It is easy for us to fall victim to illusions. Part of the reason is that we live in two worlds: the material-social world around us, and the invisible, spiritual world operating within and through the visible. Conflicts between these two worlds often occur. A choice that seems wise according to appearances is often not wise at all. So we often seem caught between what we see around us and something that God says is far more real. We are challenged by the words of Jesus to believe the tremendous fact that what is not clearly apparent to us is far more real.

This post includes short essays on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and an article on seeing a 2D Magic Eye image in 3D (an excellent metaphor for seeing the spiritual world through eyes of faith).

Consider times in your life where you were blessed with a clearer vision of the Lord, moments that British pastor John Henry Jowett (1865-1923) calls "Our Brilliant Moments". In this post Jowett challenges us to trust these moments of light as the foundational reality that God is always with us, whether or not we feel His presence in this often dark and troubled world.

One of the remarkable events recorded in the gospels was that when Jesus died the thick Temple veil that separated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was torn in two. As His death occurred on Friday afternoon of Passover week, there would have been tens of thousands of pilgrims at various places in and around the Temple grounds preparing for Passover (as depicted in the image above). That morning, outside the city gates, Jesus was nailed to a cross on the skull-shaped hill called Golgatha along with two criminals. The following post discusses the significance of this miraculous event for all who would believe in Christ.

John 14:6 . . . Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Human beings are incomprehensibly complex creatures, composed of 30-40 trillion cells of 200 different types; each cell performing a unique function that collectively keep the human body running efficiently. Included in our bodies are a number of organs, one of which is the amazing ear. This post contains links to two videos and an excerpt of a sermon by Charles Spurgeon on one of the Bible’s great questions, “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear?” (Psalm 94:9) May we give thanks to our Creator each day for this marvelous gift of hearing.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, “The Supernatural is not remote. It is a matter of daily and hourly experience, as intimate as breathing. Denial of it depends on a certain absent-mindedness.” Why do we so often take for granted the goodness and beauty of creation and miss seeing God’s hand in it all? Alan Dowd explores this question in the attached essay titled, “Finding God’s Fingerprints”.

Have you ever considered rain as one of “God’s great and unsearchable wonders” as declared in the book of Job? Back in 2012 when I was a deacon the 30 of us who worked in various church ministries met monthly to share our experiences. In each meeting we set aside time for one deacon to share a “faith moment”; something that moved or encouraged them in their faith journey. One such moment shared by Wayne, which continues to move me to this day, was the attached short meditation he read titled “God’s Miracle of Rain” by John Piper.

Gazing at the night sky has filled me with awe and wonder ever since I was a child. Being able to see planets in our solar system on dark nights was overwhelming. Yet the majority of the depictions of the solar system I saw in school, like the one above, were not properly scaled to size or to the distance from the sun. This blog is intended to introduce you to a properly scaled solar system and, if you are like me, it may leave you speechless and in awe of the creator and sustainer of all things.

When I was in college (1973 - 1978) two classes that profounded affected me were astronomy and cosmology. As a person of faith I have always believed that science ultimately reveals God’s amazing design in everything. It was during my college years that most cosmologists accepted the Big Bang, the theory that the universe had a beginning. This shift in the scientific understanding of the origins of universe mirrored the creation story in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”.

In one of these classes the professor had us view a short movie titled “Powers of Ten” created in 1977. It absolutely blew my mind then and still does now. This post contains a link to the 1977 movie and a remake of the movie done in 1996. Enjoy!

I’ve been thinking about a question asked by a friend in a men’s bible study. Although I can’t remember his specific words they were something to the effect of “How then shall we live?”. The following post includes two essays that wrestle with this question using performing music as a metaphor for living the Christian life.

Scripture reveals that the treasures of the kingdom of heaven are inexhaustible and eternal. In contrast the riches of the world are finite, we tend to hoard them, and they are temporal. Yet we will go to great lengths in pursuit of worldly treasure but ignore the eternal treasures that Christ is willing to give us freely by trusting Him.

