This I Believe is an organization engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives. Over 125,000 of these essays, written by people from all walks of life, have been heard on public radio and featured in weekly podcasts. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.

In 2007 the musician, Mary Chapin Carpenter, suffered a pulmonary embolism which led to her depression. This post contains her moving essay in which she recounts a small act of kindness that was the catalyst for her healing. It is a beautiful story and a reminder to us all of the transforming power of kindness.

A few days ago I came across an excerpt from a memoir written by Heather Kopp titled Sober Mercies. It struck me how easy it is to lose our way when we think we have God figured out. It can lead to an arrogance which Jesus detested. In fact the harshest words of Jesus were directed to the religious leaders of his day. The good news is that we can find our way again by returning to the throne of grace with humility, reverence, and trust. May the words of this post be a blessing to you this day.

On September 14th I attended my 50th high school reunion. I had missed the 40th reunion so had not seen the vast majority of my 175 former classmates for 20 years. It was a poignant gathering for many of us, as perhaps it will be our last.

After picking up our name tags we passed a table with two dozen white paper bags containing small lights with names printed on them, a tribute to those no longer with us. I saw the name Anne Stevens who I had a long chat with at the 30th anniversary, Kristi Stetson, my neighbor growing up, and Bobby Adams, a former basketball teammate. I then noticed Glenn Hoit, which triggered a moving memory of a two year journey Glenn shared with several classmates, friends, and family through emails as he battled pancreatic cancer.

Glenn’s wife, Terry, has graciously allowed me to share excerpts of these emails in the hope that those who read this post will be encouraged and touched by his words.

In the introduction of J.B. Phillips book, Your God Is Too Small, Phillips writes: “If it is true that there is Someone in charge of the whole mystery of life and death, we can hardly expect to escape a sense of futility and frustration until we begin to see what He is like and what His purposes are.” We all have a tendency to try to contain God in a box of our own understanding, but He can’t be caged, for He is far more magnificent, wonderful, awesome, loving, and merciful than our minds are able to grasp, and that is a great thing.

All of us experience worry, anxiety, and fear in this life. Jesus confirmed this would be the case but assures us that we don’t need to be crippled by these worries. In fact the day before his death He said to his disciples (John 16:33), “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

This post is a moving 9 minute video by Jill Briscoe reflecting on her near death experience on 9/11 on an airplane in which she encountered the peace of God in the midst of great anxiety. May her reflections on her experience be an encouragement for us when we face troubles in our own lives.

In his letter to the Colossians Paul makes this astounding claim about Jesus Christ:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Colossians 2:15-20)

This post includes a wonderful sermon by Andy Cook probing this mind blowing claim that all of creation points to Jesus.

Another moving essay by Brian Doyle about attending an AA meeting with a friend at a small town firehouse, one of thousands of rooms across America that host these meetings. Brian writes of what he witnessed, “It seemed to me that they were great because they knew they were not great, healthy because they knew they were ill, admirable because they knew they were not admirable at all by the measures of the real world, as another man called the world outside the room in the firehouse.”

A few weeks ago after 14 days with Covid I finally tested negative. Although much like a flu I did experience a physical dullness that carried over to a spiritual dullness. When I began to regain my sense of smell and taste, I rediscovered an old book published in 1974 titled “A Touch of Wonder” by Arthur Gordon. I remember first reading it nearly 50 years ago and being moved by stories from the author’s life. The book is divided into 8 chapters by various gifts: the gift of caring, shared wisdom, self-discovery, faith, bright encounters, awareness, adaptability, and life.

This book was a balm for my spiritual dullness. The author’s simple yet profound stories encouraged me to recall, with gratitude, meaningful moments from my own life.

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.”