Our Lighted Path

Putting faith in my Savior, trusting in the knowledge and sense of caring that He has given me: that makes sense to me. Knowing what items I want to caringly place in a package that I'm prayerful and hopeful about: that makes sense to me. Sending care to loved ones who may be looking forward to a healing while at a hospital: that makes sense to me. Giving cool, soothing, low-sugar popcicles that include a little calcium, iron, and other nutrients when that's a dire need, makes sense to me. But men and young people hurling rockets at Israel, and Israel attempting to expel Arab neighbors — even attacking a mosque: that doesn't make sense to me. It's dumbfounding to me. Yet these are days that Jesus talked about, that Jesus prophesied or said would happen. It's seemingly a time approaching the kind of lawlessness Jesus said there would be, with more than a few children sacrified to through senseless gunfire; with women like Aniah Blanchard, Vanessa Guillen, and Breonna...

You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 It's not always a simple question to answer, when someone wants to give his or her life back to Jesus and wants to know where to start. Some people say the person asking himself or herself that question, just needs to come to "the throne of Grace," to return to church. But is that what Heaven really means in saying to seek God with all our heart? (Matthew 11:28, Jeremiah 29:13) My walk back into the fold of Salvation began at home prayer meetings, after an acquaintance who I had not heard from in a long time, called the office where I was working, was surprised to hear my name and voice, and said to come to a friend's house with her, for Bible study. Maybe coincidentally, I'd also felt a call to start going to Bible studies at the church I'd joined years before. And the more I heard from the Bible, during study with the church, the more I hungered for the righteousness we h...

I was glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of the Lord. Psalm 122:1 Psalm 122 is such a rich psalm. It reminds us God's promises were first to ancient Israel and are also to us. Our foreparents, in the Americas and around the globe, had great joy in recognizing God's word is for all of us who believe. With fullness of joy in Jesus, early Americans went about using their hands ( Psalm 27:4, Psalm 19:1, Colossians 3:23, Philippians 4:13, Psalm 90:17, Proverbs 16:3, Ephesians 2:10, 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, Luke 1:23, John 14:2, Psalm 27:10, Matthew 11:28, Hebrews 4:9-10, 2 Corinthians 5:1 ), not only to build up churches as houses of praise (Psalm 100:4), but also to build the body of believers: each believer, or group of believers, being a house, a mansion, a dwelling place filled with the pearls or treasure of God's word. “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you," Jesu...