The Hope of Healing

Listen I’ve had the privilege to serve those experiencing homelessness for well over a decade. As part of the leadership team at our local Mission, my greatest and most joy-filled times have come when I’m teaching and interacting with our guests. It’s what I’ve been called to do. Helping those who have struggled financially for a variety of reasons and are considered somehow less than the rest of us. In God’s eyes that is simply not true. The…

Listen Until I met my wife, Colleen (resident bird expert among other things), I couldn’t tell the difference between an eagle and an egret. Now I can spot the difference between a Goshawk and a Redtail in flight. Who knew there was so much beauty flying overhead? Certainly not me. That would explain my curiosity when I heard a quartet of crows squawking outside my office window. I looked out to discover two of the four battling it out in the branches of a nearby oak.…

Listen During a recent business trip we took by train to New York, a friend and I found ourselves meandering through the maze of humanity in Penn Station looking for a connection to our final destination on Long Island. It was a long day. The alarm went off at 3:30 in the morning to catch an Amtrak train at 5:20 that would eventually get us to Huntington around 11:00. Brilliant, right? While dodging more people in one place than imaginable, we simultaneously had the same.…

Listen The passage in Matthew where Peter is invited to walk on water is a familiar one to most of us. Every time I read it, I put myself in Peter's place for an instant. Not only physically but metaphorically. Can you imagine walking on the surface of the water to the outstretched hand of Jesus? On so many levels it would have been a monumental moment in not only Peter’s life, but in the rest of the disciples watching. But….. that was not the only miracle…

Listen I’m a few days into a Bible Reading Plan on the YouVersion app authored by Sheila Walsh. She remarks in one of the 7 days of the devotional: “Can you imagine a world without guilt, shame, or regret? We know this is too good to be true in the world we live in. But this is exactly what Adam and Eve experienced.” It is hard to imagine, but what a delightful thought it is. Then sin entered the story and we all hid behind our fig leaves. Guilt, shame,…

Listen If you haven’t heard yet I’d suggest tuning in to what God is doing at Asbury University in Kentucky. Here’s the way Jake Taylor put it on NBC News, “A Christian service at a college chapel in Kentucky has ballooned into a nonstop prayer and worship session that some are calling a "revival" — and people are traveling thousands of miles to take part in it after seeing viral videos on TikTok.” “The first day we had a…

Listen So, we bit the fruit . . . then what? We were thrust into a world at war. Paradise was lost. But not forever. Genesis 3:23 describes it: “The Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life”. God is so loving, even in our disobedience, that he…

Listen “What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’ - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution. classes, empires, slavery - the long terrible story of man trying…

Listen The Poor in Spirit…. Mourn…. Meek…. Hunger and Thirst.... Merciful…. Pure in Heart…. Peacemakers…. Persecuted – which is pretty much all of us at some point in our lives. When Matthew records one of Jesus' most quoted and talked about sermons, he reminds us all how fortunate we are to have a Savior that understands us and blesses us in our most difficult moments. My mother passed away in 2021 at the ripe young age…