My nephew Dane Wilson took pictures at the Winter Feast this past Friday night, and I begged for a couple to post here for you. The first is an overview of the room. The tables were set for 304 people, so you get a bit of an idea of the size of this thing. The next photo is of our newly acquired church dishware. And the last is of some of our fabulous volunteers who are in a sea of wineglasses!
We women are easily distracted by our own needs. This is easy because, after all, they are ours. And I don’t know how many times I have heard women say that their husbands are not “meeting their needs.” In fact, I’m sure we could find women’s groups devoted to discussing how their husbands are not meeting their needs. I have no doubt there are blogs devoted to the subject.
The fact of the matter is that a man cannot meet the needs of a woman, because her needs far exceed the capacity of any man to fill. I think it was Walter Trobisch who said, “There’s not a man on earth who can satisfy the heart of a woman.” So women ought to find something more interesting to discuss. This is not anything new.
But the problem persists because women impose a tremendous burden on their husbands, and they naively expect some kind of arrangement where the husband is given to the wife to meet all her emotional, spiritual, physical, and intellectual needs (whatever all those needs are). What a grave disappointment to find out that her husband was not informed.
Now I am not saying that men do not meet any needs of their wives. Of course they do! But when women look to fallen men to give them purpose and meaning in life, they are looking in the wrong place. It is asking of a finite creature what only the Almighty can do. He created us with all these needs, and only He can really satisfy our soul’s desires. A husband is a source of tremendous Continue reading ‘Needy Women’
First for the background. For the last thirty-four years our church has met in various places. We started above a garage, sometimes meeting in a neighboring park, and then moved to various buildings until we outgrew them. We settled in Greene’s Body and Paint shop, and each week some of the men would hose down the floors and set up folding chairs. Eventually, when Logos School got started, we met in their facility, and when Logos moved, so did we. We met in their auditorium, until we outgrew it. Then we met at various places, including the local high school auditorium, the Admin building on the university campus, and at a Continue reading ‘Our Hope Chest’
What do you do when your duties seem to outweigh your abilities? Or your to-do list is looming over you like a big black thundercloud? You’re starting the week out with more work, activities, plans, assignments, and commitments crammed in than seem humanly possible to fulfill. And you don’t have enough help. I’m pretty sure we’ve all been there, and you may even be at this very tight spot right now.
First off, go ahead and acknowledge that it is humanly impossible. You are going to need great supernatural strength and help. Then humbly ask God to be your help. Ask Him to organize and guide your week. Commit it all to Him and then set your alarm clock by faith, committing Monday morning to Him, and go to bed.
Then, when the alarm goes off, turn to what can be done on the human level. We can ask for strength and wisdom and grace, but we still need to get it all done. God isn’t going to actually do it for us; He is going to enable us to do it with our own feeble brains and His mighty arm. It really does help to take one day at a time. Maybe just one hour of each day at a time. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Continue reading ‘Heavy Duties’
Freely you have received, freely give. This is a great principle of the Christian life. We do not protest when God gives to us, when He loads us with blessings and mercies. That would be unnatural. We receive His gifts freely without a fuss. This is the way we are to give to others: freely (and without a fuss).
I have always thought of this verse in terms of financial and material blessings: God gives to me, and I in turn give to others. So it startled me the other morning when I noticed the context of this statement in Matthew 10. Jesus has called His disciples, and He is giving them instructions as He sends them out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give” (vs. 8).
The giving that the disciples will be doing is not in the form of financial gifts. They will be giving themselves away, laying themselves out for sick, unclean, dead, and demon-possessed Continue reading ‘Giving the Gospel Freely’
The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present, the exact present, that is unbearable.
Remember one is given strength to bear what happens to one, but not the 100 and 1 different things that might happen.
C.S. Lewis, Letter to An American Lady
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