Walking in God's Woods

  I have written recently about my tendency to make idols out of the things and/or people in my life, and this morning, the last chapter of the book of Joshua gives me a little more insight on that topic. The last chapter is Joshua's "farewell address" to the children of Israel before he dies. He begins by reminding the people of all the things that God had done for them, from promising Abraham that he would be father of a nation to rescuing the Israelites out of Egypt to bringing them into the Promised Land. Then Joshua asks the people an important question about who they are going to worship, the true God or the false gods. This question leads Joshua to the often quoted line: "...As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15 Of course, the people responded that they will also worship the one true God, then they list reasons why they will continue to worship Him. Beginning in verse 19, Joshua called the people out and told them that they wouldn...

By nature, I have never been a morning person. My body's natural wake/sleep cycle seems to be to stay up most of the night and sleep until noon. Angie and Rayne have always been our early birds, while Carrie and I have been the night owls, but as I have gotten older, I have started to find peace and joy in waking up early. I don't necessarily wake up early on my own, but I have started to enjoy the early morning hours when the house is quiet and I can be alone with God. Since we cleared our path in the woods, I have made a point of going out to walk each morning, rain or shine. As soon as I get home from dropping Rayne and Carrie off at school during the school year, especially when it is still dark until 7:30 in the morning, I go out for my morning walk. Now that we are on our summer schedule, I have been out in God's woods as early as 6:00 a.m. I love to hear the birds waking up and the squirrels getting out to find breakfast. The most awesome thing the other morning was ...

  Several years ago, when Facebook and social media were just beginning, I remember seeing a post where someone was blasting a local restaurant for a bad experience they had. I can't remember whether the food was bad, the service was slow, or what the issue was, but one thing I definitely remember is that the original post claimed that the restaurant needed to be put out of business. This kind of post was not new, but I remember thinking about how extreme everyone was becoming because of the internet. In the days before social media, if you had a bad experience with a business, you would probably tell your closest friends and family, and the business might have lost a few customers over a simple mistake. Today's extremist attitude has become so common that it has a name: "cancel culture." If you don't like something, you try to have it cancelled. The worst part of the problem is that so many people generate untruths with the sole intention of getting someone or so...

Confession time: I am impatient. But I come by it honestly. When I was a teenager, we shared a yard with my grandparents, and every so often, Poppaw Pinson would call and say he wanted me to ride with him to town. Like a typical teenager, I would take my time getting a shower before going. On more than one occasion, Poppaw just went ahead without me. On one occasion, in particular, Poppaw didn't even wait five minutes for me to brush my teeth and put on my shoes! When he called, you had better be ready to go. At my age, I am not quite as bad as Poppaw was in his 80s, but I can still be pretty impatient. I have been especially impatient with God recently. I know it's wrong, but when I pray for something, I want it to happen immediately. Thankfully, all of my walks in God's woods are teaching me to be more patient, but I have to admit that it is still hard. Reading today's verse helps me reflect on my walk with God, and writing these blog posts has helped me gain more ins...

  Just like Luke 22, I seem to be drawn to Psalms 102 on my walks with God. I have already written about being in the middle of my life. This time, the end of the Psalm stood out to me. First of all, I would say that verse 25 is a pretty good theme verse for this entire blog series. God established this land long before I ever lived here. There is a clearing in the path where I often like to stop and look up at the sky. Whether sunny, cloudy, rainy, or even in the dark, I know that the heavens are the work of God's hands. These are just a few of the reasons why I feel so spiritually connected and close to God in my daily walks. Verse 26 is both sad and reassuring to me. That beautiful, God-created path will some day disappear. The Bible says that even the grass and the flower will fade away. The reassurance is that God Himself will endure. Actually, part of the beauty of that walking path is that God changes it little by little every day. So far, I have seen late winter turn to spr...

