by David Anderson
is not like the puff adder, the snake who inflates himself to look bigger than he actually is. John gets smaller. John was a baptizer—that’s how he got his name, after all. And at the start he was quite popular. Baptism business was brisk. Until Jesus and his disciples began baptizing, and people started flocking […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Lent, Letting Go, Power, Surrender, Transformation
does not choose this fight. But when he finds himself locked in an immortal struggle, he is either wise enough or reckless enough to hang in there. Jacob is at a tumultuous point in his life when God comes—in the form of an angel—to wrestle with him. He is alone, camped by a river. It […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Adult Spirituality, Awe, Blessing, Conversion, Lent, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
is you at your worst, yet closest to heaven. In Jesus’ famous parable of the Publican (or Tax Collector) and the Pharisee, the Publican is the one Jesus commends. The Pharisee stands in the front row of the temple and offers a “prayer” that is only a formal enumeration of his pious acts, while the […]
by David Anderson 5 Comments Filed Under: Change, Conversion, Forgiveness, Grace, Lent, Mercy, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
On Saturdays our companions are musicians. I don’t remember when I first heard Mary Gauthier’s “Mercy Now,” but it went straight to my heart. I couldn’t tell what emotion the music was pressing on, but it felt deep and huge. It’s the only song about mercy I’ve ever heard—plenty on forgiveness, but not the depths […]
by David Anderson 7 Comments Filed Under: Family, Forgiveness, Grace, Healing, Lent, Mercy, Music, Suffering, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
is known as the “weeping prophet” because he had to carry the people of Israel through the worst time in their history. The Babylonians had besieged Jerusalem, pulled down the temple, stone by stone, and exiled Israel’s leaders. It is the most catastrophic moment in the Hebrew Bible. In the midst of the disaster Jeremiah […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Belief, Change, Conversion, Faith/Trust, Forgiveness, Grace, Gratitude, grief, Lent, Mercy, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
used to be Saul, and the name change—signaling a new beginning—may have been the only way he could have gone on, could have lived with himself. We first meet him at a murder. Young Stephen is being stoned for his faith in Jesus, and the accusers who took off their coats to limber up for […]
by David Anderson 2 Comments Filed Under: Change, Character, Conversion, Epiphany, Faith/Trust, Forgiveness, Freedom, Grace, Gratitude, Identity, Lent, Mercy, Repentance, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
lives in a meritocracy. He’s in debt to the tune of ten thousand talents, an astronomical sum that would take the average worker of that era 150,000 years to repay. Following the custom of the day, the king decides to sell him into slavery, along with his whole family, to try to recoup at least […]
by David Anderson Leave a Comment Filed Under: Conversion, Forgiveness, Gratitude, Lent, Mercy, Repentance, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized
is one more explosive revelation we have safely turned into a children’s Bible story. When God asks Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites—to repent and find God’s forgiveness—Jonah refuses. He’s afraid God will forget all those passages in the Torah about how gentile nations are anathema, and only Israel is God’s choice. Jonah knows […]
by David Anderson 4 Comments Filed Under: Anger, Belief, Change, Conversion, Forgiveness, Grace, Lent, Mercy, Surrender, Transformation, Uncategorized