Ezekiel 10:18; 11:23
There’s a particular kind of silence that happens when someone you love pulls away from you a little at a time. No slammed door, no final argument. Just a slow, quiet distance that you almost don’t notice until one day you realize they’re gone.
Continue reading “The Spirit of God Leaves the Temple”
Ezekiel 8:4
Most of us figure that if God’s calling us to something, life ought to start getting easier, not harder. So when it falls apart instead, we start wondering if we heard him wrong.
Continue reading “Taken into Captivity”
Ezekiel 3:10–11
Most of us have had a moment when we knew exactly what God wanted us to do, and we still hesitated. Not because we didn’t believe him. Because we didn’t feel ready.
Continue reading “Eat the Scroll”
Lamentations 3:24–25
Most of us know the strange quiet of a waiting room. The muffled television, the magazines nobody reads, the clock that seems to move slower than it should. Somebody else has the news. All we can do is sit there and wait for it.
Continue reading “The Only Portion That Lasts”
Lamentations 2:14
Most of us know the difference between a friend who tells us what we want to hear and one who tells us the truth. One feels better in the moment. The other may hurt, but it’s the friend we need most.
Continue reading “What They Wanted to Hear”
Jeremiah 32:27
The city was surrounded. Babylon’s army had been camped outside Jerusalem’s walls for months, and everyone inside knew it was only a matter of time. That’s when God told Jeremiah to do something that must have seemed completely insane: buy a piece of land.
Not just any land. Land in the path of the very army closing in. Jeremiah paid good money for a field in Benjamin, signed the deed, sealed it in a clay jar, and handed it over. His reason was simple. God said that one day, people would buy and sell land in Israel again. Life would return. Restoration was coming. The purchase was a sign of faith in a future only God could see.
Continue reading “What a Good Father Does”This is the last book of the Old Testament and it is a great one. I have spent the last week studying and reading this little book and it was not a waste of time. As I studied and meditated on this book, it became clear that God was calling His people back to Himself and back to genuine faith. Continue reading “Malachi”
The prophets Haggai and Zechariah joined forced in 520 B.C. to encourage the rebuilding of the temple following Babylonian captivity. Continue reading “Haggai and getting to work.”
The book of Zephaniah is an interesting and challenging little book. It was written by Zephaniah somewhere between 640-620 B.C. Continue reading “Zephaniah. A matter of sin and hiding.”