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Oh, that we should ascend to God in prayer becomes the way we place ourselves before Him, the way in which we plead, and in the pleading admit our need, our lack, our desire to become whole. Our prayers offer a revelation, though not always at the moment of praying, that He should answer in His time and in His way. This sojourn we are on, this desire to know Him and understand, this apparent silence of this seeming unanswered prayer, must mean our Lord wishes to reveal someth

Of all the challenges a Christian will face in life, what he perceives to be God’s silence may be for him the most troublesome. God’s silence, at times, particularly those times when life challenges our strained desire to hear Him, is the most difficult to abide. Such a silence calls us to listen, to hear the Spirit’s whisperings, to still our lives and grow deeper in our faith. Yet, how do we respond but with an all-too-present willingness to fill the void with anything and

There was once a man who lived in the countryside of a certain region. Every day he rose to tend the field so he could eat. When the yield was good, he would take and sell a portion of his harvest and store the rest for the time when the yield was less plentiful. He came to rely on his skill as a farmer because he knew no others would do for him what he could do for himself. Then one day, a great famine plagued the land. The soil did not yield. The rain did not come. The land

Rain weaves through the forest this morning. Whispering their silence in the breeze, the mountain laurels seem to say we were here before you and will be here after. Outside the window, the creek dances with ripples joyfully etching the landscape in time. Seeking refuge and rest, the squirrels chose not to come out to play in the rain. Creation is renewing this morning and one can only sense God saying, “Be still. See what I am doing in you.” Abiding God’s hand, nature only k

A man once said to me, “Do not let your intellect interfere with your intelligence.” This missive has never left me alone. Imagine if Chicken Little had heard this and adopted it as his mantra. The sky would not have fallen, and Chicken Little would not have wasted all that worry. Sometimes I think our approach to the Christian life is the same, too much intellect and not enough intelligence. Perhaps too much has been written about the meaning of this or that verse and chapte

The wearied soul tires from the burden he contemplates, this burden of knowing the love and peace his Lord has granted him yet evading his neighbor who goes on wishing for proof that God lives and loves. Even his Christian brother engages by the reasoned argument, an ever so subtle means to confine his Lord, though he admits to himself the reasoned why  can be light to an otherwise lost soul, a segue to opening a hardened heart. What tires him are the echoes from the clamorin

Junior just couldn’t shake it, this idea about leaven being evil that Preacher Pat planted with the congregation. The thought just didn’t resonate, but then, he was not Jewish and life in the first century was foreign to him. He understood a little more about boll weevils because around Four Holes it seemed like recent history. He came from a line of cotton farmers, and the family stories were filtered through the War of Northern Aggression and the boll weevil. Still, leaven

Junior Bradshaw steered his truck toward exit 156 on his way home to Four Holes from an overnight business trip. As much as he disliked being away, comin’ home made it palatable. Although Four Holes didn’t offer much like bigger cities, the people living there loved the quiet when the crickets weren’t chirping and the slow pace of life there. Driving home gave Junior time to contemplate life and he often had deep thoughts. Junior was capable of contemplation whereas most in F

The drive up the mountain this morning brought a smile to my soul as the sun’s rays danced through the trees and a canopy of autumn colors filled my senses with every thrust of exuberant orange, red, and yellow. This multi-colored coat embraced me around every curve, returned to me her eager expression. Rolling up the mountain was an Eden’s delight.

Perhaps this all began with Cain and Abel, this us and them prism by which we live and think and see and do. Folks in Four Holes aren’t any different. Down here in Four Holes, where my friend Mary says we’re just a screen door from hell, where the heat and humidity can make a man known and prominent by the way he sweats and will drive him to drink iced tea by the gallon, Fern Campbell had what is referred to in Four Holes as an “insah-dent.”

God so loves His creation, and the response from man—where is God? Job could have asked the same question, fallen into the rationale of which his friends attempted to convince him.

I have become a reader, a departure from my youthful desire to avoid it and the tests that followed at all cost, which I could not. Three books, sometimes more, rest bedside, dormant until my hands and eyes fall on them. Short chapters. A word here – there. Sentences – paragraphs. Chapter – verse.  Language revealing its reflection to me.

Things are quiet here in the swamp. Most folks in Four Holes go about their business quiet-like and neighborly. Most like to stay in good stead with Miss Sadie. She bakes the best apple crumb anybody ever wrapped their lips around, but she’ll find a way to avoid giving you one if you are tied up in a rumor. Well, the other day Bert Johnson got tangled in a rumor. Bert likes to tell people he is a confirmed bachelor, but everybody knows he ain’t mature enough to get married. I

God’s Kingdom has no need but the need to gather into God’s arms the wanderers and the lost.

... like the man who on an arduous journey comes to a certain town of which he has heard before, and stopping for refreshment, realizes...

How does the writer know his character or the painter his subject? How does the builder know his house but to build it? How does one know...

“Would you like a pop?” “Yes, I like my Pop.” “No, I mean a soda.” “A soda? Do you mean a coke?” “Yes, a coke.” I knew at this moment...

Morning, Lord. It’s me. I’m here in Four Holes Community sitting on my screen porch close to the swamp. I thought I would muse a bit...

We are adept at hardening our anger, finding ways to suppress and repress it, rationalize it, even polish it and call it good, expending...

“ bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you” (Matthew 5:44). It boiled over the day the cows got out. Vernon Miller and...