The aged prophet Isaiah showed up at the bedside of the middle-aged king. Hezekiah was only about 39 years old and terminally ill. But the prophet was not bringing good news, “Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover” (Is. 38:1).
The weak king cried out to God, “’ Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight’. And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (Is. 38:3).
“We are currently experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in US history. It is greater than the First and Second Great Awakening and every revival in our country combined...but in the opposite direction.” This is the conclusion of the largest and most comprehensive study of dechurching in America by sociologists Ryan Burge and Paul Djupe. In The Great DeChurching, pastors Jim Davis and Michael Graham unpack why and how over the past twenty-five years, forty million of those who formerly attended church no longer do so.
Jerusalem, Israel
3:15 am, April 13
I sat up in bed to a wailing sound I had never heard before, but knew immediately: an air raid siren. Our building rattled to the booms of interceptors from Israel’s missile defense system hitting their inbound targets. I pulled back the curtains and watched as sprays of light streaked the sky.
Iran launched 170 drones, 20 cruise missiles, and 120 ballistic missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s purported attack on an Iranian embassy in Syria.
Nothing is more iconic to the Tucson landscape than the saguaro. The emblematic cactus is to the Sonoran Desert what the palm tree is to Miami: hard to imagine without it. Saguaros typically live between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five years, not sprouting its trademark arms until around thirty to seventy years of its life and growing to around fifty feet tall.
For those Sonoran Desert natives, we intuitively know where saguaros thrive. They love the rocky (both granite and volcanic) soil at the foothills of the five beautiful mountain ranges that surround Tucson.
I drove a little manual 2005 Scion xB for about eight years. It finally gave out after 230,000 miles. I loved that little car. It was fuel-efficient and required minimal maintenance. But it is undeniably close to the least powerful car on the road. I’m pretty sure that on its specs, next to 0-60mph, it says, “Eventually!”
Unless I was lined up against someone from a nearby retirement community, I was the last car to reach the speed limit coming off a stoplight. Unsurprisingly, more aggressive drivers with more powerful vehicles tended to treat my little Scion like a safety cone on the road, more like an obstacle than a fellow traveler.
“I want to forgive him, but how do I forgive someone who died years ago?”
“I want to forgive her, but I don’t have any way to contact her.”
Do you have someone in your life that you want to forgive, but you don’t know how to because they are no longer in your life or perhaps they have passed away? This topic has come up a number of times in counseling others. May I offer some advice?
The top 100 brands by value: Interesting infographic from visualize. Most surprising to me was that US companies made up half of the 100 brands. Unsurprisingly, China has a lot of companies represented as well.
Thirteen years of coming back: I just love this post from Brianna Lambert. “Thirteen years of marriage, and Lord-willing many more ahead. I look back, and I see the beauty of a promise that won’t let go. I see two people, linked by an invisible cord. Though trial, sickness, and sin stretches it taut, the Lord won’t see that it breaks. Instead, the cord leads us back together, as we slowly pull ourselves nearer. Back to rest, back to forgiveness, back to joy, back to the hand I love to hold, and back to the love that started it all.”
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