Like many of you, I like things to be in order, and events to happen according to meticulously laid out plans. And whenever something goes awry, unexpectedly, depending on the level of disturbance, I tend to get impatient or even angry about it. Last week, I was on my way to my auto mechanic, an usual ten minutes trip. Five minutes into the drive, I ran into a dreaded “road closed” sign. I was une...

This past weekend, I went to Minnesota for a wedding. Usually, Minnesota is cold this time of year, so I expected chilly weather. Well, imagine my surprise when it was 90 degrees! It was really hot, but it worked out beautifully for the wedding.While the weather surprised me, something else caught my attention. The leaves, of course, were changing. But in mid-October, they were truly holding on be...

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” — Matthew 19:14This past Sunday afternoon, after worship, I sat in the living room to breathe for a moment. I looked outside and saw a couple of firefighters on my street playing ball with some of the neighborhood children. There were no sirens, no emergency, no one rushing anywhere. J...

In the scripture above most commonly titled “The Parable of the Persistent Widow,” just as in many other parables of Jesus, like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, or the Parable of the Sower, or of the Tax Collector, Jesus was providing spiritual food to those who hungered for it. In fact, in the very first verse, we are told the reason for this parable. Depending on the Bible version, it reads: ...

There is something about summer that invites us to slow down. For some, summer means vacations, family gatherings, long days, cookouts, trips to the shore, or simply a change from the normal rhythm of life. For our children, it means a break from school. Even in the life of the church, summer feels different. People travel. Attendance becomes lighter. Familiar faces disappear for a Sunday or two, ...

By Rev. Franck AguilhThe word “fear” and its many variations such as: afraid, feared, fears, etc.  appear 180 times in the Bible, in the Old and the New Testaments. In fact, in the very first book of the Bible, in Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve hid from God out of fear. “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid” Adam said “because I was naked; so, I hid (Gen. 3:10). Fear is the first negative ...

You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.John 5:39–40 Come is a verb. In the Greek it is erchomai, one of the most ordinary words in the New Testament. It means to come or to go. To move from where you are to somewhere else. It is a bodily word. A directional word. You cannot ...

As most, if not all, of you know, a couple of months ago, my wife had knee replacement surgery. Though she was in the hospital for just one night, the post-surgery physical therapy requirements are rather grueling: three times a week for at least twelve weeks. Many nights she finds it difficult to fall asleep, and often enough, relied on a French song she has found on U-Tube to help her doze off. ...

In the thirty or so years that I have been in ministry, I can hardly count the many times I have been called to answer or explain questions dealing with prayers: How come God has not yet answered my prayer? How long does it take for God to answer a prayer? Is God ever going to answer my prayer? And the most popular one: why does not God answer my prayer?Just last week, in my Tuesday and Thursday m...

Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2 Sometimes a single image lingers in the heart long after the television is turned off. This week, I found myself returning again and again to images from Laos in Southeast Asia. Four villagers had been trapped for more than a week inside a flooded cave. Days passed with uncertainty. As the water rose and ...