In a cartoon strip some years ago a little guy was taking heat from his sister and friends for a newly found “calling”—patting birds on the head. The distressed birds would approach, lower their little feathered pates to be patted, sigh deeply, and walk away satisfied. It brought him no end of fulfillment—in spite of the teasing he took from others. “What’s wrong with patting birds on the head?” he wanted to know. “What’s wrong with it?” his embarrassed friends replied, “No one else does it!”
Read MoreCategory Archives: Encouragement & Healing
Encouragement
When you stop to analyze the concept, “encourage” takes on new meaning. It’s the act of inspiring others with renewed courage, spirit, or hope. When we encourage others we spur them on, we stimulate and affirm them.
Read MoreMy Stress–God’s Strength
Let me give you three very practical thoughts regarding this matter of God’s strength through stress, as found in Psalm 46.
Read MoreLife’s Arrows
Having just held a memorial service for a friend several years younger than I who had died with liver cancer, I have been thinking about how to respond when struck by an arrow of affliction. Not a little irritating dart, but an arrow plunged deeply.
Read MoreAn Advocate
The Book of Job drips with mystery. The sobs of the man and the silence of his God form a strange combination. From the start, there are surprises and anomalies. Job is portrayed for us as “blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil” (1:1) . . . and yet the bottom drops out of his world. He loses everything except his life and his wife. How strange of God to permit one of His own to become the victim of a devil-inspired plot to reduce him to putty.
Read MorePermission Granted
Paul jumped all over the Galatians for allowing a handful of legalistic Judaizers to invade their lives and clip their wings. Remember his rebuke? “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery . . . . For you were called to freedom, brethren” (Galatians 5:1, 13).
Read MoreDisciplines of Durability
Tucked away in the folds of Hebrews 11 is a two-word biography worth a second glance: “he endured” (11:27). The “he” refers to Moses. Moses was the one who hung tough, who refused to give in or give up, who decided that no amount of odds against him would cause him to surrender. He had staying power. He possessed the disciplines of durability.
Read MoreGod’s Delivery Service
I don’t know where you are today, but I have a sneaky suspicion that you, like me, might have a few intruders crowding into your life and could use some divine reinforcements. If so, don’t hesitate to call for help. Tell your Father that you are running out of hope and energy and ideas . . . that you need “not . . . words taught by human wisdom, but . . . those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words . . . . For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:13, 16).
Read MoreHealing Takes Time
Hippocrates was a Greek physician considered by many to be “the Father of Medicine.” It is he, you may recall, who wrote the immortal Hippocratic Oath still taken by those entering the practice of medicine. This ancient physician lived somewhere between 450 BC and 375 BC. He wrote much more than the famous oath that bears his name. Other pieces of fine literature flowed from his pen, many of which still exist. Most of his works, as we might expect, deal with the human anatomy, medicine, and healing.
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