There’s another frontier that occupies God’s heart and mind. It’s the frontier within each one of us.

My heart aches at the idea that it is within God’s loving and righteous character to strike those whom he loves in ways that cause deep and lasting pain, even if it is for glorifying and lifesaving purposes. But I believe this seeming dichotomy can be reconciled...

If we are the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus in the world, we are also the hands, feet, and voice of Joseph to the Jews.

...the journey through the cave had nothing to do with changing the shape of the cave... It was about learning to work with what had been formed; taking on one challenge after another... allowing the environment, the guide, and the obstacles to develop something in me...

The issue of Jerusalem, Israel, and the Jews is even now landing like a heavy stone on the peoples of the earth, and not in a way that we in the periphery may avoid. All of us are going to be, and are now being, tested on the matter of which side of the “heavy stone,”—Jesus’ rightful occupation of the throne in Jerusalem—we will come down on.

I’m currently lounging in New Years Day sweats and a baggy t-shirt with the word HOPE printed across the front, and scrolling to catch up on conditions and events in different places around the world, in many of which there friends and loved ones reside. While another violent convulsion of unrest is ringing in the New Year with a deafening roar, paradoxically, I find myself feeling extraordinarily hopeful and at peace in the midst of it. This is worth reflecting on...

When I was growing up, there were no waterslide parks comparable to the ones that exist now, at least not where I lived. Which explains why, years later, my 8ish-year-old son was able to persuade me (with no words) to visit a water park and climb a hill in my “mom” swimsuit (despite the large audience of blanket-sitting onlookers in the grass below) to buck my fear of fool-making and give it a go. The rest of the spectacularly fun day is history. On either end of the broad

We can see the proverbial dust cloud hanging over Israel as we near the end of this age, kicked up by the violent, rhythmic contractions that will one day culminate in the final battle and birth of the eternal kingdom of the Messiah... Though it is still some distance away... We must recognize the need to carefully discern the right path forward in the tangle of conflicting and misguiding ones being presented to us in response, or as contributors, to the violent shift.

I recently traveled to Israel, my second visit in sixteen years. The first time, was as a typical Christian tourist, bursting with excitement to see the renowned remains of ancient biblical sites, which I had only read about and longed to experience firsthand. My reasons for going that first time were perfectly legitimate and, of course, Israelis always welcome our visits with open arms! But the truth is, I had no concept of, or familiarity with, the contemporary Jewish peo

"Jesus, who is the greatest in the kingdom of God?" I think that single, outwardly-spoken question was a vacuum-packed wrapping around a collection of far more uncomfortable questions, silently squirming in the mind of each and every disciple standing there...

“Follow the money.” It’s an idiom we use in the West that conveys an effective method of exposing corruption, the kingpin at the top of a criminal chain, and how the system operates.[1] It is, in fact, quite effective and a menace to the best of criminal minds (pray that technology doesn’t outpace it). I bring it up here as an excellent framework to talk about a corrupt operation of a spiritual nature, wrapped around the base of Abraham’s/Israel’s family tree, in dire need of

I have a picture in my mind of walking down the middle of the road, the Holy Spirit’s fire burning inside of me, causing all kinds of impurities to rise to the surface of my flesh like dross, hardening into blobs on my outer skin for all to see, now ready for the plucking and tossing.

Something about the narrow road experience has changed, and is changing... and I can’t help but see the connection between the intensifying pressure on the Church and the intensifying pressure on Israel and Jews around the world...

To put it in terms the apostle, Paul, would appreciate, I once (unconsciously) viewed myself (along with my spiritual siblings) to be wrapped tightly around the trunk of a great, old olive tree (the family tree of Abraham’s promise). And then, I was unexpectedly confronted with the fact that I’m actually a humble, little twig on a humble, little branch, and am truly blessed to be artificially grafted into the family tree, amongst its natural branches.

In my last post, I told a story about discovering a mysterious, unfamiliar spiritual craving in my twenties, finding the remedy for it in an unlikely hiding place (in the words and pages of the Bible[1]), and learning how to get filled up on a meal-to-meal basis for the journey down our proverbial “narrow roads”[2] – ultimately to carry us through the foretold “time of trouble” coming on the horizon.[3] The fact that I got to tell that story using potatoes, micro-bugs, fog b

Fingers hovering over this first paragraph, I find my challenge is how to talk about something that’s been talked into the ground amongst the family of Christ for centuries past, but from a position of being neck deep in the unprecedented – unprecedented changes, unprecedented challenges, in unprecedented times – all of which demand a rethink of things taken for granted in simpler times. For me, going back and re-pounding my spiritual tent-pegs, so to speak, has been a necess

Preface: I’ve told this story in other settings before. I tell it here in a different form to serve a different purpose. If you’ve already read a previous version, I encourage you to keep reading so as not to miss the point of this article. In the summer of 2018, I stopped in to visit a dear, elderly woman-friend. This woman was special and intriguing to me — stately, engaging, encouraging, always curious, and open to learning new things about the world and the people in

John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Luke 3:16 “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and res

At this early stage in the life of the One-Legged Sojourner, I believe it’s important for you, the reader, to have a basic understanding of the person to which you’re lending your ear. At the very core of “me” is my redemption story and the God-Man who wrote it. (By the way, don’t let anyone shame you out of telling your redemption story – especially yourself. Jesus went around doing miracles in the lives of sinning, suffering people, the esteemed and the outcast alike, for a

There was a time when I was content to meander down pretty much any road in life on the magic carpet of creative writing – using words like a paintbrush to turn basic stories into visual and visceral experiences – each one laced with an element of redemption, revealing a shadow of the Redeemer.[1] My biggest challenge in those days: learning how to make my mental drive for conveying scripturally accurate concepts interface with my helplessly artsy heart language. As practice