Ecclesiastes 12:10

     There is nothing quite like standing over the crib of a newborn baby. All the hope and potential lying there wrapped in a blanket. I’ve been here long enough to have gotten to visit several of our young people on their first days and as I look at them now I see how great they have fulfilled that promise.   Yet that isn’t always the case     I often think about people that guilty of great atrocities, what their parents hoped for on the first day they held them? Surely they didn’t foresee what their bundle of joy would become.   How sad to think that child could grow up to do so much damage to the world.   When those shepherds came upon the child whose crib was a manger so long ago, they had a completely different perceptive. You see they had been told from an utmost reliable source that this kid wasn’t going to harm the world but save it. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which ...

    There are two enemies that all men face.   One follows him for his entire lifetime, the endless pursuer for all to see. The other looms ahead, in the shadows of the unknown, waiting to attack. The first can never be outrun, the second can never be caught.   Who are they?     The past and the present.     For many their past looms over them. They can’t seem to escape the misdeeds of times gone by. Others are controlled by their fear of the future. What could go wrong, what horrors lurk ahead?   These enemies see too much to overcome.   Consider however the line Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “ What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us”.   Paul would have agreed. In Philippians 3:13-14, he wrote, “ Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,   I pres...

   On October 8 th, 1871, the deadliest fire in U.S History occurred. If you were to google the date you see results about the Great Chicago Fire. For 31 hours the flames burned killing 250 people destroying 18,000 buildings and leaving a 100,000 homeless.     But that fire wasn’t it.     Just over 250 miles away in the northern Wisconsin lumber town of Peshtigo fire burned the entire city to ashes killing somewhere between 1,200 to 2,500 people. In fact, that day there were 5 major fires in the region, fueled by unusually high winds and drought conditions. However since Chicago was a major city and it started first, it is the one most people know about.     That happens a lot. One danger gets overshadowed by another, an easily perceived problem receives attention over a more reclusive one, a promoted issue takes precedence over a less talked about one.   What might be a much bigger threat is set on the backburner because everyone is t...