A Dot Sheet God

The sun shines down on 200 high school students as they stand scattered across the football field. The track around the field is littered with band instruments, water bottles and sunscreen containers.

The voice of the band director booms out of the public address system in the stadium. “Find your place in set nine. Set nine. Then take a seat as soon as you are certain you’ve found your place.”

200 heads look down at laminated sheets of paper. Lips move silently as each individual reads a specific coordinate and tries to picture where they are supposed to go. Heads pop up to verify yard lines and hash marks before eyes return to the coordinate sheets. Feet begin pacing off carefully counted steps. Section leaders quickly find their place and then turn to help the new members and those who continue to have trouble translating a coordinate into a physical place on the football field.

LEFT 3.25 steps inside 35                  12.75 steps in front of home hash

Living With a Perfect God

There seem to be many competing images of God in the world today; a loving father, a benevolent master, a strict tyrant, a demanding ideologue, holy perfection and many, many more. Ultimately, our image of God is reflected in our own life. We see it in our expectations, in the way we treat others and in the way we think about ourselves. Changing the way we understand God can change almost everything about life.

Lament

As I return to my writing after a month-long sabbatical I am struck by the events of this summer, and especially this past weekend, that have left us shaking our heads and wondering, “Why?” From the seemingly every day tragedies reported on the news shows to the extreme cases like the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, the events surrounding the Penn State football program, and the disappearance of two young girls in a neighboring community we are faced with the various ways evil manifests itself in our life. Such a constant barrage of bad news leaves us in a precarious emotional state searching for some way to respond.

Not My Voice

At first I was hesitant to believe that this voice I heard in my head was the actually God speaking to me. I’m still not one-hundred percent certain about it. At the time, there was only one way to find out if it was or if it wasn’t God speaking to me. So I started to listen.

The Voice of God

Trusting God implies that we know what God wants us to do. That’s not always so clear and it’s not hard to find different interpretations from different people. Where is that clear voice that speaks from another realm like it did for the people in the Bible?