Delightsome Land

Hardly, a day passes anymore without dire news of the expansion of ISIS. Whether they are recruiting disenfranchised youth through social media, bombing busy marketplaces full of civilians, kidnapping journalists, or beheading Christians, ISIS looms large on our TVs, on our smart phones, and in our imaginations. Fear is their greatest weapon, and they wield it without mercy.  As they continue to expand their reach and spread violence throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Europe, we have seen their incursion on American soil. We remember September 11, 2001, and declare resolutely, "Never again." Since September 11, 2001, we in the West have learned that Islamic militants no longer limit their terrorism to the Middle East. America and Europe — notably New York, London, Paris, and Brussels — have also suffered attacks from ISIS and its forerunner, al-Qaeda. The group’s battlefield is now the world. We need not dwell long on the treachery of ISIS; it is well...

When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. — Matthew 14:32 Waiting is the hardest work of hope. ~ Lewis Smedes Waiting patiently is not a strong suit in American society. A woman’s car stalls in traffic. She looks in vain under the hood to identify the cause, while the driver behind her leans relentlessly on his horn. Finally she has had enough. She walks back to his car and offers sweetly, “I don’t know what the matter is with my car. But if you want to go look under the hood, I’ll be glad to stay here and honk for you.” We are not a patient people. We tend to be in a horn-honking, microwaving, Fed-Ex mailing, fast-food eating, express-lane shopping hurry. People don’t like to wait in traffic, on the phone, in the store, or at the post office. Robert Levine, in a wonderful book called A Geography of Time , suggests the creation of a new unit of time called the honko-second — “the time between when the light changes and the person behind you honks his horn....

John 7:37-39 says, On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’ By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive later. Jesus called, “Come.” He didn’t say it softly, so that only the people close to Him could hear it. He said it loudly so that they could all hear it, and He is saying it to you too, through the radio, “Come.” “Oh,” you may say, “that could be something for others, for my respectable neighbor, who goes to church so regularly and is so decent, but it’s not for me, because I am too sinful. No, I wouldn’t dare to. Oh, no, becoming religious is not for me; I am much too bad for that.” Look, if you say that now, Jesus is precisely what is needed. There was only one sort of person whom the Lord Jesus did not accept when He said, “Come.”...

I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born.  - Isaiah 44:2a God does not play dice. - Albert Einstein You are not an accident. Your birth was no mistake or mishap, and your life is no fluke of nature. Your parents may not have planned you, but God did. He was not at all surprised by your birth. In fact, He expected it. Long before you were conceived by your parents, you were conceived in the mind of God. He thought of you first. It is not fate, nor chance, nor luck, nor coincidence that you are breathing at this very moment. You are alive because God wanted to create you! The Bible says,  The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me.  (Psalm 138:8) God prescribed every single detail of your body. He deliberately chose your race, the color of your skin, your hair, and every other feature. He custom-made your body just the way He wanted it. He also determined the natural talents you would possess and the uniqueness of your personality. The ...

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall . ~Proverbs 16:18 Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility . ~Proverbs 18:12   The American Puritan preacher Cotton Mather invited a young Benjamin Franklin over for dinner one night and showed him his library. As they walked through a narrow passage into the library, Mather yelled back at Franklin, “Stoop! Stoop!” Franklin didn’t understand the exhortation until it was too late, bumping his head on a low beam. Mather turned the situation into a sermon. “Let this be a caution to you not always to hold your head so high. Stoop, young man, stoop—as you go through this world—and you’ll miss many hard thumps.” Many years later, Franklin told Mather’s son that he never forgot that moment. “This advice, thus beat into my head, has frequently been of use to me,” said Franklin. “And I often think of it when I see pride mortified and misfortunes brought upon people by ca...

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. . . . The older brother became angry and refused to go in. . . . “My son," the father said, "you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” — Luke 15:20, 28; Luke 15:31-32 The Hebrew Scriptures normally depict God, not as the Father of individuals but as Father to His people, Israel. Pious Jews, aware of the gap between a holy God and sinful human beings, would never have dared address God as Ab (Hebrew) or Abba, the Aramaic word for “Daddy,” which gradually came to mean “dear father.” Jesus shocked many of His contemporaries by referring to God as His Father and by inviting His followers to call God “Father.” Rather than depicting God as a typical Middle Eastern patriarch who...

