Tag Archives: heaven
Natural selection hammers the planet with physical challenge after physical challenge trying to weed out the evolutionary pretenders. Like a cruel school master, it schedules a never-ending series of tests to determine who will matriculate and who will be expelled. The students in this school of life are required to take earthquake, drought, and flood 101, as well…..
If the meek inherit the earth then we are valuing the wrong people when we study history, philosophy, and religion. The volunteer in the soup kitchen is more important than the president of the United States. The old man sharing life lessons with his children is more profound than Aristotle speaking in front of the Lyceum. The farmer at his prayers…..
While we are called to hand out citizenship applications for God’s Kingdom, we don’t determine who will be admitted. Jesus staffs the border so our entry doesn’t depend on the quality of our human passport but rather by the One who stands at the gate. Do we want to be directed into the lane where our lives are searched for…..
The vast majority of us believe in an afterlife. We all fret over our earthly trail of tears but simultaneously anticipate a heavenly joyride. The path, however, isn’t a straight shot from blah to bliss. As we make our way to the top of cemetery hill we will encounter a “Cross” roads where we must make a decision. We…..
Isn’t it interesting that the only time we’re able to sit still for our life portraits is when we’re dead? Instead of carefully painting them ourselves we end up handing the brush and palette to a pastor, family member, or friend. We spend a lifetime carefully writing the story of our lives and then abruptly ask others to create a…..
“When you fall deeply in love, you want to please the beloved…You eagerly research and learn every little thing that brings her pleasure. Then you get it for her, even if it costs you money or great inconvenience. ‘Your wish is my command,’ you feel – and it doesn’t feel oppressive at all. From the outside, bemused friends may think,…..
Adam and Eve, like Esau, sold their birth right for some food. They rejected their place as God’s children despite the fact they were the spitting “image” of their Father. They became self-proclaimed orphans and surrendered their inheritance only to be raised by wolves in the wilderness outside Eden. God, grieved by their absence, set in motion one of the…..
We hear a lot of people talking as if the world were all gray, no discernible differences between right and wrong, normal and abnormal, or even animal and man. Gray represents a mixture of black and white, so when you say the world is gray you are just acknowledging the fact that it is frequently difficult to discern between…..
For musicians, the heavenly story ends pretty nicely. The band never breaks up, the gig is eternal, and there’s no fighting over who is the leader of the group. The alternative hell story, on the other hand, is quite different. You end up going solo and due to a lack of popularity end up driving a dilapidated van from show…..
My mental sky is gray, seemingly apathetic to its ordained task of separating the dark from the light. Despondent, the clouds burst open and a tsunami of tears drenches my soul with sadness. Questions of significance, meaning, and purpose, like torrential rain breech the levies of my inadequate emotional aqueduct, and the usually peaceful valleys of my existence become flooded with despair. I find myself mystically transported to a graveyard where I sit cross-legged staring at my own tombstone. I…..
