Category: Observation

11/19/2024 0 Comments

Hidden Things

Jesus performed many miracles in the cities He walked, which should have authenticated His message, and yet most of those He encountered would not repent of their sins. Their hardheartedness kept them from recognizing the hand of God’s Son at work and connecting their need to listen to Him. He criticized them for their attitude and warned them of God’s impending judgment (Matthew 11:20-24).

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11/12/2024 0 Comments

Omnipresent

When I was a junior officer attending Infantry Officers Basic Course (IOBC), we sponsored foreign military officers. Some of those officers were married Muslims who were quite happy to be in America and to engage in all kinds of immoral activity. When asked why they were getting intoxicated and frequenting strip clubs when they had wives back home and strict rules against consuming alcohol, their answers were quite revealing. “Allah cannot see us. He is not present here.” They firmly believed that only in their own country were they visible and accountable for their behavior. Their Allah was a god with limitations.

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10/29/2024 1 Comment

Gems

For those of you who love gemstones, scientists discovered that gems may be classified through cross-polarized light as anisotropic or isotropic.[1] The former produces a “colorful array when viewed in crossed-polarized light, reflecting all the colors of the rainbow, whereas isotropic stones [ex: diamonds, rubies, garnets] lose all their color and appear black.”[2]

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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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2/24/2024 0 Comments

Giving Glory to God

This year, I bought a journal and am using it to develop my prayer life. I’ve divided it into sections for praise, thanksgiving, prayer for friends and family, prayer for those who don’t know the Lord, personal requests, ministry, etc. Psalm 71:14, 15 says, “But I will hope continually and will praise You more and more. My mouth will tell about Your righteousness and Your salvation all day long, though I cannot sum them up.” This verse is recorded at the top of page 6 of my journal to remind me of things to praise God. So far, I have 54 items, which is on pace for one topic per day. Page 7 continues with Psalm 146:2—“I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing to my God as long as I live.” I start with these two pages daily because they set the tone of praise and remind me of what is most important in life—God!

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10/10/2023 0 Comments

Pressure is a Privilege

The guest speaker on Sunday said, “Pressure is a privilege.” That got my attention. What?! Is pressure really a privilege? Pressure causes stress. Stress can be debilitating both physically and mentally. Pressure is synonymous with anxiety, burden, and difficulty—three words hardly appealing. So, how in the world is pressure a privilege?

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6/19/2023 0 Comments

Using Discernment

Ann faced a challenging situation in her new supervisory role with a nonprofit company that recently hired her. One of the employees, Calista, who worked on a different team, was giving her a tough time. Calista had applied for the job Ann now held and resented that she was not chosen. She used Ann’s inexperience to belittle her on calls (shared by others in the organization) and was rude when speaking to her. Ann realized she needed Calista’s help, but she first had to figure out a way to win her over, and that did not seem easy. So she asked for prayer from her close friends and asked God for His assistance.

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5/28/2023 1 Comment

Listening When We Don't Want To

Mike and Robbie boarded the light rail on their way to a Seattle Mariners game. A few feet from their seats sat a dirty, smelly man suffering from an addiction, mental health challenge, or both. Mike was repulsed and cautious toward this man conversing with an imaginary person. Mike noted, “He rearranged his clothing and belongings continuously and removed and replaced a fake mustache.” Mike prayed that he would not attack them or be a problem. The Holy Spirit had another plan. He whispered in Mike’s ear that this was a man with a name, a man loved by Him, and that Mike should approach and talk to him. But that was not something Mike wanted to do, and for most of the train ride, he resisted listening to persistent promptings.

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4/20/2023 1 Comment

The Critical Importance of Mentoring

Will is a senior at Liberty University and a member of the Army ROTC program. He will commission as an officer in less than a month. I was blessed when he asked me to help him create a sponsorship program for their ROTC department. In this case, sponsors are older men or women who have served in the military as senior officers or NCOs and who are willing to be mentors to any of the cadets who would like to be paired with them to meet and learn and become better prepared to serve as officers. With the help of four mature individuals I was able to recruit, we shared with several cadets who came out on a Monday evening to learn about the critical importance of mentoring.

