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Longing for Home
My wife walked into the room and found me poking my head inside the cabinet of our grandfather clock. “What are you doing?” she asked. “This clock smells just like my parents’ house,” I answered sheepishly, closing the door. “I guess you could say I was going home for a moment.”
The sense of smell can evoke powerful memories. We had moved the clock across the country from my parents’ house nearly 20 years ago, but the aroma of the wood inside it still takes me back to my childhood.
The writer of Hebrews tells of others who were longing for home…
Learning to trust God again
If you faced one devastating event after another, would you still be able to trust in God’s goodness? On the next Words to Live By, hear the story of a pastor’s wife whose faith was tested to the limit leaving her questioning whether or not God is trustworthy. Discover how Charity’s faith was renewed as […]
If We Knew The Plane Was Going Down
I was on a plane a few months ago flying to see my sister in Florida, US. I was gazing out the window, probably fidgeting and daydreaming about snack food, when the flight attendant began her safety presentation.
It Never Runs Out
When I asked a friend who is about to retire what she feared about her next stage of life, she said, “I want to make sure I don’t run out of money.” The next day as I was talking to my financial counselor he gave me advice on how I might avoid running out of money. Indeed, we all want the security of knowing we’ll have the resources we need for the rest of our lives.
No financial plan can provide an absolute guarantee of earthly security. But there is a plan that extends far beyond this life and indefinitely into…
Making Preparations
As we viewed my father-in-law’s body in his casket at the funeral home, one of his sons took his dad’s hammer and tucked it alongside his folded hands. Years later, when my mother-in-law died, one of the children slipped a set of knitting needles under her fingers. Those sweet gestures brought comfort to us as we remembered how often they had used those tools during their lives.
Of course, we knew that they wouldn’t actually need those items in eternity. We had no illusions, as the ancient Egyptians did, that tools or money or weapons buried with someone would better prepare…
Beyond Time
During 2016, theater companies in Britain and around the world have staged special productions to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare. Concerts, lectures, and festivals have drawn crowds who celebrate the enduring work of the man widely considered to be the greatest playwright in the English language. Ben Jonson, one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, wrote of him, “He was not of an age, but for all time.”
While the influence of some artists, writers, and thinkers may last for centuries, Jesus Christ is the only person whose life and work will endure beyond time. He claimed to be…
Is This Heaven?
In the fantasy-drama Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella heard a mysterious voice whispering from his cornfield: “If you build it, he will come.” In time, Ray realized the voice was calling him to build a baseball field among his rows of cornstalks. When he built the ball field, major-league baseball players from the past miraculously emerged from the remaining cornstalks to play ball.
Reunited
In March 2015, a woman in Spain posted some pictures on Facebook of a boy she’d cared for as a foster parent. She’d met the boy nearly 30 years earlier while volunteering at a juvenile daycare. The child had been abandoned, and the woman ended up caring for him until he was 6. Not able to adopt the child, the two were separated. But years later, after 3 days and 50,000 views of her Facebook post, they were reunited.
Before A Loved One Dies
I was by the side of a church member’s father minutes before he took his last breath. Overcome with emotion, I whispered a final prayer for him. It was the first time I’d felt so depressed while praying for someone.
In the End
The CEO quickly scanned the email from a company that makes and installs wooden doors. His community radio station needed new doors, but money was tight. Out of a sense of obligation, he hit the “reply” button and asked for a quote on a set of double doors. Moments later, he got a response. Turns out, Andrew hadn’t read the email all the way through to the end. The company had in fact offered the radio station a free set of doors!
Healing Prayer
After learning that a 7-year-old boy dying of leukemia wanted to be a police officer, several members of the Arizona Police made every effort to make his wish come true. Just days before he died, they made him an honorary officer—including his own law enforcement hat and junior-sized police uniform. That one wish launched a movement. Make-A-Wish, an international organization that grants the wishes of seriously ill children, was established in 1980.
When We See Jesus
One of my favorite hymns is When We See Christ. The chorus declares how it will be worth every struggle and challenge we encounter in life when we see Jesus face-to-face. And with that day in view, we can courageously live for Him today!
The Best Is Yet to Come
Are the best days of your life behind or in front of you? Our outlook on life—and our answer to that question—can change with time. When we’re younger, we look ahead, wanting to grow up. And once we’ve grown older, we yearn for the past, wanting to be young again. But when we walk with God, whatever our age, the best is yet to come!
Over the course of his long life, Moses witnessed the amazing things God did, and many of those amazing things happened when he was no longer a young man. Moses was 80 years old when…
Dealing with the “Death Knock’”
The words “death knock” is enough to make my knees go weak and my hands go clammy. A “death knock” involves a journalist showing up on the doorstep of a family who has just lost a loved one for a story.
Living for eternity
When Melody’s 20-year-old daughter died instantly in a car accident, the only thought that brought her comfort was that her child was now with Jesus. Learn how God gave purpose to Melody’s grief and launched a passion for living with an eternal perspective. Find purpose in the midst of loss.
