Bible at Home

So Jacob served seven years to have Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. (Genesis 29:20) The love of Jacob for Rachel is the seed of the creation of the tribes of Israel. His love enabled him to endure seven years of labor, the imposition…

One of the sweetest things about the approach of autumn is the changing light. Shadows become longer and the light shining on roofs and sidewalks is milder and gentler. You can sometimes see a haze over the fields when you look for hay bales. With the change of light comes the sense that my familiar…

Four daughters and a son is a fairly large family, and I am the middle of the five. When we were growing up, my father was heard to say from time to time, “Your mother is the most beautiful woman in the world.” When I was four years old I knew without a question that…

Recently when Jack and I were buying smoothies to take to our daughter’s house when our granddaughter wasn’t feeling well, we waited for our order. When another customer carried her own large order toward the door, Jack moved quickly across the room in order to open the door for her. A woman waiting next to…

On the last day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a laud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were…

In April I took a misstep on a wooden strip of flooring in my house, and fell backward onto the hardwood floor. I was briefly stunned, but was quickly helped up after feeling fairly sure that I could stand and even walk. It happened in the evening, and so we waited until the next morning…

Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in Heaven. (Lamentations 3:41) Our hearts are located somewhat left of the center of our chests. They are the pumps that receive and deliver life giving blood to all the other parts of our bodies. For thousands of years the heart has been poetically associated…

Once there were three men who had each had a close friend who had died. The friend was happy in heaven, but the three men were very sad. The first one said to himself, “I have become so sad that I have forgotten how to be happy again. I used to walk with my friend…

One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say. . . (Luke 11:1) When the disciple asked Jesus to teach all of them to pray, that…

In a world wrenched by wars, conflict, misery and discontent on virtually every continent, it’s easy to think that God has closed the book on His unending grace. I can think, though, of times of undeniable grace occurring in surprising places. When we were fostering a little girl in our home, I had to take…