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ ; ... 2 Corinthians 10:5  Growing up, I heard today’s verse interpreted in negative terms. Take sinful thoughts captive and keep them out of your mind. And that is half the battle. But if we focus on the negative implications while ignoring the positive possibilities, it becomes a half-truth. It’s also about capturing creative thoughts and keeping them in our minds. Simply put, it’s about stewarding every idea inspired by the Holy Spirit. Every dream is created twice. The first creation is mental. Every invention, every business, every building, every painting is conceived in the right-brain imagination first. It’s nothing more than a single-cell idea at that point. The second creation is physical. You make it obedient to Christ via blood, sweat, and tears. If your dream is a book, you make it obed...

A merry heart does good, like medicine. — Proverbs 17:22 I work with a lot of leaders. And one thing I’ve found is that many times they take themselves much too seriously. Of course, they’re not alone. I meet people in every walk of life who have too much doom and gloom in their attitudes. They simply need to lighten up. No matter how serious your work is, that’s no reason to take yourself seriously. If any person had a reason to take his job and himself seriously, it would be a president of the United States. Yet it’s possible for even people holding that position to maintain their sense of humor and keep their egos in check. For example, when Calvin Coolidge was asked if he was attending the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the President answered, “Yes.” “Why are you going, Mr. President?” a reporter asked. “As an exhibit,” answered the rotund Coolidge. If you tend to take yourself too seriously, give yourself and everyone else around...

As you sink into bed tonight, exhausted, are you already thinking about tomorrow’s meetings, next week’s obligations, next month’s deadlines? You’re anxious about tomorrow… and the next day… and the next. Whether you’re a busy mom who’s worried about your child’s future, an overwhelmed college student in the throes of midterms, or a rising executive with demands pulling from every direction, it’s difficult not knowing what tomorrow will bring. This anxiety is something that keeps many people awake at night — but does it do any good? One result of anxiety is that it can certainly make you feel productive. At least you’re keeping a running tally in your mind of things to do, scenarios that could go wrong, or new ideas to explore, right? But the problem is this: you can’t keep going all the time. Your mind and body need a break. You need a break. Your boss needs a break. Even the president needs a break sometimes. The best thing you can do for yourself is take tim...

I don’t trust hotel wake-up calls. Whether you will actually receive one when you ask seems to depend on the state of mind of the person entering your request. If he’s just broken up with his girlfriend, for example, and her name happens to be Sheila, I’m either getting a call in the middle of the night or none at all. So I set my own alarm on my phone. I actually set two. The first is when it would be good to get up, and the second is when I’d jolly well better get up. I’m just not a morning person, so I like to ease into a day slowly. I used to crawl out of bed, check that our son was up and in the shower, turn on the television to the morning news, and make myself a cup of coffee. It’s not a bad way to start the day, but I’ve found a much better way. I realized that if the first thing I pay attention to is what’s happening in our world, those images and words impact my view of the rest of the day. But if the Word of God is the first thing I give my heart...

We set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever. — 2 Corinthians 4:18 NCV Jesus tells us to “Seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). This is His invitation to us. Set your hearts on your home. In His plan it’s all about the King and His kingdom. He wrote the script, built the sets, directs the actors, and knows the final act — an everlasting kingdom. And this is [God’s] plan: At the right time He will bring everything together under the authority of Christ — everything in heaven and on earth. — Ephesians 1:10 NLT Reach for it! The journey home is nice, but the journey is not the destination. Those who are content with nothing more than joy in the journey are settling for too little satisfaction. Our hearts tell us there is more to this life than this life. We, like E.T., lift bent fingers to the sky. We may not know where to point, but we know not to call th...

Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” — John 1:46 It’s not enough to know what the Scriptures say about Jesus, study the doctrines concerning Him, or ponder His teaching. There’s only one way to really know Jesus: we must follow Philip’s advice and experience Jesus for ourselves. That’s because Christianity is essentially a relationship with a Person. What we experience as we follow Jesus inspires us to love Him, share His truth, and continue following Him. John told of a blind man healed by Jesus — on the Sabbath. The Jews, outraged that Jesus would violate the law and commit such a flagrant sin, confronted the man about who Jesus was. The man’s answer was straightforward: Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see. — John 9:25 The healed man did not have all of the doctrinal answers. But one thing he did have was a life-changing encounte...