Basic Truths | Finding God in Everyday Life

  We’re planning a very quiet Thanksgiving this year. I have lots of memories of past Thanksgivings. They run all the way from a high-stress day on call at the hospital to bringing our newborn daughter to see my family for the first time. There are twinges of sadness for people who are no longer with us, but my overriding feelings are those of joy and gratitude.   The idea of giving thanks to God at a particular time has been around for the life of our country and for thousands of years in other parts of the world. Thanksgiving became an official holiday in 1863. President Lincoln’s proclamation stated in part:   “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States…..to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, ...

  Courtesy - heartlight.org If you follow the business news, you will have read countless stories about the coming explosion of data centers to handle all of the artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The projected costs go into the trillions of dollars. You’d think that money would be the limiting factor in building data centers but it’s not. It’s finding enough power to run all the facilities. A single facility can use more power than a medium-sized city. Everything else can be arranged, but if you don’t have the power, it’s all useless.   Continuing from my last post - Paul wrote to the Philippians, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings…..” (Philippians 3:10). If you can, stop for a minute and just meditate on how much power it takes to bring a dead person back to life, and not just to any life, but to an eternal life with an incorruptible body. Now think about what it’s like knowing that the same po...

  I know lots of people but there are very few people that I know . There’s a difference. I regularly go to the gym about 9:00AM so I tend to see the same people there. I know who they are and I know some of their names but I don’t really know them because I just go to work out and I don’t socialize while I’m there. On the other hand, I feel like I know my wife well. We’ve been married 33 years and have an ongoing, growing relationship.   Paul wrote to the Philippians, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings…..” (Philippians 3:10). He understood that knowing Christ is a matter of continual growth. “Not that I have already obtained all this…..but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:12).   We can’t be content with just knowing who Jesus is. He can’t be like those people whose name we know and say “Hello” to without any meaningful interaction. We should...

  We traveled to the Holy Land several years ago. While we were there, we took a trip to the Dead Sea. It is one of the lowest places on the planet. There is no outlet from the Dead Sea. The water that comes into it from the Jordan River eventually just evaporates, leaving behind the salts. As a result, the Dead Sea is so salty (almost ten times more than the ocean) that no fish, vegetation, or any other life can survive in it.   Continuing from my last post regarding Ezekiel 47:1-12. The river flowing out from the temple eventually flows into the Dead Sea. “When it empties into the Sea, the water there becomes fresh. Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the water flows” (Ezekiel 47:8-9). This illustrates the difference between the works of man and the works of God. From a purely human perspective, the river flowing into the sea should just make it a little less salty. It takes a miracle to turn the salt water into fresh.   When we face difficulties, we a...

  I grew up in New Jersey, not far from the beach (or the shore, as we call it up there). The ocean can be a little cool, even in the summer, and the waves can be rough, but that’s part of the fun of it. I’d start out in shallow water and then gradually work my way out to where I could catch the waves before they broke. Other people liked to stay at the water’s edge, just getting their feet wet except for when a big wave came in. They had fun but it didn’t seem to me that they were really immersed in the ocean experience.   Ezekiel was given a vision of a river coming out from underneath the temple and traveling all the way to the Dead Sea (Ezekiel 47:1-12). The water at first was only up to Ezekiel’s ankles. As it went on, it gradually got deeper, first knee-deep, then waist-high, until finally it was too deep to wade in but could only be swum in.   There are varying interpretations of Ezekiel’s vision. The river is often thought of as the grace of God, won by th...