Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on May 11, 2010
GOD, OUR LANDLORD, PAYS US RENT
Israel could have felt much like John Donne, who wrote, "We are God’s tenants here, and yet here He, our landlord, pays us rents – not yearly, nor quarterly, but hourly and quarterly; every minute He renews His mercy."
Remember how Jeremiah put it (Lam. 3:22-23)?
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on May 11, 2010
In Disney's animated movie Toy Story, Woody (a plush toy cowboy) confronts Buzz Lightyear (a toy astronaut) with the fact that he is only an action figure and not really a space hero. Early in the movie Woody shouts, "You're not a space ranger! You're an action figure—a child's plaything." After
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on May 11, 2010
jeans, and no shoes. That was, after all, his wardrobe for 4 years of college. Bill was brilliant. And He became a Christian while in college. Across street from his college was a church – a church where everyone was well-dressed and very conservative. Bill went there one day. He walked in as he
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on May 11, 2010
When Shannon Ethridge was just 16 years old, an act of forgiveness and love changed her life forever. While driving to her high school one day, Ethridge ran over Marjorie Jarstfar, a woman who was riding her bicycle along a country road. Marjorie died as a result, and Ethridge, who was found
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Terry Barnhill on May 11, 2010
When 19th century American artist James Whistler was at the height of his artistic career, a wealthy patron purchased one of his pictures on the condition that the artist would accompany him home and help select a spot to hang the picture. Once at his mansion, the man held up the picture first here
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Terry Barnhill on May 11, 2010
NO LONGER ON TRIAL
In a museum art gallery of old masters, one visitor was being particularly and audibly critical of these great works of art. Finally, an elderly attendant could stand it no longer and said, "If you please, sir, the pictures are no longer on trial...but the spectators are."
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Terry Barnhill on May 11, 2010
Here’s a story about a woman who was standing at a bus stop. She had just cashed her tax refund check, so she was carrying more money than usual. She glanced around and noticed a shabbily dressed man standing nearby. As she watched, she saw another man walk up to him, hand him some money, and
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Presbyterian/Reformed
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Imagine with me for a moment, if you had a beautiful picture in your home that was worth over a hundred thousand dollars because of the artist who had painted it. It was a one of a kind masterpiece. The artist had put excellence into every stroke of his work The colors were awesome. The depth
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 14, 2010
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FAILURE TO DISEMBARK
There was an important business executive who boarded the New Orleans to Washington train. He had a very important business engagement and he needed to be awakened in order to get off the train in Atlanta about five o'clock in the morning. Since he was a heavy sleeper he found
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 14, 2010
ACCEPTING THIS PART OF THE PLAN
Years ago, the church I was serving did a cantata, during which one of the choir members gave a brief testimony. He was a beloved man who had been battling cancer. After acknowledging that he had asked all the questions and experienced all the emotions he simply
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 7, 2010
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CARRYING US BACK TO OUR ROOM
In a home of which I know, a little boy, the only son, was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month, the mother had tenderly nursed him, read to him and played with him, hoping to keep him from the dreadful finality of the doctor's diagnosis...the little boy
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Apr 7, 2010
IT MATTERS WHICH WAY YOU GO
In Lewis Carroll's classic story Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, "Which way do I want to go? Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where" says Alice.
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 30, 2010
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A PLEASING AROMA
There was a factory in northern France where lavender for use in perfumes was produced. Each evening as the workers would head for home and walk the streets the little town, the whole village would be filled with the sweet aroma of lavender that had clung to the workers.
That's
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 30, 2010
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THE BIGGER MIRACLE
Pastor Steve Yeschek lost his sister, Judy, after a five-year battle with cancer. She was a woman who, as Steve described her, was a party animal—-a big drinker with a self-contented lifestyle. She was someone everybody loved, because she exuded excitement and a thrill for life.
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 23, 2010
The psychoanalyst Victor Frankl and his friends were imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. It was winter. They had been marched off to work in the morning, spent the day at hard labor, been given only a little thin soup to eat, and then staggered back to camp in the late
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Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 23, 2010
"Consider Cornelia, a woman imprisoned in a work camp in Romania during the hard years of Communist occupation. One night, being too tired to undress, she fell exhausted on her bed and immediately went to sleep. She began to dream of a beautiful field full of flowers. There was a soft humming sound
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Mar 23, 2010
TABLE PREPARED ON 9/11
Will and John were firefighters called in to do battle with the Twin Towers on that terrible day we call 9-11. They were in one of the towers when it collapsed. After being buried alive under debris all day and into the night, Will had a vision. He saw a bright light and a
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Presbyterian/Reformed
BUECHNER'S UNIQUE LOOK AT FORGIVENESS
Frederick Buechner is a Presbyterian minister and an author, and he has delightful little book called The Alphabet of Grace. It is somewhat like a dictionary of terms that people of faith commonly use, only Mr. Buechner offers some very uncommon reflections on
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Presbyterian/Reformed
NO REST FOR THE UNFORGIVING
Somewhere in the recesses of my memory is the recollection of a movie. It’s a Western; I know that much. I can’t remember the title of the movie, but I remember the story line.
The hero is a law man, and he is transporting a convicted murderer across the treacherous
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Presbyterian/Reformed