Devotionals

In my previous career as a police officer I once made a traffic stop and, after approaching the driver’s window, found he had not lowered it.  I motioned to him so he cracked it a few inches and told me he did not recognize my authority.  He commented that I was not a sheriff’s deputy and repeated, “So I do not recognize your authority.”  [...]

People love cooking shows.  The first one was a radio broadcast in 1924 featuring the fictional character, Betty Crocker.  The first televised show, hosted by chef Philip Harben, debuted in 1946.  Today there are not only hundreds of cooking shows, but there are also entire networks (plural) dedicated to broadcasting them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With that large of a [...]

The saying “keeping up with the Joneses” originated in 1913 from a comic strip by the same name.  As you might expect, the theme of the sketch was the ongoing struggle of the McGinis family to keep up with their neighbors’ social status.  In one episode Mrs. McGinis says, “Look at Mrs. Jones! She goes to matinees, she entertains, she wears wonderful clothes, she [...]

In a popular animated movie one of the characters is a dog with a high-tech collar that puts a human voice to what the dog is communicating.  Every time the dog is “talking” he randomly gets distracted by an animal in the distance.  Midsentence, he’ll snap his head to the side and yell, “Squirrel!” before returning to the conversation with his owner.  Even if [...]

The leech has two daughters: Give and Give.  Three things are never satisfied; four never say, “Enough”: Sheol, the barren womb, the land never satisfied with water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.” (Prov. 30:15–16) Being called a leech is not a term of endearment.  Like the term “parasite,” it’s a moniker that describes a perpetually unsatisfied taker.  In these verses the concept is [...]

Some of my fondest memories as a father involve reading to my children.  As they got older, I relished the opportunity to read more complex plots with a wider variety of characters.  My favorite books involved harrowing combat on the battlefield followed by disciplined chivalry on their arrival home.  It is a difficult, but important task to teach sons how to appropriately exercise force [...]