You Are A Miracle Blog

When we lived in  Maryland  I would periodically hear the name of a place called the Aberdeen Proving Ground.  One day as I was driving along near to  Aberdeen  I heard an explosion, I turned to the person next to me and said 'did you hear that?'  The person just said, 'Oh, that's just the proving ground, they are testing weaponry there.'  That is why Aberdeen Proving Ground exists, it is the place where the military services test fire all kinds of explosives and where they test run military machinery.  It is a place to find out what works and what does not work. A family is also a proving ground.  We test out our actions, our words, our ideas, our clothing styles, our hair styles on our family.  Somethings pass with flying colors and other attitudes and actions are sent back for further refinement.  The Family Proving Ground tests all kinds of relationships - marriage, parent-child, siblings, step-families, grandparents and...

I was driving down a street in our town and I noticed that a For Sale sign had been put up outside of a house that had recently been flipped, restored into a livable condition.  Over the past few years I had watched the home deteriorate after a family moved out of it - some gutters fell down, the grass grew up, part of the porch fell in and the house seemed like it was destined to sit for several more years and then be demolished.  It has always amazed me how much a house begins to fall apart if it is not being cared for on a regular basis. The house went up for auction about six months ago, and a few weeks after the auction work began on the house.  It was interesting to watch the house be revitalized step-by-step.  First they re-roofed the house, then they put a large dumpster in the driveway and filled it up a few times, then began taking care of projects inside and out, then they painted the exterior of the house and finally did a little bit of landscaping....

We have all heard songs about being close to God in an intimate relationship.  These songs tend to focus on the feeling of being close to God in a father-child relationship. That is wonderful and lines up with the scriptural reference to God as our Abba 'Daddy' Father. " Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father' " Galatians 4:6.   But there is more to intimacy than just feeling close to our Heavenly Father. Being close to God means that we can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit more clearly and with greater understanding.   Let me use an example from the realities of child rearing. Parents of children old enough to walk have all experienced the phenomenon of yelling at a child.  While it is not the most intimate expressions of parent-child relationships it is sometimes completely necessary. There are times that a child has wandered away from their parent and the only way the par...

In recent decades churches and denominations in the United States have been focused on winning religious battles while losing the spiritual war for souls. What are some of the religious battles which have distracted and derailed churches and denominations from the greater spiritual war? Church politics, personal ambition and business modeled leadership have had a profound impact upon the direction of the Church in the United States. These battles are waged in churches and denominations on a daily basis and although one side can feel the satisfaction of winning and affecting others under their influence, in the larger picture the war for souls is being lost. It is normal for local churches and pastors to feel that they are in a competition with other churches and pastors in their region.  Pastors compare the size of their church attendance with other pastors and employ the latest techniques for attracting attenders to compare more favorably.  Churches "grow" in numbers at ...