Take a close look at the picture I’m using as my banner.
Sheep, right?
While it serves the motif of “Green Pastures” well, it’s what you cannot see in the frame that tells the bigger story. I’m going to “page-break” here and make you work a little–just a tad–to find out the, uh, rest…of…the…story. Continue reading The Rest Of The Story
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
(David, Psalm 139:5)
We are distressed/hard-pressed/troubled/squeezed on every side…
(Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8)
Nobody puts ‘Baby’ in a corner.
(Johnny Castle, Dirty Dancing)
I’m feeling ‘hemmed in’ these days. Diminished. Limited. Grounded, like a teenager: no keys, no car, no friends. Just school, then home.
On top of that, I feel cornered. Outnumbered.
It’s redolent of a scene in Thor where the Viking hero and his compatriots infiltrate the Frost Giant’s lair and are met by a relentless enemy in wave after wave, each giant becoming more formidable than the last and more numerous than before.
Yeah, that captures it nicely.
On every front a vexing battle is being waged and it seems like I am losing ground.
Ministry.
Family.
Finances.
Friends.
Health.
Some fronts are more like skirmishes while others border on “Shock and Awe.” These days I look like the Arizona border, Iraq (in March, 2003) and Afghanistan all rolled into one. Continue reading Either Way…I Still Praise Him.
Today I propose we do a little what if-ing. Let’s “what-if?” the story that contains the prodigal son. It pretty much leaves us with some open-ended questions, I know.
Did Dad ever want to wring the son’s neck? Ever?
Where was Mom in all this?
What happened six weeks or six months later?
Did the kid suffer a relapse?
Questions.
So…let’s pretend.
Imagine if Father’s Day fell a week following the prodigal son’s return. No, check that. Let’s pretend it occurred about six or seven months later. On that morning, the father—let’s call him Chanan (Hebrew for gracious)—awakens from a dreamless sleep and rubs his eyes so as to roust them from their hours of inertia. It is still dark, but an oil lamp casts a coppery glow inside the master’s bedroom, and he looks at the pleasing, sleeping form of his wife—oh, may as well: Chana. Hannah. Grace. Continue reading Father’s Day From A Prodigal’s Perspective