This chapter of the book of Ezekiel sounds like a spooky story. The Spirit of God leads the prophet Ezekiel to a valley of dry bones. But these aren’t animal bones; they’re human bones. Femurs, rib cages, vertebrae, and skulls—these bones were lifeless and dry....
If you’ve ever walked through a busy international airport terminal, you’ve been bombarded with the discord of multiple foreign languages. The words you cannot understand sound like gibberish. And when you hear your native tongue, it is a welcome relief....
Little children like to run everywhere. It doesn’t matter how short the distance. It can simply be from one side of the room to the other. The three-year-old is more than likely going to run that distance....
If you’ve ever tried walking around wearing a blindfold, you know it’s not easy. Even familiar places, like your house or room, are suddenly shrouded in darkness. You gingerly take small steps with arms out in front of you, trying not to walk into anything....
Do you compare yourself to other people? Of course you do! When we were in school, we looked at our grades to see how we measured up with our classmates. As we got older, we compared salaries, homes, cars, vacations, etc. We go to the gym and see who is in better shape than us and who isn’t. For most of us, measuring ourselves next to others lets us know where we stand....
Have you ever taken a toy away from a toddler? How did he react? There were likely screams and tantrums and tears. He likely held on as tight as he could to whatever toy you were trying to take away....
To get healed from a snakebite, you look to … a snake? It seems crazy. But it worked because God had promised that it would. God didn’t take away the poisonous snakes; instead, he dealt with the poison....
“He’s not really dead as long as we remember him.” “As long as we have memories of her, she will always be with us.” In times of grief, it’s easy to say these things. Well-intended? Yes. Solid and meaningful? Not really....
It takes courage to speak the Word of God. The apostle Paul knew this from experience. Once, in a city called Lystra, his audience pummeled him with stones and left him for dead. He was flogged and imprisoned in Philippi, chased out of Thessalonica and Berea, and sneered at in Athens....
As a father of twins, it’s not hard for me to understand why a twin would have a problem with people being sure they had seen something. A twin regularly encounters people who believe they saw what the twin knows they did NOT see. “It was my twin sister that you saw” is regular speech for a twin girl. Thomas wanted more than mere words that his companions had really seen Jesus....