Waiting is hard—praying for years with silence the only reply, watching others move while you stand still, wondering if God has forgotten or if you took a wrong turn. That was Isaac in Genesis 25: married at forty, still childless nearly twenty years later, the promise hanging unfinished. What do we do in the long stretch when nothing seems to move?
Pastor Tim cools off in the pool as we think about cooling off our uncontrolled wills and being more focused on the things God values.
Knowing where we want to end up is easy; trusting that faithfulness will get us there is another matter—especially when the path looks like a dead end. Ruth 3–4 traces ordinary people facing exactly that tension, each called to let go of control at the moment it costs them most.
When commitment costs more than you have to give, and there’s a way out, the practical thing to do would be to take it. But, Ruth chooses to stay, speaking words we associate with weddings in the cold shadow of funerals. God calls us to be willing to hold fast in our darkest places, too.
Sin distorts our ability to understand what God is saying to us and how much we need His mercy.
Sometimes we look at technology as a force opposed to God. But is that what the Bible actually says about about human innovation?
It’s easy to talk about being bold for Jesus until opposition comes—when it’s dangerous, uncomfortable or people may look down on us. In Matthew 2, Joseph and Herod both have choices to make in response to God coming into the world. Do our own responses to God look show bold faith or frantic fear?
When we find ourselves demanding mercy from God do we see all the mercy He’s already provided? Do we understand the true mercy He’s offering?
There’s a pull in all of us to take the kind of strength the world respects—talk tough, take no prisoners, own the other side—and call that faithfulness. Does the way we fight for truth actually looks anything like Jesus?
What do the days we live in indicate? What should we truly be anticipating? As life and the uncertainty of the world swirls around us, God calls us to focus in our anticipation.