Over the weekend, from DC to NYC, deep snow upended schedules and canceled plans. How’d you take it?
This ancient passage from Job still applies:
Job 37:5-7 (NIV)
God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways . . .
He says to the snow, “Fall on the earth,”
. . . he stops all people from their labor.
Yep, God’s in control.
Thank you, American Baptist Churches of NJ (of which our congregation is a part) for posting my Imagine One Body article on their website.
I had a very special uncle. Mel was half playmate, half willing servant, all joy. He delighted in the smallest favors. He unfailingly saw the bright side of things.
Once, I asked my father if his little brother had ever been angry. Dad thought back through the years. “No,” he said, “I remember he cried once because the rest of us were angry, but Mel was never angry.”
A lifetime without anger. Yep, Mel was special.
Mel was Down Syndrome.
Countless DS babies are aborted. Countless families miss the chance to touch the heart of God.
This week marks the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the March for Life. For me, they fit well together.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Dr. King, 1963
I, too, have a dream. I have a dream that we will live in a nation where a thousand black babies are no longer aborted daily. I have a dream that we will live in a nation where homicide will no longer be the leading cause of death for young black males. I have a dream that black lives will be abundant lives.
It’s a woman’s right to choose, they tell us.
It’s a personal matter, they say.
That “temporary inconvenience, long-term blessing” of yesterday’s post is more than “a personal matter.” No, he hasn’t cured cancer or become president. He’s just an ordinary citizen who has touched countless lives. Things would be different if all those relationships had been cut off before they started. The world would be diminished.
Jesus said this of Satan:
John 8:44 (CEV)
He has always been a murderer and a liar.
“It’s personal” is one of the enemy’s lies. It has served him well.
43 years ago, Roe v Wade made abortion legal. What do you think about it?
1973—we were newly married, still in college, scraping by with a couple part-time jobs, with student health insurance that didn’t cover maternity . . . and I was pregnant.
Some would have said, “This is no time to have a baby.”
From the rear-view mirror of 43 years, the inconvenience hardly registers. I got my degree. We paid the hospital bill. It didn’t ruin our lives. 
All-knowing God, the Powerball winners are no secret to you. May they be filled with gratitude, not greed; wisdom, not wastefulness; decency, not debauchery; restraint, not recklessness. May they be kindhearted, not tightfisted.
“To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.”
That about sums up my thoughts on the billion-dollar Powerball.
Thank you,Gilbert Keith Chesterton, for saying it so bluntly.
His fans think that G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was the best writer of the 20th century. I can’t attest to that, but there’s no doubt he had a way with words. I think I’ll read me some Chesterton. I’ll be richer for the experience.
Jesus orchestrated an unusual financial windfall so that Peter could pay the taxman.
Matthew 17:27 (CEV)
“Go cast a line into the lake and pull out the first fish you hook. Open its mouth, and you will find a coin. Use it to pay your taxes and mine.”
I suspect that our chances of finding wealth in a fish are as about as good as in a lottery ticket. But I don’t see folks waiting in line for their turn at the ol’ fishing hole.
