Meat for the Hungry

Do you like mysteries?  I do to a point. As long as the mystery is solved with a happy ending, I enjoy the investigation, search, and resolution. But, without a happy ending, I’m disturbed. This is one reason why TV season finales sometimes make me crazy. The word mystery , according to the online dictionary, means something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain. It can also be a novel, play, or movie dealing with a puzzling crime, especially a murder. Obviously, television dramas are the latter. But, in just living we come upon mysteries – things we can’t explain. Some feel compelled to investigate because they need answers – to find each puzzle piece, assemble them, and solve the mystery . Then we are satisfied and settled. Still, because of this desire within us to know the complete story, doesn’t it intrigue you when God speaks in the New Testament about a m y s t e r y kept s e c r e t since the world began?

www.freebibleimages.org "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey. [1] This week commenced with what we know as Palm Sunday, Jesus’s  triumphal  entry into Jerusalem. As He rode into the city on the back of a donkey, fulfilling Zachariah’s prophesy, some euphoric townsmen spread their cloaks on the road while others waved palm branches, hailing Him as Messiah, the Prince. When the indignant Pharisees asked Jesus to quiet his disciples He replied, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” [2] Why? Because, this was the day – the day set forth by Almighty God through the angel Gabriel, concluding the second division of Daniel, the prophet’s seventy weeks. [3] Yet, Palm Sunday also begins a most solemn time for those who believe. Triumph turned quickly to contempt. ...

www.timeanddate.com It’s C h r i s t m a s t i m e and all we should be thinking about is love, joy, peace, and the Baby born in Bethlehem. But we have yet another glaring reminder of evil. 2015 began with violence. Then as months flew by, almost at every turn violence appeared somewhere, and now, it’s ending with violence. Why? Because brainwashed, malicious people are overturning our world. These, either by blood or osmosis, have assumed the characteristics of the ancestor they claim.  Ishmael, God said, “…shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him..." (Genesis 16:12) However, the recent San Bernardino shooting is not the only acts of evil we are seeing. “Stricter gun-control laws,” they chant. Why do politicians ignore the fact that gun-control laws only disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals or terrorists? They seek to take away the right of the people to keep and bear arms, which our second amendment sa...

“Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.” [1] Pain. Christopher Tydeman - www.soulfulheartblog.com Sadness. Misery. Anguish. Despair. Despondency. Complete and utter hopelessness. Sitting in the muck and mire, my fingers scrape across the four walls that now feel more like a hand-dug well than a home and I wonder, “How did I get here?” For too long I’ve gone through the motions of living a normal life and acting as if everything is okay. I’ve clung to the muddy sides trying to inch my way back up, but as each day passed, I slipped lower and lower. Then today as if out of nowhere, the bottom like a bony, shriveled hand reached up, latched onto my heel and yanked.  My grip, precarious from the beginning, broke. Arms flailing, I desperately grabbed at anything to stop my fall, but hopelessness took over. I succumbed to the inevitability of my situation and plunged headlong...

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you” is the first line of Rudyard Kipling’s poem entitled “If”. As a kid, I loved poetry and still do.  I love the pulse and rhyme of poems.  My first poetry book was Read-Aloud Poems where “Eletelephony” by Laura Elizabeth Richards, quickly became my favorite. But as I grew, I moved on to more thoughtful and introspective poetry like “The Duel” by Eugene Field: “The gingham dog and the calico cat side by side on the table sat…” Just kidding. But seriously, this poem remains one of my favorites, even if it’s a bit morbid. One Christmas my mother purchased the book, One Hundred and One Famous Poems as a stocking-stuffer. Perusing through its pages and remembering my youth, I came across Kipling’s poem. All those years ago the poem’s full message escaped me, but now Kipling’s words made sense. I wondered what persecution this man must have suffered to write such poignant words. Kipling wro...

got hope? Hope waits. Hope trusts. Hope anticipates. Hope longs and expects. Hope is unseen. Have you ever prepared something you couldn’t wait to deliver?  You lovingly create this special item and then rehearse every scenario of the moment it is received.  But when the time comes, things don’t go as planned.  Somehow the delivery was bungled. The timing skewed. The reception less than perfect. What happened?  Nothing went as you had imagined. Now you’re left with great disappointment; dreams deflating like a leaky balloon. All your hopes, poof – gone in an instant. Aww, such is life, my mother would say. But why? Is it because we are temporal and our life, in its best state is but a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away? [1] Is it because we live in a sin-cursed world where everything groans, awaiting the revealing of the sons and daughters of God? [2] Possibly. But thankfully, we cannot see the future.  ...

www.lambsblog.com     As morning sun lasered through the stitched seams of Nahshon’s tent onto my eyelids, I realized I’d slept way passed dawn. I tried to get up, but since my circumcision, every move caused excruciating pain. With gritted teeth, I stood to my feet and peeked through the door flap. Our chosen lamb leaped and baaed in joyful play with Nahshon’s giggling children. Tonight I would have the privilege of celebrating Passover with my new friends. In these four days, I too had become very fond of the soft little lamb and it had become his children’s pet. Surely Nahshon would not sacrifice this lamb now when he could just as easily choose another.      I scarfed down the manna cakes left for my breakfast and went in search of Ithamar. As I drew closer to the Tabernacle, the curtained structure that seemed so ominous a few days ago, I heard Eleazar’s voice. Just outside the east-facing tapestry gate, he and Ithamar were instructing th...