This past weekend I attended the Heart of America Christian Writers Network Conference here in Kansas City. One of the activities we enjoyed was a drama by Karen Morerod. She portrayed Queen Esther from the Bible from the book of the same name. Queen Esther saved her Jewish people from annihilation. Her uncle told her God placed her in the palace “for such a time as this.” I wonder if each of us are aware we too, are placed by…
Often I hear people doubt the authenticity of the Bible. They don’t understand the role of the Scribe in Biblical times. These men spent long hours every day copying every jot and tittle of every word of scripture on to new scrolls. When they finished, they proof-read each line of each column. If there was one mistake in their new copy, they took a knife and sliced the new copy to pieces because it was flawed. To prove the high…
Our God is a just God. He hears the cries of the afflicted and delivers those who cry out to Him. Psalm 46:1 says “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” After the Israelites left Egypt after 400 years of captivity, they found they had the Red Sea before them and Pharaoh’s army in chariots behind them. They were trapped. There was nowhere to go. They couldn’t outrun the army, even if there was someplace…
This past week I have had two occasions to be with long-ago friends. About a fourth of our high school graduating class met in the Ozarks for a long weekend. We revisited memories from days past, colored and warped by over 53 years of life since our graduation. The second group was a gathering of Christian sisters who went to the same church over 40 years ago. We came together from all over the map to celebrate one member’s 90th…
What if a doctor handed you a diagnosis today that you would die in a month? Would you get busy checking off items on your bucket list? Would you go into panic mode? Or would you try to tie up all the loose ends of your life? I spent a weekend recently watching CDs on inner healing by Frances and Judith McNutt. She shared the stages people go through when faced with that scenario. Stages of Dying: 1. Denial “This…
Have you ever felt the Lord has asked you to do something you don’t feel you’re capable of? Scary, isn’t it? One of the first times I went to pray for someone I was scared to death. What would I say? What would I pray? What if the person wasn’t healed? What if I blew it? These questions ran though my head as I drove to the place to pray for the person. The Lord spoke to my heart. It…
In I Kings, chapter 18, King Ahab, a worshiper of God had married a woman who worshiped in a fertility cult who sacrificed their babies to Baal. Elijah, a prophet in Israel, told king Ahab to gather the 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of the Asherah in order to have a “come to meeting” so to speak. The Israelites, led by their king, worshiped Almighty God. But they also mixed in a little hanky-panky with the temple prostitutes…
A person posed a question to me recently. This person asked, “What if the church prayed with the same fervor as those who waited for what Jesus called ‘The promise of the Father.’” The apostles and 120 believers gathered in a common place and prayed for this unknown gift for 40 days after Jesus resurrection. Acts 2 tells us that Jesus sent the Holy Spirit like a mighty rushing wind. Those same disciples who ran like scared rabbits the night…
What is it to have faith, exactly? The Bible tells us that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). It’s believing that God is going to do what He says He will do, even before you have seen the evidence of it. Faith is not some magic saying of words or believing for what you want to happen. It is listening for the Lord’s voice, praying what He says to pray,…
I recently spoke with a young woman whose husband had a serious illness. He sought out a well-known specialist who told him he could be a candidate to participate in a blind study of a new medication that could possibly hold a cure. There would be no charge for the participation in the study which normally would be extremely expensive. All experiments conducted on animals so far had proved successful. The husband wanted to do the trial, but his wife…