In general, I am not a big fan of the book of Leviticus. I have a hard time reading through all of the extremely specific laws and regulations that the tribe of Israel were required to follow. Of course, if I have a hard time just reading all of those rules, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for the Israelites to try to follow every letter of the law. On my walk, I opened to Leviticus 16, which is an entire chapter of rules that Aaron was required to follow in order to access the Holy of Holies in the temple to be able to ask forgiveness for the people of Israel once a year. The thing that really hit me in this chapter is just how complicated it was to ask forgiveness of sins, and that only happened once a year! Also, the individual people of Israel were not even able to ask forgiveness for themselves--as a matter of fact, it was a sin to attempt to ask forgiveness for yourself. This chapter reminded me once again of the grace of God. I don't have to wait for a hig...

  Several months ago, Angie and I were having a discussion about loving our kids, and Angie mentioned that a friend of hers from work had made a statement about not making idols of your own family. I don't remember the exact wording of the quote, but I have thought a lot about that statement since I heard it. As a husband and parent, I know that I would give everything I have for my family, and I believe that most parents would do the same, but Jesus taught a much more difficult statement: If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters — yes, and even his own life — he cannot be My disciple. Luke 14:26 Jesus wants me to be willing to give up even my family to follow Him. I do not think that God wants me to literally hate my family, but I do believe that He expects my love for Him to far exceed my love for them. To the world, it seems respectable and loving to say that I would give everything for my family, and it sounds ab...

  I am writing this post immediately after writing the post about giving grace. For whatever reason, God brought me back to the end of the book of Luke again this morning. Of course, the last few chapters of any of the four Gospels is really what the entire Bible is all about, so I guess this is a good place to return to. I have stated before that I am not trying to interpret these verses in context; instead, I am writing what each day's verse means to me at the time. First of all, I will never be able to understand the power that was required for Jesus to call out to God to forgive the people who were killing him. I have a hard enough time forgiving some simple misunderstandings, even after a few days, much less forgiving the people who are actively tormenting you to a gruesome death. Secondly, I find something almost funny in the phrasing that "they do not know what they are doing." How many times have I gone through moments in my life, making an absolute mess of things...

My previous post was Psalms 102:24, which I read on my birthday, and I wrote about how I am looking forward to God's plans for the rest of my life. What I didn't write about is what I was actually feeling on my birthday. (Spoiler alert: I usually do not write these posts on the day I read the verse.) Let me begin by saying that I didn't have any expectation of doing something major for my birthday or getting some extravagant gift. As a matter of fact, the only thing I usually want for my birthday is to spend time with my family. If anyone had asked me what I wanted that day, the answer would have been simple, but sad: the only gift I really would have liked would have been a chance to talk to Abe. On the other hand, I wasn't expecting that to happen, I would not have wanted the rest of the family to try to make that happen, and I never even said those words aloud to anyone. Other than that, I enjoyed going out with Angie, Rayne, and Carrie, having a simple dinner, and c...

  Some days, the verse God points me to is almost too accurate. Like most mornings, I went out for my walk, then asked God to show me what he wants me to focus on, and I landed on Psalms 102. Overall, this chapter is very similar to a lot of the other chapters in the book of Psalms, but verse 24 hit me like a ton of bricks, especially considering I stood there reading it on the morning of my 47th birthday.... For a little over a year now, my family has teased me that I have been going through a mid-life crisis. My first thought is mathematical: if this is the middle of my life, then I am excited about the thought of making it to 94! My second thought is emotional: I can definitely see the events of the past year as marking some kind of midpoint of my life. The past year has seen a lot of things change in my life. My "crisis" began when I started thinking about how quickly our first child's life is moving. The entire 2023-2024 school year has been filled with so many lasts...

David led a complicated life. He was born a shepherd boy. He saved Israel by defeating a giant. He was chosen to take over as king of Israel. He faced numerous attempts on his life. He had an affair with the wife of one of his soldiers. His oldest son raped his own half-sister. And another of his sons killed his brother and tried to take over the kingdom. This last statement is the basis for this post. David gave his soldiers direct instructions to spare the life of Absalom, even though Absalom had intended to take the throne as king of Israel away from David. Regardless of the conflict that existed between the two of them, David loved his son. I can feel the pain and anguish that David felt when he wished that he had died in Absalom's place. Reading this verse brings tears to my eyes. I have said many times over the past year and a half that a loving father will always take the hurt for the child he loves, and I mean every word of it. I have seen Rayne and Carrie and Abe suffer in...