Presby-Musings

All good things must come to an end---or so we have been taught to believe. But what if I told you that there was one thing that didn't come to an end?  And that this one thing assured that all of the really good things don't have to come to an end either...  What would you say to that? Check out this verse from the book of Lamentations in the Bible... Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,     for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning;     great is your faithfulness. Another way to translate that verse is "his mercies--his loving-kindnesses---never come to an end... they are renewed every morning."  What if Lamentations read something like this:  "The wrath of God never comes to an end... it is renewed every morning..."  That doesn't sound all that awesome does it?  If you listen to the sermons that are being preached across America today in countless churches, you would think that God...

This week as a we reflect on what it means to be filled with gratitude, we need to talk about remembering the "Ebenezers."  The Ebenezers aren't a New Wave 80's band that dressed like characters from a Charles Dickens story.  Although, that would be cool.   Ebenezers are literally "stones of hope."  They are stacks of stones, monuments that were erected by the ancient Hebrew people to help them remember momentous occasions when God did something incredible in their lives.  We all have Ebenezers.  They serve as memorials that we can look back on our life and see scattered throughout our time line.  I have some Ebenezers of my own. My wife and I were apart for five years before we got married.  I was recently divorced, which she didn't know.  She was about to be married, which I didn't know. Because of a chance meeting of an old school friend on a random night in the middle of an arena full of people we found each other again....

When my wife Merideth and I returned from our extended vacation we reflected on some things that I've been pondering since.   First, the journey home was long and tiring, which I am convinced is some sort of Divine design regarding the end of vacations.  By the time you get home after an arduous journey back, you are so ready to be there--despite the fact that mere days before you might have entertained thoughts of staying on vacation forever.  We had to make our way through customs and passport control of two European countries, nearly fourteen hours of flights, and an overnight stay in a fairly awful hotel before arriving in Florida to endure the customs system of the always crazy-busy Orlando airport.  By the time we made it back to our car and started driving away--the urge to get home was so powerful we both were nearly shaking with anticipation (or overworked nerves).   Since we've returned from being away for three weeks in the last month, we'v...

U All good things must come to an end. Have you ever heard that before?  Maybe you've even repeated it on occasion. Probably when something good was coming to an end. Recently, my wife and I had the opportunity to get a way for a couple of days--just the two of us.  We relaxed, sat by the beach, wandered around Key West, watched the sunset, ate unbelievable meals, slept in, read some books, laid in a hammock... What? I should tell you everything? At any rate, as we came to the end of our time away we both found ourselves saying over and over again---"just one more day... if we had just one more day..." I remember the last football game of my oldest son's high school career.  He re-injured his surgically repaired shoulder throwing a forty yard touchdown pass, and then a few plays later got concussed on a running play.  We all knew that it was over.  His season had ended, and a promising football career with it.  I remember my wife and I sitting...

All throughout the month of November I'll be preaching a sermon series entitled, "Attitude of Gratitude," which is pretty timely considering by the time we finish the series, it will be time for Thanksgiving.   You're Welcome .  That's how I roll. What we learned the last time that we gathered together (I was out for a week with a busted mouth) was that there is evidence of God 's grace, blessings and favor all around us --if we are willing to see it.  In fact, we also learned that the every breath we take is a prayer of thanksgiving to God--as we say his name (Yahweh) each time we breathe in and out.  Which led us to say this... When you finally realize all that God has done for you, the only true response is gratitude.   I wanted to take things a step further this week.  We started pretty far out in the universe with the first sermon in this series--echoing the question that the Psalmist proclaimed: "When I consider the heavens... the moon and...