The song Eve of Destruction was released in the summer of 1965. The country was divided by the Vietnam war, the draft, civil rights, fear of nuclear war, hypocritical behavior, and general mistrust of the government. Sound slightly familiar? Recorded by Barry McGuire, the song became the official theme of the protest movement. But that was not the intent of nineteen-year-old Jewish songwriter P.F. Sloan. He wrote this on his website. “I wrote it as a prayer to God for an answer. I have felt it was a love song and written as a prayer because, to cure an ill, you need to know what is sick. In my youthful zeal I hadn’t realized that this would be taken as an attack on The System! He went on about the division created by the song itself. “Any positive press on me or Barry was considered unpatriotic. I told the press it was a love song. A love song to and
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It was 10 years ago that I was in the process of writing Stay: Lessons My Dog Taught Me about Life, Loss, and Grace. I had learned so many wonderful lessons from our sweet canine friend Hannah. After her passing we rescued a puppy that we named Maggie. She was a challenge compared to her predecessor. But Maggie has grown into a sweet and treasured companion. This is an excerpt from one of my favorite chapters in the book about a lesson I learned from Miss Maggie. Maggie is a Labrador puppy mixed with some other mystery DNA. She is a bouncing, wiggling, sixty-pound bundle of unrestrained energy. Whenever she sees a new person, she cannot stop herself from jumping. Oddly enough, some people do not enjoy sixty-pound creatures hurdling pell-mell into their personal space. Weird. So we either need to fix this bad behavior or become hermits. Today we enrolled Maggie in puppy training classes. One of the first
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I can’t remember a more contentious cultural climate in my lifetime. Followers of Christ are wondering how to make a difference in an unfriendly environment. I think modeling a parable related by Jesus is desperately needed today. You probably know the story well. One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: “Teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What does the law of Moses say? How do you read it?” The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” The religious “expert” should have quit right there. Instead he did what many of us try to do when Jesus tweaks our hearts. We look for the loopholes. The man wanted to justify his actions, so he
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When I got serious about following Jesus there was a song we sang regularly at gatherings. We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the LordWe are one in the Spirit, we are one in the LordAnd we pray that our unity will one day be restoredAnd they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our loveYeah they’ll know we are Christians by our love What a difference the body of Christ would make in today’s contentious world if we believed and lived these very simple words. We are one in the spirit. There should be no separation by wealth, color, talent, or power. We are one in Jesus. We pray that our unity will one day be restored. We are still praying that today. It is not a difficult concept to understand how important unity is to achieve any goal. Can a team of self-centered football players win a championship? A team needs to have one
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I love how life experiences can teach you new lessons or reinforce lessons learned. Joni and I just returned from a week long retreat in Colorado at a beautiful B&B that I highly recommend called The Silver Lake Lodge. Less that a mile away from our awesome retreat was the trailhead that leads you to Saint Mary’s Glacier and the beautiful lake beneath it. We looked at the trail description. The hike was approximately 3/4 of a mile to the lake and the hiking app listed it as moderate. On our first full day in Colorado we decided to make the trek. The sign at the base of the trail was a bit sobering. But we sent a text asking our kids to pray for us and the location of our wills. Immediately we were taken aback at how rocky the trail before us appeared. Okay. This is doable. Just step carefully and take your time. This is not a
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Not all of us have experienced the joy of Psalm 133. “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” (Ps.133:1, NIV) There is no more powerful community than a group of believers who live in unity. Nothing levels the playing field like Jesus when we genuinely follow Him. In Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians he offered the benefits of honest community. “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” (1 Thessalonians 5:14) Interesting that the challenges from Paul are listed from easiest to hardest. I can admonish the idle all day long. I am pretty good about encouraging the fainthearted. On my good days I help the weak. But be patient with them all? Come on Paul. Do you know these people? But that is the beauty of community. It is messy and beautiful. Frustrating and fulfilling. It is life. And it is best
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I love to watch Maggie when she is overseeing her backyard domain. Sometimes she goes to the fence and lets out a couple of deep-throated barks to let some perceived threat know that she is on duty. Or she patrols every inch of the yard, sniffing as if it is her first and not her one-thousandth time to do this. But the routine I love most is when she lies in the yard with head high, surveying her kingdom in silence. She is completely dialed in, listening for any disturbance that might need her attention. Maggie is most able to take in her world when she drops the barking and growling. Well played, Maggie. You are doing something most of us humans have a difficult time mastering—simply being silent and observing God’s world. There is hardly ever a complete silence in our soul. God is whispering to us well-nigh incessantly. Whenever the sounds of the world die out in the
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