Tag Archives: Fear

Don’t Panic

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Want to know how to escape from quicksand? Or survive a volcanic eruption? Or jump from the roof of one tall building to another? Then you need Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht’s one-of-a-kind book, The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.  Back in 1999, the authors, having conjured up as many outrageous situations as they could… Read more »

Scaredy Dog

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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here No one who had a church leadership role on September 16, 2001, will ever forget that day. It was the first Sunday after the 9/11 terror attacks.  For five days, America had been reeling.  The shock and horror of what happened in New York City, Washington D.C., and a field in Pennsylvania plunged the… Read more »

Don’t Freak Out

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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Eight summers ago, my two brothers and I embarked on the trip of a lifetime. Over the course of six days we traveled 100 miles in wooden dories on the turbulent Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.  It was a blast. We experienced about 30 sets of rapids, three of which at the time… Read more »

Peter Sinks Down

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For the four weeks leading up to and going beyond Easter, let’s take a look at the life of Peter.  Because he’s so often at the center of both the brightest and darkest moments in the Gospels, he has always been a source of hope and inspiration for those endeavoring to follow Jesus.  “But when he saw the wind, he… Read more »

Peter Steps Out

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For the four weeks leading up to and going beyond Easter, let’s take a look at the life of Peter.  Because he’s so often at the center of both the brightest and darkest moments in the Gospels, he has always been a source of hope and inspiration for those endeavoring to follow Jesus.  A man appeared one day at the… Read more »

Bring the Light

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Right now, according to the Doomsday Clock, we’re just 100 seconds from Armageddon.    A group of researchers established The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1947 to help alert humanity to the perils of atomic age weaponry.  Very few people paid attention until 1949, when the group invented the metaphor of a clock ticking ominously toward the extinction of human… Read more »

You Can’t Just Sit There

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In July 1982, 33-year-old Larry Walters of Long Beach, California, pulled off one of the craziest stunts in aviation history. As a child Larry had longed to fly.  But poor eyesight disqualified him from pilot training.  Then he got an idea. Walters attached 45 helium-filled weather balloons to his lawn chair.  He strapped himself in with a few sandwiches, a… Read more »

Contagious Courage

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Throughout November we’re taking an in-depth look at Ruth, the little book that helped pave the way for God’s Messiah to come into the world. The common cold has proven to be uncommonly hard to defeat. For years, British scientists operated a research facility called the Common Cold Unit.  It finally closed in 1989 without finding the elusive “cure” that… Read more »

Needles

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After 18 months of saturation news coverage of the pandemic, the televised images have become predictable. We see COVID patients lying in ICU beds.  Exhausted nurses.  Vials of vaccine rolling off pharmaceutical assembly lines.  Running tallies of the sick and dying.  Exasperated politicians.  Protesters chanting at workplaces and school board meetings.    Then there are the needles – seemingly endless… Read more »

Your Next Difficult Situation

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There’s a reason it’s called Thank God Ledge. By the time rock climbers have scaled most of Yosemite’s massive geological feature called Half Dome, the narrow ledge near the top is a welcome relief. Before the 20th century it didn’t seem possible that anyone could go straight up the granite face.  Three climbers – working together and using all the… Read more »