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6/20/2022 1 Comment

Honoring Our Elderly

Patricia P. Driscoll and Celia Straus wrote in Hidden Battle on Unseen Fronts, “As a society, we don’t take very good care of one another. Ours is a disposable culture: our children, our elders, our ill and infirm, our natural resources are often ignored, overlooked, forgotten or mistreated.” Did you know that respect for the elderly is tied in scripture to reverence for God? God did not make people obsolete, objects of derision or relics to be ignored or kept out of the way. We as a society have done this because collectively, we view feebleness and weakness as properties to be avoided. We don’t wish to be reminded of the last chapters or days of life before death. We want to be strong, healthy and admired. But we see life from such a limited and sadly vain vantage. God made life, and He made it with eternity in mind. When we disrespect the elderly, we disrespect what He created, which is never a good practice.

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2/13/2022 0 Comments

Explain This

Meditation
Proverbs 30:2-3--I am more stupid than any other man, and I lack man’s ability to understand. I have not gained wisdom, and I have no knowledge of the Holy One.

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3/7/2021 0 Comments

Mama, You're Singing in the Cracks!

Randy told us the following story at our elders’ meeting. A young boy was sitting at the piano playing a well-known song when his mother came up behind him and started singing. The boy stopped playing and looked up at his mother and said, “Mama, you’re singing in the cracks!” The poor woman was off-key and the boy wanted her to know it.

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12/18/2019 0 Comments

Futile or Fulfilled?

Ecclesiastes is a wisdom book written almost certainly by King Solomon. The book title in Hebrew is Qōheleth and translates “Teacher.” A predominant theme of Ecclesiastes is that “under the sun, all is futile.” Futility comes from the Hebrew word hevel which stresses that which is empty and transitory. This key word occurs 38 times and is used to describe outward, physical things as well as inward thoughts. [1] It is often paired with the phrase “a pursuit of the wind.”

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5/28/2016 0 Comments

Incense--Fragrant Prayer

Walking into my office downstairs I was immediately aware of a great aroma. That observation was quickly followed by one of relief. I had left my fragrance lamp on all night and that could have been a fire hazard. Fortunately, the melted eucalyptus/mint-laced wax cubes created a wonderful scent and nothing had overheated.

Meditation
Psalm 141:2—May my prayer be set before You as incense, the raising of my hands as the evening offering.

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8/19/2014

Blinded by the Obvious

Meditation
2 Kings 4:43—But Elisha’s attendant asked, “What? Am I to set 20 loaves before 100 men?”
“Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said, “for this is the what LORD says: ‘They will eat, and they will have some left over.’”
Matthew 14:17—“But we only have five loaves and two fish here,” they said to Him.

4/5/2014

See the Need

I had two speaking engagements on the same weekend that required me to wear my dress uniform with a bow tie for one event and a long tie for the other. The night before traveling, as I got into bed, I remembered I had only packed a long tie. I decided to get it first thing in the morning before Kathleen took me to the airport.

9/20/2009 0 Comments

Angels

On several occasions, I have read or heard amazing testimonies of people who experienced God’s deliverance via angels from an enemy intent on their destruction. God’s Word extensively teaches us about angels with over a 105 references to them in the Old Testament and more than 170 times in the New Testament. The Bible teaches that angels:

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1/8/2009 0 Comments

One Star

Coffee Cottage is a popular coffee shop near George Fox University. One of their favorite draws for students is the free wireless service. Often I come in to find many tables occupied with folks writing papers or working projects on their laptops. But unless a person knew that wireless was free and available, they could work on their computer and have no idea they could access internet connection capability simply by asking for the password.

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12/29/2006 0 Comments

Youth

George Barna is a seasoned pollster and director of the Barna Group. His group’s survey results in 2006 reveal some disturbing trends. Listed below are three of the twelve most significant findings this year.

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7/28/2006 0 Comments

Safety

The Deschutes River in Oregon is 173.4 miles long. It runs through rugged forest and deserted desert sometimes cascading with terrific roar, sometimes ambling like some peaceful toddler. It is a great river to fish for steelhead and salmon. On the lower Deschutes people often come to whitewater raft. And for that experience, my son, Stephen and I, joined 17 folks from Southwest Hills Baptist Church.

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