Image: In 1946, Norman Rockwell produced this painting for the Saturday Evening Post following his visit to a one-room schoolhouse in Carroll County, Georgia. My son’s first-grade class learned two things “by heart.” They learned to sing the song of the U.S. presidents, and they used a sort of rhythmic chant to help them learnContinue reading “Study Genealogies to Show Thyself Approved. 1 Chronicles 1:1.”
Category Archives: No man is an Island/Family
What if You Have No Family Tree? Nehemiah 7:61-65.
Alex Haley’s book ROOTS includes a scene in which an African tribal leader expresses shock over any child unable to recite from memory his genealogy to the tenth generation. I have never met anyone in America that can recite from memory ten generations of their genealogy. I can’t do it. In fact, my written recordContinue reading “What if You Have No Family Tree? Nehemiah 7:61-65.”
We Need Friends and Family. Proverbs 14:4.
When you have a houseful of children it is easy to daydream of a life alone. All the rooms are clean and Mom slips into a bubble bath whispering the old slogan, “Calgon, take me away!” People are tough. In Jean Paul Sartre’s play NO EXIT, the characters, now dead and condemned to hell, realizeContinue reading “We Need Friends and Family. Proverbs 14:4.”
Corporate Sin. Daniel 9:8-9.
Americans, more than any other culture, are obsessed with independence. We tell ourselves we can do what we want. We cherish individual freedom over everything else, to the point that we would rather be self-destructive than submit to someone else’s idea of how we should live. But our selfish obsession with “liberty,” “self-actualization,” “self-care,” orContinue reading “Corporate Sin. Daniel 9:8-9.”
Future Generations.
Do you ever pray for the people of the future? Do you pray for your children or for grandchildren not yet born? Think about this— God is not bound by time; He is OUTSIDE of time. To Him, we exist in an eternal present. When you pray for future generations, you are praying for peopleContinue reading “Future Generations.”
The Time Machine.
What if you could go back to the days of Job or Abraham? There are no written scriptures. Everything you know about the One True God came to you by word of mouth passed down through generations: stories about families and wars and the flood and animal sacrifices and a God who might be listeningContinue reading “The Time Machine.”
Not My Problem.
Heather was the warmest girl in law school. She was kind and generous and as sweet as pie. She would do anything for anyone. When a lawyer needed a bone marrow transplant, students were asked to give blood at a local firm in order to find a match. Heather refused our offer to carpool overContinue reading “Not My Problem.”
Generations.
Americans are obsessed with independence. We want to do OUR OWN thing, no matter what. Period. Mic Drop. It is impossible. As John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself.” What we do affects those around us. Your family is a life boat. We are in the boat together: paddling, steering, fishing,Continue reading “Generations.”
Household Words: 