Holy Spirit

The Wind in the Branches

There are some things in life we know are real, even though we’ve never actually seen them. I’ve never seen the wind. I’ve watched towering trees bow beneath its strength, curtains billow through an open window, leaves skitter across the driveway as though they suddenly remembered an appointment somewhere else, and clouds drift across the…
Seeing More Clearly

I used to have a rather romantic idea of spiritual growth. When I first became a Christian, I assumed maturity would eventually arrive like some sort of heavenly graduation ceremony. One day I would wake up, angels would probably sing a few bars of Handel’s Messiah, and I would glide through life with remarkably few…
Where the Small Things Decide

Scripture Focus: Zechariah 4:10 “Who hath despised the day of small things?” We often picture spiritual growth as a series of major, mountaintop decisions—the big turning points, the dramatic testimonies, the “before and after” moments we love to retell. But Scripture repeatedly pulls our attention back to the subtle places, the hidden creases of the…
Thanksgiving and the Sacrifice of Gratitude

If you look around this time of year, it almost feels like Thanksgiving is getting smaller. Store shelves leap from skeletons to snowmen, from cobwebs to candy canes, and somewhere in the middle there’s this quiet little day about gratitude that can easily get squeezed out. No costumes, no glittering lights, no marketing mascot to…
Ask for Rain in the Time of the Latter Rain

Scripture Focus: Zechariah 10:1 “Ask ye of the LORD rain in the time of the latter rain; so the LORD shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain, to every one grass in the field”. “Latter rain” in Scripture grows out of the Bible’s agricultural metaphor of “early” and “latter” rains—the first to…
Keeping the Line to Headquarters Open

Scripture Focus: Luke 18:1
Pentecost and the Gift of Utterance

Meditations on Acts 2