Ecclesiastes 12:10

  We know what it means when we say someone “stole our thunder”. It is a euphemism for when someone takes your praise, credit, or attention before you have a chance to. But it doesn’t make a lot of literal sense. You don’t own any thunder for anybody to steal.   Unless you are John Dennis.   As the story goes, Dennis was a playwright in the 1700s. His play was mostly a dud but part of it wasn’t. He had come up with a clever way of simulating the sound of thunder. When Dennis went to another play, he recognized his creation. He exclaimed, “ The villains will not play my play, but they steal my thunder !” Now he made something else people would steal, his turn of phrase and it seems he still didn’t get much credit for that.   Often items we think of stealing as a material only thing. But we can steal things that are not as tangible as well. A person’s time, a reputation, hope, credit, joy. All these might not be physical things but they can be just as d...

  If you want to see people on their best behavior just sit in the stand of a little league sports game. What you don’t believe me? Surely people foaming at the mouth screaming about a game involving kids that might not be able to put their shoes on the right feet is sound behavior?  What is it that makes people who otherwise are normal everyday tax-paying folks turn into a raging lunatic that feels the greatest injustice in the history of ever was the strike call against their kid, who just so happened to be holding the bat upside down the whole time? Boy, people can lose their minds over sports.  It could be worse. Take for instance the people of Maranhão, Brazil who stoned quartered, and decapitated an official that had tried to eject a player in an amateur soccer match. Granted the ref had stabbed the player, who had refused to leave the field and proceeded to punch the ref but still seems a bit much to me.     It’s funny how we can compartmentalize our ...

  I like how we think we can get away with insults in we qualify them, with “no offense” or “I’m just saying”. The barb still stings. It's like a doctor telling you ‘This won’t hurt a bit’ then proceeds to jam a needle into your arm.  Sure.   Over the years I know I received a lot of insults some couched as humor others as evaluation others as an inverted compliment. No matter how it was told it still stung. I don’t like insults. No one would.   Right?   That's what makes Paul's statement in 2 nd Corinthians 12:10 so odd. Here he writes “ Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong .”   Now, none of these seem like things you would want to learn to put up with, but Paul says he is content to do just that. Why?  It’s the lesson his ‘thorn in the flesh’ has taught him, sometimes bad things force us to lean on God...

    In Acts 17, Paul is preaching to a learned and religious people. People that knew enough to know they didn’t know it all and have tried in their ignorance to still seek out God, but still tried to shape a God they didn’t know into a known form.   In this lesson, He makes an interesting comment in verses 27, “ that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us ;”. God in his control has set up the order and events of time to try to direct men to him, yet mankind still can locate what is right in front of them. The NASB and NKJ use the word ‘grope’, the ESV and KJV use the term ‘feel’.    Have you ever had to try to find your glasses in the dark on the nightstand? You know it is there but you can find it?  That is the picture he is painting, a people that know he is there but can’t seem to figure out where.   People are still trying to feel their way to God. Learned and religi...