Know-Love-Obey God

It’s impossible to snap
green beans and not let the ticking
rhythm assure you of the good
work firm in your fingers,
the good work about to rise
up through the metal steamer’s holes
making the four-quart Farberware lid
dance either nervous or giddy
with energy. Yet I never heard
the lid’s train-track clickety-clack
jiggle nor the popping of water’s boil.
Just the seven-minute timer [...]

I was twenty-four and dressed in my only suit, the same one I wore as I job-hunted from one Silicon Valley start-up to another. I had just survived most of an all-day interview complete with grilling technical questions from different groups. I sat across a polished conference table from my last interviewer. [...]

It was the first day of April, and I was a fool
to think the fire would not burn again.
Months ago, months ago it scorched
blisters bright red with its poison
and its pain. Helpless, I confessed
and cried gasping tears, My God!
and He heard, and He healed.
Fire extinguished, safe again,
toxic black and choking smoke blown clear.
Months of [...]

To celebrate my first blog-iversary, I am reposting one of my first contributions to the High Calling Blogs Random Acts of Poetry. This is not my first poem for the RAP prompts, but since the first anniversary is traditionally the Paper Anniversary, I am posting one of my first blog poems, “Paper,” originally posted [...]

If I want integrity . . .
1. Seek God’s glory.
2. Keep God’s grace before me.
3. Walk in His truth.
“The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.”
- John [...]

High Calling Blogs Book Club:
The Wisdom of Wilderness, by Gerald G. May
Chapter Four: “Cicada Song”
This chapter touched my spirit in so many places, both widely and deeply. May’s thoughts on “contemplation” particularly resonated, especially this on page 64: “To put it simply, in concentrating on one thing at a time, we miss everything else.” [...]

(A High Calling Blogs Random Act of Poetry for L.L. Barkat’s poetry prompt to write a poem on “The Real…”)
A Type-A personality was he
and never of the Gospel was ashamed.
He boldly preached and boldly did proclaim
according to the vision he received.
He taught of Christ and many did believe,
and when he touched, the Holy Spirit came.
The [...]

Poor child. Knowing no other way to relieve her anger, she stomped with both feet and all her might. She jumped to give more force to the stomping. It was a knees-to-chest kind of jumping; the higher the jump, the greater the outlet for her rage. She even climbed a few [...]

As part of The Gratitude Community, I am counting God’s gifts. My gift #769 was yesterday’s reminder*, a much-needed reminder for someone as prone to arrogance as I am.
God’s grace came to me not only nineteen years ago, when I came to faith in Jesus. God’s grace comes to me every day—today—and I [...]

One of my favorite memories from living in Israel is hearing children call their dads “Abba.” It really does mean “Daddy!”
Another favorite memory is the way people said, “I like it!” Maybe someone would find a nice sweater in a store. “I like it!” Or a father would see the result [...]