Every culture carries its music in its mouth. Bostonians drop their r’s. New Yorkers turn conversations into percussion. Canadians lift their sentences into gentle questions. Southerners stretch their vowels like warm taffy. Where I was raised, we joked that our vowels never quite left the back roads. Before you knew our story, you could hear …
Continue reading Shibboleth and the Church: How Small Differences Create Big Divides
This morning in Costa Rica, I stood on a mountainside with red coffee cherries staining my fingers and the scent of roasting beans drifting through cool air. The rows ran along a sharp incline. You do not stroll through fields like that. You lean into them. You steady your footing. You work. Our guide shared …
Continue reading High Elevation Faith: Why Slow Growth Produces Spiritual Depth
We do not like blank spaces. We want footnotes for our suffering. We want charts for our delays. We want a memo from heaven explaining why the door closed, why the prayer lingered, why the report came back with that word on it. If possible, we would like a seat in the counsel room of …
Continue reading When You Don’t Understand God: Finding Peace in Romans 11:36
There is a quiet way we sometimes pray that sounds spiritual but carries a calculator in its pocket. Lord, I have served. I have given. I have stayed faithful. Now I need You to come through. We rarely say it out loud. But disappointment can expose it. Somewhere deep down, we assumed heaven keeps receipts. …
Continue reading Does God Owe You? Understanding Romans 11:35 and the Freedom of Grace
A Good Word 