comment

Judges

Israel experienced the death of their famous leader Joshua still facing the enormous task of conquering Canaan. The book of Judges follows up where the book of Joshua left off, with the challenge of expelling wicked nations in territory God assigned for His people in a period that spans three centuries.

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3/31/2020 0 Comments

Numbers

The fourth book of the Bible is Numbers which is a translation of Arithmoi, from the Septuagint. It is titled as such because the book contains two census counts, numerous statistics, tribal and priestly figures, and other numerical data. The Hebrew name is included in the first sentence of the book and means “in the desert of ”; an accurate description of the book’s content, which follows the Israelites through almost forty years of desert wandering.[1]
The story began in the second year of the Israelites escape from Egypt, as they camped in the Wilderness of Sinai around 1444 BC. It ends 38 years later “in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho” (36:13) in 1406 BC.[2]

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1/29/2020 0 Comments

Civil Disobedience

Meditation
Exodus 1:15-17--Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, observe them as they deliver. If the child is a son, kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” The Hebrew midwives, however, feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live.

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