And what are these heavenly treasures? Well, these include God’s wisdom, the forgiveness of our sins, a peace which passes our understanding, joy in abundance, the realization that our lives have a purpose, a manual on how we should live, hope for a bright tomorrow, the gift of the Christ’s Spirit to guide and empower us, and the promise of eternal life in God’s coming kingdom.

The following post contrasts earthy and heavenly treasures and ends with a moving video of a tribe in West Papua who after decades of waiting receives a translation of the New Testament in their native language.

This uplifting story of God’s grace was shared on the Mockingbird website (mbird.com) on 1/28/19. In preparing for their 13th issue of the Mockingbird magazine the writer tells this story of the conversation between Lutheran pastor, Jim Nestingen, and an infantryman who served in Vietnam as they flew across the country.

Each day of our lives we make decisions based on our understanding of what we believe to be true. How do we come to this understanding? How do we discern if what we hear is true or false? How do we determine whether a person can be trusted? How does this trust develop? Robert Capon said “The truth that makes us free is always ticking away like a time-bomb in the basement of everybody’s church. And that truth isn’t a bunch of ideas. It’s Jesus. Sooner or later, if we just sit still and listen, he’ll blow the lid off any prison we’ve built.”

A wonderful article published in 1988 in the NY Times by Robert Capon, a freelance writer and Episcopal priest, which inspired me to learn how to create a sour dough starter and bake sour dough loaves. My sour dough starter named Sam was born on 1/7/22, lives in my refrigerator, and gets fed once a week.

This post was triggered by a memory of a 99 year friend named Adeline, who I used to visit when I was a deacon. On one visit she asked me about the Holy Spirit. I told her I would investigate and share what I learned. In my research I found a series of lectures giving by Martyn Lloyd Jones to his congregation from 1952-1955, 25 of which were on the Holy Spirit. I printed these lectures for Adeline and after reading them she returned them to me. After Adeline died at age 104 I found the booklet and in thumbing through it saw she had marked it up written notes in the margins. To this day, when I think of Adeline I am inspired by her desire in the last years of her life to continue to seek and more intimately know the God she worshiped and the Holy Spirit who lived in her.

In this moving essay Tim Keller wrestles with questions in the face of his imminent death. He writes: “So when the certainty of your mortality and death finally breaks through, is there a way to face it without debilitating fear? Is there a way to spend the time you have left growing into greater grace, love, and wisdom?”

A few weeks ago my friend, John, sent to several friends a link to a sermon on Psalm 88 preached by Tim Keller titled “How to Deal with Dark Times”. One friend named Anne replied “Loved this sermon. At this stage in life we have all suffered to a certain extent, with more coming, and I find the suffering does make me better, although if I were God I’m not sure I would have the same plan”, to which John replied, “Yes, I might have a few questions too.  A reminder of how this life is the ultimate adventure – so much we don’t know.  But as Cat (Stevens) said, ‘we’re on the road to find out.’” 

God asked his prophet, Elijah, this penetrating question at Mt. Moriah after he had fled for his life from Queen Jezebel. I have found it highly beneficial to wrestle with this question at various times in my own life. How about you? What are you doing here?

In 2014 my wife and I enjoyed a particularly memorable day in Carmel. A few days after we recounted our experience to an artist friend she found an unfinished encaustic painting of the scene we witnessed at Mission Ranch. Once finished, we purchased the painting and it hangs in our home, daily reminding us that our “good shepherd” is always caring for us.

A few years ago Mike Mason wrote a book titled The Mystery of Children. In one excerpt Mike writes “For me the beginning of childlike faith was when God became so big that I could no longer think complex theological thoughts about Him, but could only mumble and muse, stammer and sigh. I was learning the alphabet of praise”.

Another moving Brian Doyle essay on the wonder of children. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of God”.