Reveration Blog
5/27/2006 0 Comments Long SufferingRecently, the Vietnam Traveling Wall (the 3/4ths replication of the amazing black wall in Washington D.C.), traveled to Portland, Oregon. Etched in somber stone is the name of every veteran killed in Indochina. During the opening ceremony I represented the 104th Division. Afterwards I was invited to a dinner with the special people from the cemetery that planned the event.
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9/22/2005 0 Comments GraciousIsaiah chapter thirty contains a stern message from God to a nation consistently at odds with His will. Judah was rebellious, deceitful and unwilling to listen to His instruction (vs. 9). The people told the prophets to stop telling them what was right. They asked them to speak pleasant things and to share illusions (vs. 10). I’m reminded of Paul’s word to Timothy when he foretold a time “For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new” (2 Timothy 4:3).
1/2/2004 0 Comments NewTwo friends drug him down. It started with watching mediocre movies and descended into pornography. Sambo felt miserable and tried to rationalize his actions against a brighter conscience. He felt trapped until one night he listened to his father, Titus, preach a message he’d heard countless times. On this evening in December of 1994, God’s Word pierced Sambo’s heart. He felt the potent pull of the Holy Spirit. Tears filled his eyes and plunged downward washing away built-up shame. Later that night he repented of his sin and honestly asked Jesus to become His Lord and Savior. Lingering guilt was replaced by enduring peace. Love came and filled a 14-year-old boy in Trivandrum, India.
12/26/2003 WarrantyKaching, kachingcan you hearthe sound of cash registers ringing up sales like there was no tomorrow? Personally, I’m in the market for two sliding glass doors. Our doors have broken seals, a locking mechanism that no longer works and twenty plus years of wear and abuse. It doesn’t help that Bear and Dusty, our two big dogs, think that jumping against and scratching the glass will earn them a trip inside. I wish you could see Bear working his pink and black-splotched tongue up and down the rubber edging trying to lick his way in. The pools outside the door aren’t from rain!
10/20/2003 FullnessThe 301 complex overlooks a valley framed by gently rolling California hills. When the round red ball of heat sinks the view is amazing. Several nights ago after the sun had vanished, I stopped walking and stood transfixed by the beauty of a mature oak tree in front of an expansive sky wearing a bluish hue I don’t ever remember seeing before. I wished the moment would last as I thanked God for His painting.
3/14/2003 VictoryBob Wieland lost his legs to a mortar round in the Vietnam War. But that didn't stop the 57-year-old veteran from finishing the Los Angeles Marathon. Using only his hands and on less than twelve hours of sleep, it took Bob a week to complete the 26.2-mile course. Surrounded at the finish by well-wishers and admirers, Wieland said, "This was not natural. This was supernatural. It was only done by the grace of God."
2/27/2003 0 Comments JustificationI want to be good and I suspect the same is true for you. Yet, despite my best intentions, I cannot live a perfect life. The deeper I get to know my Lord the more aware I am of my shortcomings. For this reason I find the concept of justification to be somewhat overwhelming. God in His profound holiness did not have to go to any length to rescue me from sin. He does not need me and most certainly I have offended Him time and again. Yet, inexplicably through His vast love, He chose a horrific path to blaze a terrific salvation.
1/12/2002 0 Comments LagomSilas took me to lunch at a Swedish restaurant in Gothenburg called Lagom. Lagom has no single English word that matches its meaning. Essentially, it translates “enough, sufficient, not too much or too little—just right”.
6/5/2001 0 Comments StressShannon’s desperate eyes spoke volumes. She told me she’d walked from Albany to Salem with her backpack and handbags to get away from her husband. She’d had nothing to drink all day, was overheated and felt ill. Thirty years old, she described herself as a misfit mother whose own mother watched two of her children while despairing of her incompetent daughter.
2/8/2001 0 Comments MarriageThe story is told of a conversation between a teenager and his grandfather. The young man said, “Gee Grampa, your generation didn’t have all these social diseases. What did you wear to have safe sex?” The wise old gentleman replied, “A wedding ring.”
5/1/2000 0 Comments BlessingAs I read Scripture, I am continuously impressed with our Heavenly Father’s desire to bless us. From Genesis to Revelation runs a consistent theme—God loves to give to His children. As a parent I understand some of what God feels. I look forward to giving my children gifts. There is something profoundly special about favorably touching lives.
12/7/1999 0 Comments RepentanceWhen crocodiles cry, their tears are not like our tears at all. A crocodile’s glandular excretions act to expel excess salt from its eyes. When a man is remorseful but not repentant he acts like a crocodile. He sheds tears but they are not from a true sense of shame over wrongdoing, but rather to put off the one aware of the sin. Remorse is that sensation we experience when we are caught. Repentance is the revulsion we taste for the evil in our lives.
7/14/1999 0 Comments LimitationsHe rolled up to the sidelines in a wheelchair and I couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts crisscrossed his mind. Soccer is not a game for the lame. Yet he came out to watch perhaps wistfully at what he could no longer do, or at peace—able still to enjoy an event in which his friends were engaged. He reminded me of Bryan, my 12-year-old hero.
7/2/1999 0 Comments RedemptionCaleb’s head sunk in agony. On the splintered beams of a weathered deck stood the only life left that really mattered—his daughter. And now she was to be sold into slavery—auctioned off like some four-legged beast of burden.
4/19/1999 0 Comments SanctificationHank Acephalous graduated near the top of his West Point class. As a newly commissioned second lieutenant, he continued to excel by earning the coveted ranger tab. He was set to join the elite Ranger battalion at his new post. Life was good.
12/28/1998 0 Comments ForgivenessRuss is an 80-year-old friend who suffers through the agonizing pain of bad knees, a weak back and an assortment of other aches not uncommon for a man of his age. Often his spirit is drenched by the loss of his wife and the solitary struggle of battling ailments.
Russ is a good man and yet he suffers from a disease that has sealed his mortality, a disease we all have called SIN. Sin separates us from God. Left untreated, it hardens a person’s heart towards Him, leads to bitterness and the proliferation of fear which chokes the very life out of joy. 12/16/1998 0 Comments DutyOften when people ask me how I am doing, I will respond by saying, “Better than I deserve.” It is not a response I created. I learned it from Paul Drake, a saint who epitomizes the word faithful. When asked how he is doing, whether circumstances are good or trying, Paul can be counted on to say, “Better than I deserve.
10/8/1998 0 Comments KindnessMeditation
1 Corinthians 13:4--Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, Titus 3:4,5--But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared. He saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. 8/11/1998 0 Comments ManifestationWould you agree it is quite enjoyable to watch people grow spiritually? Yet often the growth that is so evident to us in others goes unnoticed by the one being observed. I suppose in one respect it’s similar to watching the changes in my children as they extend vertically. On the white painted wall behind our bedroom door is a ladder of pencil marks each proclaiming a new climb in inches. Periodically they will ask my wife or me to measure them to see how they are doing in their quest for height. Without that pencil-marked wall, each of my three kids would have a tough time gauging their growth.
7/31/1998 0 Comments DisciplineMeditation
Titus 2:11,12--For the grace of God has appeared with salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age. |
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Photo from Rachel Maxey Miles