Advent Calendars, Kids, & the Need for Jesus to Come
A dear friend of mine gave my family an Advent calendar five years ago. It is a special delight, this calendar, with its tiny little cabinets storing various characters of the Nativity scene....
View ArticleJoy to the World
The familiar hymn says, “Joy to the World, the Lord has come.” If you’re like me, you pass over these words as if they were no big deal. But wait a second. Our God — holy, living, true, glorious, high...
View ArticleOn Locked Rooms & Empty Tombs: A Resurrection Reflection… for Advent
Advent is about waiting for Someone to come. Christmas shows us that He can appear in unexpected ways and in unsuspected places. The Resurrection teaches us something similar—you never know where the...
View ArticleAn Advent Devotional
(Throughout the season of Advent, I’ll occasionally post a brief devotional thought. This will be cross-posted from an Advent devotional in the college ministry where I serve. For some general thoughts...
View ArticleThe Spiritual Life and Divine Assault (When God Hurts Us)
“God sometimes hurts us.” I said this as I sank with a sigh, exhausted and burdened, into a chair in our living room. Wisely, my wife posed the most appropriate question: “Well, does this happen in...
View ArticleThough ____________ ; yet I will……
(From today’s Daily Office) Habakkuk 3:17-18 17 Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from...
View ArticleAn Advent Thought: A Royal Nobody
(Note: I’m (Joel) contributing to a daily Advent devotional. Each post proceeds from a lectionary reading.) John 7:40-44 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the...
View ArticleThe Sweep of Biblical Theology in One Swoop (or at least one awesome piece of...
O Eve! My mother, my daughter, life-giving Eve, Do not be ashamed, do not grieve. The former things have passed away, Our God has brought us to a New Day. See, I am with Child, Through whom all will...
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