Author: LAH

by

Raca!

Would you walk up to your friend, criticize their political or religious beliefs, and insult their morals and/or intelligence? How about insulting their friends or their spouse? You wouldn’t have many friends, at least for long!

Xxxx shared Being Liberal‘s photo.

(M) This is great. Make sure to do it (and share it), if you want an anti-gay politician’s head to explode.

Yet, people seem to be doing this all the time in blog comments, on Facebook, and through other social media. They post cartoons or remarks that are just plain nasty—and largely based on untrue stereotypes.

Continue reading →

by

Salmon

It’s summertime, too hot to cook, and friends are joining us for dinner. Time to ask Pete to pick up a salmon filet on his way home from work. Throw it on the BBQ, add a couple of salads, and fresh fruit for dessert, and we’ve got one of our favorite meals (see the recipe at the end of this post).

Barbecued salmon is so delicious, even our “I don’t like fish” friends snarf it down. Along with happy taste buds, we feel good knowing that salmon is good for you. Yes, it’s a high-fat fish, but that fat contains lots of omega 3 fatty acids (O3FAs). Or does it?

Continue reading →

by

Good Thoughts?

I’ve been through two deadly earthquakes, billiard ball-sized hail, and a hurricane, but none of these prepared me for an out-of-control wildfire. We feel blessed that our home is out of danger, at least at this time, but we live in a forest, with trees surrounding (at the requisite 30 foot distance) three sides of our house. The neighborhood of several hundred homes that went up in flames Tuesday night is only twelve miles away—less if you’re a wind-borne ember.

I’ve been on Facebook a lot the last few days, trying to see how friends are doing, letting people know we’re okay, and posting photos of the fire as seen from our driveway.

Continue reading →

by

A World of Hurt

For over a week we have been aware of a huge fire burning west of Ft. Collins, about two hours north of us. Fourteen square miles and almost 200 homes have been destroyed. Anyone living in the area has been evacuated, unable to check on their property or retrieve belongings. I’ve tossed up a few prayers, especially when I read news updates, but it hasn’t exactly dominated my thoughts.

Saturday afternoon I happened to glance out the window and saw a huge plume of smoke rising from behind a ridge here in Colorado Springs. We were witnessing the first few hours of the Waldo Canyon fire. As I write this, thousands of people have been displaced although thankfully no one has been hurt and no structures have burned. Still, the fire has consumed 2,000 acres and is totally out of control. I can think of nothing else.

Continue reading →

by

Permission to Say “No”

Most of us know to say no when someone asks us to do something wrong. But sometimes you have to say no to something good in order to be available when God calls on you. Pete’s friend (we’ll call him “Steve”) discovered just how important saying no can be.

Given the state of the economy, it was no surprise when Steve was laid off from his high tech job a couple of years ago. While disappointed to find himself without an income, he wasn’t overly worried. He had salted away some savings, and figured he’d find another position before too long. After all, he had excellent technical skills, and plenty of experience in his field.

However, Steve was in for a surprise. When he started praying about his job search, God clearly told him, “Don’t look for a job. I’ll bring your next job to you.” That sure ran against the advice everyone else was giving him. How could he just sit around and wait for God to do all the work? Still, he was obedient, and did not send out his resume or fill out applications. And the months passed.

Continue reading →

by

Rescue Me Anyway?

Our friend really screwed up. He lives in northern Washington and he’d made a quick trip to Colorado Springs to visit a number of ministries here. We’d seen him earlier in the day, but were surprised when he called us around 8:30 that evening. He sounded somewhat worried. Explaining where he was (on the freeway, heading north), he asked, “How long does it take to get to Denver International Airport from here?”

“About an hour and a half, if traffic is good. Why? What time’s your flight?”

There was dead silence for a moment. Then he slowly told us, “I have a rental car to turn in. And my flight leaves at 9:15.”

Oh-oh. He should have been waiting at the gate already, not 70 miles south of the airport!

(How do you pray in a situation like this?)

Continue reading →

by

Direction

“You can’t steer a ship that isn’t moving.” One of our pastors mentioned it again last Sunday, “God can’t direct you if you aren’t already moving.” We’ve all heard this admonition so many times. We assume it’s true. Isn’t it in the Bible somewhere?

Our culture has a thing about keeping busy. If we aren’t doing something every minute of every day, we worry that we’re wasting our lives. We aren’t being significant. We aren’t making a difference. And of course, everybody wants their lives to count for something that matters.

Continue reading →

by

Follow Your Heart

It’s graduation season and millions of graduates are getting all sorts of advice, some useful, and some not so much. The useful advice tends to be practical: eat your veggies, spend less than you earn, sort your laundry. (My college’s team color was an intense, bright red. By the end of the first month, most of the guys in my dorm had new t-shirts—and pink underwear.)

The more esoteric advice leaves a lot to the imagination: “Strive.” “Live your dreams.” “Be all that you can be.” Strive to do… what? The value of much advice like this depends largely on what a graduate’s goals are. Do they want to make the world a better place? Or is their goal to amass as much stuff (money, fame, power) as possible?

Continue reading →

by

False Witnesses

I was reading my Bible this morning when I came across these verses (Matthew 26:59-60):

The chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for false evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death. But they did not find any, though many false witnesses came forward.

When I’ve read this before, I’ve always dwelt on Jesus’ sinless nature, and how there wasn’t any real evidence so they had to invent something deserving of the death penalty. This morning, what caught my eye were the false witnesses.

I wondered… who were these witnesses? Did the Sanhedrin go looking for people to lie on their behalf? What would cause a person to testify falsely? Was there money involved? And in this case, they weren’t just lying. They were lying about God! We, of course, would never do such a thing!

Continue reading →

by

Random Thoughts from the Interstate

It’s a long way from western Washington to central Colorado. Two days on the road. Twenty-two hours of actual driving time. Fourteen hundred miles (give or take a few). Pete wasn’t really on vacation, so I drove while he stared at his laptop worked. Since he was concentrating so hard, I didn’t want to distract him. No inane conversation. No comments on weird things we passed. No music.

I had a lot of time to think.

Continue reading →