John 15:1-8 {Prayer} Whenever I have gone away on a youth trip, mission trip, or a hunting trip … as much as I look forward to them and enjoy myself on them … there is also this voice in the back of my head which says, “Don’t call home.” Now it’s not that I…
1 John 3:16-18 {Prayer} Have you ever tried to fit a square peg into a round hole? Pretty much impossible right? In order to do it there has to be some major alterations. In the one of my favorite movies, one which may get a lot of dad jokes developed from being that…
Luke 24:36-49 {Prayer} Nothing intensifies a night out camping quite like a good ole fashion ghost story. Sitting around the campfire with the flames dancing up through the wood casting all kinds of shadows on the trees above and around you, having someone holding a flashlight up from under face, and then tell you…
Zechariah 14:8-11 {Prayer} Cities spend big bucks on marketing. In the 1970’s New York City was in chaos. Crime was running wild. As a means of scaring off tourists, unions across the city actually ran a campaign called “Welcome to Fear City”. Tourists were told that they should “stay away from New York City if…
Zechariah 12:10-14 {Prayer} “God is dead.” This is what a 19th century German philosopher by the name of Friedrich Nietzsche said. The expression, “God is dead,” is famously associated with Nietzsche’s book titled Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche used the phrase figuratively. Zechariah, however, used the phrase literally. God. Is. Dead. But really? That’s…
Zechariah 9:11-12 {Prayer} I invite you to look at this pit. It looks pretty deep and what you can’t see is that there is no water in it. Now envision a 17-year-old teenager stuck in the waterless pit. His hands are bound. His ankles are tied together. His eyes are wet from tears. His…
Zechariah 9:9-10 {Prayer} Expectations meet reality. The sandwich looked good on the menu, but it didn’t look good when it was served. You thought you had taken a great picture, but now you want a retake. You thought loading the car for the trip would be easy, but your children wanted to bring way…
Luke 22:1:6 {Prayer} Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, Guy Fawkes, Robert Ford, Judas Iscariot … these four all have something in common with each other. They are all traitors. Marcus Junius Brutus, often referred to simply as Brutus, was a Roman senator who served under Julius Caesar. He is best known from Shakespeare’s…
Zechariah 13:1-2 {Prayer} When Jessica and I were dating, she lived in Perryville, Missouri and I lived in the west suburbs of Chicago. After work, which was in downtown Chicago, I would be driving down I-55 and see these large oil refineries in Joliet. The jungle of tubes, pipes, valves, switches and pumps could…
John 12:23-36 {Prayer} We just sang these words: “In the cross of Christ I glory, Tow’ring o’er the wrecks of time. All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime” (LW 101, “In the Cross of Christ I Glory”) In the cross of Christ I glory. Really? Just listen to this … “Roman citizens…