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[6 minutes, 1192 words]

“WE COULD ALL do with a pause. Our world is saturated by unnecessary noise. On a recent trip around Britain I was constantly reminded of lines by Wendell Berry, “Best of any song is bird song in the quiet, but first you must have the quiet.” I searched in vain. Everywhere I went, pubs, restaurants, hotel lobbies, even a dentist’s waiting room, all were filled with either pounding music or the inane drivel of a TV chat show. And don’t get me started on mobile phones!

I climbed Mount Snowdon on a crisp and uniquely still winter’s day. When I reached the summit, alone, the view at 3,000 feet was spectacular. But the silence and a wonderful experience of wilderness were soon shattered by — you’ve guessed it — a septuagenarian, who didn’t even wait to get his breath back before whipping out his little phone to bawl his banal news in an endless stream of calls to friends, never once mentioning where he was or what he could see!”

– Ian Skelly, From Resurgence & Ecologist Issue 228 • Jan/Feb 2005

I read recently that there are now nearly 9 billion mobile subscriptions in use around the world. Fun fact: there are approximately 8.3 billion people living on our planet right now. You get a cell phone! You get a cell phone! Everybody gets a cell phone! “We are becoming dangerously dependent upon useless information, and feed a growing habit for voyeurism with a mountain of contraptions” (Ian Skelly). Two billion television sets are in use globally. 6.5-12 billion computer screens are being looked at any given time around the world.

Does the world feel noisy to you? The psalmist mentions a “noisome pestilence” (Psalm 91:3, KJV) as one of the plagues that disrupt our need for peace and solace. Of course, the Hebrew word has nothing to do with loud sounds but I rather like the interesting choice of word from the good old King James.

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the full podcast…

As promised, here is the link to the full 28-minute podcast I shared on the More Than Conquerors with Lou Lepore program recently. I hope it’s a blessing to you!

Feel free to share this on all of your social media and with whomever you feel may benefit from it. Thank you so much!

The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD,
And He delights in his way.
THOUGH HE FALL, he shall not be utterly cast down;
For the LORD upholds him with His hand.

Psalm 37:23-24, NKJV

it’s a pod!

I’m super grateful for the opportunity to share my story of God’s healing grace and power through weakness to a wider audience in just a few days. My new friend, and all-around great guy, Lou Lepore, hosts a podcast featuring stories of those who have met life’s challenges through Christ’s overcoming power, and have come to know Jesus in a more intimate and meaningful way. And, bless him, he saw my video our church’s production team put together for our Easter service and asked my sister Susan (they attend the same church) if I’d be interested in telling my story for More Than Conquerors with Lou Lepore. Boy would I!

We recorded that interview for his More Than Conquerors podcast a couple weeks ago. Lou and I enjoyed a stirring conversation over the phone (Lou makes it so easy!) and I was just informed it will hit the airwaves later this week.

Check out a sampling of that interview by clicking on the link just below. When the full interview is broadcast, I will leave a link for you at that time. The podcast can be found on multiple platforms, including Apple, Spotify, and Buzzsprout, among others.

I hope you enjoy!

Selah, beloved. Talk soon.

home home.

[5 minutes]

Headed home from the hospital after an 8-day stay. All praise to Jesus! So many miracles happened! As God does.

Now Hagar represents Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

Galatians 4:25-26, CSB

If you visit Jerusalem today, you will see a people who are the spiritual offspring of Hagar — born of the flesh, after the flesh. The Lord loves them and longs for them to open their eyes (2 Cor 3:14-15), but for now, they choose to wander the spiritual wasteland of blindness and deafness.

BUT THERE IS A HEAVENLY JERUSALEM (v26). That City will one day supplant the present one. It is spiritual and heavenly, populated by people who know and are known by the Lord Jesus Christ — whose names are written in heaven (Heb 12:23). Saved Jews and Gentiles. Every tribe and tongue. Righteous people, made perfect by the sacrifice of the Lamb, worshipping their King in reverence and awe.

the jerusalem above

Followers of Jesus Christ are looking for that City (Heb 11:16), not at all satisfied with this one. We are ascending — up, up, up — climbing ever upward until the day we top that final hill and behold the City of God spread out before our eyes: shining and beautiful, surrounded by a myriad of angels, all dressed out for the festival of the ages.

It took valleys and deserts to cross to get here (Psa 84:6), but there she is — a multi-faceted jewel, the eternal dwelling place of God our Father and Jesus our Brother. The Holy Spirit is its everlasting Light.

When we fix our eyes and affections on this “Jerusalem” instead, we forget that we have been set free and saved for another Country altogether. We turn to graven images and works of the flesh, practicing an artificial religion that promises some attachment to the heavenly — but all it does is detach us from our True Country.

Continue reading home home.

grace down on one knee

[4 minutes]

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4-7

I’d like to share something with you I heard this morning:

“Grace simply means that God moves toward us in love.”

It’s beautiful in its simplicity, isn’t it? Grace isn’t something we “catch” if we happen to be in the right place at the right time. Grace is God moving toward us — focused on us — His hands and heart brimming with love.

I will never forget a pastor’s conference I attended years ago where I was enthralled by one of the speakers — Joe Stowell, former president of Moody Bible College. As I waited in line to greet him and tell him what his sermon had meant to me that morning, people kept pressing in around me and standing over me. I was invisible, certain he couldn’t see me through the crowd. But then he bypassed everyone, came straight to my wheelchair, and went down on one knee to look me directly in the eye. He introduced himself and asked me about myself — and everything in his face and manner told me he meant it. He was entirely present. As far as either of us knew, there was nobody else in the room.


This is how God’s grace operates. He is always the initiator, finding us where we are, and He lowers himself so as to be reachable. Just as Jesus crossed the distance between Himself and a man who had been paralyzed for 38 years (John 5:5) — once God gets us in His sight, we can’t escape. We are His. And we want to be His.


Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 even though we were spiritually dead God already loved us. Against all odds, with everything stacked against us, God moved in and let us know we were His kind of people. He didn’t decide to love us only after we said yes to Jesus; He had already been moving toward us, setting His sights on us long before we turned toward Him. So how can we think that on our worst days — when we don’t feel our best, when we’ve blown it badly — God has stopped loving us? Impossible. Even at our most broken, on our darkest day, God was already moving in our direction, getting down on one knee, looking us straight in the eye, giving us His full attention — choosing us, singling us out, setting His affection upon us. His mercies never end; they are new every morning! (Lam 3:22, 23)

He sees us even when we feel invisible to Him.


Hagar knew a little something about invisibility and zero agency. Forced to run away, Abram and Sarai’s handmaid-turned-concubine escaped to the wilderness, driven there by Sarai’s jealousy and abuse (Gen 16:6). Alone and desperate, the Angel of the Lord (the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus) found Hagar in that desolate place and ministered His loving grace to her. Overwhelmed by the Almighty seeing her, Hagar gave the Lord a name no one had ever called Him before: El-roi. The God who sees (Gen. 16:13).

Continue reading grace down on one knee