One of the indicators that the years are passing by is that you attend more funerals than you do weddings. I’ve attended my share of weddings, performed a few of them, and now the funeral count is catching up. I attended another funeral last week. If funerals must be attended (I only know of one…
Life is a series of adjustments. I just had another one, but I’m not sure what to call it. I made a big deal about “retirement” not being biblical for those called to vocational ministry, reminding folks that I was only “retiring” from a position, not from a calling. Friday, at my “retirement” reception, the…
I’m not sure where the mistake was made – probably by me, perhaps by some well-meaning secretary, then again it could all be blamed on the computer. It doesn’t really matter. The sermon outline that appeared in the bulletin yesterday had both of my main points listed as “II.” There was no point “I” only…
Last Friday was my last day of full-time employment at Southwestern Baptist Seminary. It hardly seems like twenty-two years ago that I entered my first class room full of seminary students. I remember being filled with a mixture of holy boldness and absolute fear. Come to think of it, those are the same two emotions…
By the end of this week I will be officially retired from Southwestern Baptist Seminary after twenty-two years on the faculty. Since there is no biblical evidence for retirement from God’s call to ministry, I prefer to view this as a transition, not a retirement. And I have a new “life verse” to go along…
Two weeks ago I was above 7000 feet in the mountains of Glorieta, New Mexico. Last week I was near sea level in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Being in the Valley was “déjà vu all over again” for me. Forty years ago this month, having graduated from seminary and resigned at the small…
I’ve just returned from a week of refreshment high in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Glorieta, New Mexico. Every time I visit Glorieta (and I’ve been doing it for more than forty years) I look at the mountains and reflect on Psalm 121:1-2 – one of the first passages of scripture I memorized as…
Don’t you hate it when a song gets stuck in your head and won’t go away? There is a Vineyard song that keeps running through my mind. “This is the air I breathe . . . This is my daily bread . . . I’m desperate for You.” When was the last time you were…
The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come (Eccl. 12:1).” Yesterday we celebrated our granddaughter’s fifteenth birthday. Someone said, “Grand kids are God’s reward for not killing your teenagers.” I’m not sure about that, but I am sure that our lives have been…