The following is one in a series of devotionals reprised from Morning Manna, a daily email devotional I wrote from 2000 – 2005. [hr] TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2000 WHAT IS YOUR INSPIRATION? My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; My tongue is the pen of a ready…
Category: Devotional
Positively Negative | The Power of Positive Thinking
The following is one in a series of devotionals reprised from Morning Manna, a daily email devotional I wrote from 2000 – 2005. [hr] POSITIVELY NEGATIVE | THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING …we glory in tribulations… Rom. 5:3 It is so much easier to gripe in tribulations than it is to glory. Or is that…
Go with God – Morning Manna Rewind
From 1980 through 1996, I was in “full-time ministry.” I spent those years as a church staff member. From 1985 through 1996, I was a senior pastor, first in Turlock, California, then in Paris, Texas. The last few months of that period, I was pastor of a church in Arlington, Texas. This leg of my journey…
A Handmaid’s Tale: Looking into the “Martha Syndrome”
Confession: This has nothing to do with the sordid tale of the popular book or mini-series by this name, as the subtitle of the article surely reveals. Instead, I use “handmaid” as it was commonly used in Bible times – as that of a female servant. Moreover, I use it the way traditional writers used “man” or…
The Dance of the Insane – or – The Direction of the Informed?
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. ~Friedrich Nietzsche I was in the house alone, except for my English Setters, Huck and Finn. I was lustily singing a Willie Nelson song to the plaintiff guitar strumming in my head. The dogs couldn’t hear…
Insanity revisited, or Life in Review
randy travis mug shot I like Randy Travis. I know he fell hard and landed naked on the side of a north Texas road, broke and broken by a life he hadn’t found a way to keep up with. I like his song, “1982,” because it resonates with my soul. Now, it is about a…
Good Grief! Is that possible?
“Good grief!” It’s one of those ironic, oxymoronic phrases that people have worked into their vocabulary to express incredulity at a thing or person. I don’t know its origin (unless it was Charlie Brown), but I have always been interested in the fact that the phrase even exists. Last night found my wife and I…