I think many if not most Christians find it challenging to take time for something as impractical as prayer.  I learned many things in school, but the practice of solitude or silent contemplation was not one of them. Jesus seems silly to us when he scans the crowds with compassion in his eyes and then tells his disciples to pray.  “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few,” Jesus says, “therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9: 37-38). We wish Jesus had said, “The harvest is huge…so get out there and go to work.” Instead, he calls a prayer meeting!

Of course, Jesus’ call to prayer does not mean we should react to someone bleeding to death in front of us by organizing a prayer meeting (that might come later). Check Matt. 9: 35 and you’ll find that Jesus called his disciples to pray after he himself had been out in the field “proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness.” In other wor...

“You are the apple of my eye.” It’s a familiar line…but did you know it comes from the pages of the Bible? The “apple” of the eye referred to the pupil of the eye probably because an apple was one of the most common sphere-shaped objects around.  The apple or “pupil” of the eye, is the gateway through which visible light passes and is converted by the brain into three dimensional images. The original Hebrew phrase, often translated “apple,” really means “little man” or “little daughter” of my eye.  Look into someone’s eyes right now. Can you see your reflection? When we stand very close to someone, we can actually see a tiny reflection of ourselves, in the center of the other person’s eye.  When you are in the “apple” of my eye you are close to me, in more ways than one, because…

To be “the apple” of someone’s eye is to be cherished by that person above all others. At infancy, the optimal distance for eye to eye contact is about 10 inches – which just happens to be t...

“The water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” – John 4:14
 
It seems like we’ve had more rain in the past 10 weeks than we have had in the past 10 years.  Storms have boosted rainfall in California by 115%, which is good news.  Still, I can’t seem to get enough of it.  I relish every drop and, indeed, state water managers say that our reservoirs are still below normal for this time of year.  Last weekend we visited my eldest daughter in the Bass Lake area where she is enjoying a semester in the Sierras with several other students.  I recently learned that Bass Lake was once a lush valley, transformed in 1895 into the very first reservoir used to generate power and water for the San Joaquin Valley.  As we were driving up to Bass Lake on Friday we entered yet another thunder storm, slowing our progress considerably but generating awe and delight in us at the same time.
 
On Sunday morning I took a walk down to the...