Category: Morning Musings

Morning Musing: Amos 3:7

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“Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing his counsel to his servants the prophets.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Are you the kind of person who likes to know what’s going on? Some people are go-with-the-flow people. They’re content to just sit back and let life come to them. Some are more of the type-A model. They’re the ones who sit on the top of life and are constantly leaning forward to see what’s coming next. I think I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m definitely not type-A, but I also like to be very well-informed as to what is coming down the pipe at me if I can help it. Surprises aren’t really my thing. That’s why I love what God says here through Amos.

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Morning Musing: 1 Corinthians 1:24-25

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“Yet to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

When I was growing up, I collected useless trivia and ironic sayings. For instance, did you know there are 119 ridges on the edge of a quarter. There will probably never be an occasion you’ll need that particular bit of information, but you probably won’t forget it either. Funny how that works. Do you know what’s also funny? In English we drive on parkways and park on driveways. There are all kinds of paradoxes like that if you pay very close attention to the world around you. Do you know what probably generates more apparent paradoxes than anything else? The Christian faith. Let me explain.

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Morning Musing: Amos 2:9-11

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“Yet I destroyed the Amorite as Israel advanced; his height was like the cedars, and he was as sturdy as the oaks; I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. And I brought you from the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness in order to possess the land of the Amorite. I raised up some of your sons as prophets and some of your young men as Nazirites. Is this not the case, Israelites? This is the Lord’s declaration.”‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

Some sins are generational. When I was growing up, my family was within a few days of making our first pilgrimage to Disney World. I remember being upset about something and, standing in our front yard facing the door to the house where my dad stood, I complained that I didn’t have much to be happy about at the moment. He actually didn’t kill me. One of my own boys recently bemoaned how awful his life is. I didn’t kill him either, but reminded him of the many blessings he does enjoy. As a parent, this kind of thing makes you want to scream and pull your hair out. But it also makes you want to throw your hands up and shout, “What?!?!?” That’s a little like what God seems to be feeling here.

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Morning Musing: James 1:2

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“Consider it a great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials…” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Years ago I read Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. The book was a combination of science fiction and medieval adventure. It should have been an easy sell for a great book. And it did end strong. But it took me just shy of forever to get into it. The beginning was as slow and dry as anything I’ve ever read. Most often, an author starts a book with some kind of compelling, attention-grabber that will get you quickly engaged and hungry for more. Similarly, if you’re going to include something hard in the book, you save that for later after the audience is already engaged with you. Not James. He socks us in the nose from the moment we get started. What are we supposed to do with this?

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Morning Musing: Joel 3:10

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“Beat your plows into swords and your pruning knives into spears. Let even the weakling say, ‘I am a warrior.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the things critics of the Scriptures like to do is find apparent contradictions and use them to argue against their reliability. This is one of those places. This verse is set against Isaiah 2:4 where the prophet talks about just the opposite: beating swords into plowshares. Is this really a contradiction of that? What are we supposed to do with places like this?

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