Doug In a Bottle

  Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a marble factory with his brother. They tended to the machines and watched marbles roll out batch after batch. Other workers were there tending to things like quality assurance and typical business matters. The brothers just lived there, tending to the machines. Marble production was at an all time high. Colors of all sorts, cat eyes, big ones, little ones, shiny ones, dull ones, the list was endless. But one day one off the brothers found something marble like but… different. It wasn’t very shiny and didn’t have any color except when the light hit it at just the right angle. The factory had no record of it and couldn’t conceive of how to produce such a thing. It was an anomaly, a very strange marble indeed.  So the man kept it in his pocket, for he saw the value of such a thing, even though he knew now what to make of it at first. As the weeks faded into the past he did some digging and some asking.  Wha...

  A man once asked me “if your friend were killed with a pistol would you wear a little pistol around your neck or would it be offensive to you?” It’s a good question, to be fair, and the answer is pretty simple… It depends. This raises the question, “What would this depend on?” The circumstances surrounding the event. Lets try a clumsy analogy. Say a child was walking home from a late movie with his parents and both were taken from me by a man with a gun, he might harbor a deep resentment towards the object used to take them from him. That’s understandable, right ? But let’s try to imagine a similar circumstance in a different light. Suppose the same tool is used to take the same parents from a child but with an additional piece of information… the boy notices his father making the conscious decision to take the bullet destined for the child. The bullet meant for the child is taken by the father, willingly, purposefully, and the child see’s it. ...

We do not live in a perfect world. We are not surrounded by perfect people. The Church is no different. Now, when I say that you probably think it’s odd to refer to a building in such a way or you agree and imagine countless errors the infamous catholic church is guilty (or accused) of. Still, a small portion of our fair earthly populous might think of another entity. The thing to which I refer is none other than the bride of Christ, the church in her biblical sense. What I refer to is every person who has truly trusted in our beloved savior Jesus Christ’s and His work. This is not the product of completing a checklist or having a certain pedigree. It is merely the result of looking heavenward and crying out to the only one who can save a soul from the very fate they know is coming lest the hand of God snatch them from the bowl of His wrath. But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. As ...

The last couple days have been pretty tough. I’m not very good at being sick. Maybe I haven’t had enough practice at it. As I get older I’m sure that’ll change but today I thank the good Lord for breath in my lungs and the ability to retain fluids. People often ask the question:   “Why so much sickness, death, and tragedy?”   I think this is a good question which we ought not dismiss because the answer points like a spotlight towards the cross. The purpose is, quite simply, to remind us how weak we really are. The gentle subtle reminders of our dependency upon the Lord who actively sustains the creation He has made are the ocean we swim in. The abundance is the very reason why we miss them. Even those of us with redeemed hearts and renewed minds, we miss them, because we are still learning to walk according to truth instead of what SEEMS to be true. Here is the turning point after man has fallen: the moment God expels man from the Garden of Eden. 22  Then...