Suffering

September 29, 2020 | Leave a Comment

Frustration

(Adapted from a sermon preached September 6, 2020.)

Remember the movie Bruce Almighty, about the man whom God allows to be God just for a while? There’s a scene, early in the movie, in which Bruce is done, just done. He’s tired of his mediocre job, his mediocre apartment, his mediocre life, and he blames his mediocrity on God.

“God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I’m the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but He’d rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”

Bruce may have not been altogether wrong. Bear with me.

This is a meditation on frustration. [Read more…]

October 18, 2019 | 5 Comments

Eulogy for Larry

Larry and his parents were lifelong members of our church. Larry and his father were ruling elders at one time. That’s not to say, though, that they were pillars of the church. Perhaps crumbling pillars, but not pillars in that legends-of-faith sort of way. I’ll explain.

Larry got into trouble with drugs back in the 1970’s. He was arrested a few times and then got clean. Some brain cells were lost in the process, but he was still likable, functional, and kind. He stayed clean for decades. That’s when I got to know him. [Read more…]

May 2, 2018 | 1 Comment

When to ask why

I was sitting in a darkened sanctuary two Sundays ago with a few of our youth. Their friend Dakota had just died. Through tears, one asked, “Why? Why would God do this?”

“God didn’t do this,” I replied. “God didn’t look down from the sky tonight and say, ‘Her, I want her.’ We just live in bodies that aren’t made to last, and sometimes bad things happen. That’s why God gave us a better life, an eternal life, to come.”

I don’t know if the youth bought it or not. [Read more…]

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