Over the next two weeks you will hear from two women whose broken hallelujahs will encourage and inspire you though you may not have experienced the shattered hearts they describe. I love each of them deeply and have had the privilege of walking in some of their dark places with them…

Forever etched in my soul is the sound of the congregation opening Mark’s Coronation service with O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus. All the lights were on but I felt wrapped in a blanket of darkness. Over twelve hundred men…

As a child, I sat with my parents and grandmother in our tiny Presbyterian church and gustily sang the old hymns. I especially loved Sunday night services when the preacher asked for favorites. My cousins and I eagerly…

The covenantal promises of God formed a grid through which I learned to live life in the crucible of suffering. When I struggled to understand my purpose as an empty nester far sooner than I expected, God gave me comfort…

The prophet Habakkuk’s heart broke as he watched Babylon, the enemy of Israel, break the backs of God’s people by enslaving them.  Why didn’t God do something? These are God’s precious people yet once more they suffered the consequences of their own sinful abandonment of worship..

Paul and Silas could sing a broken hallelujah because they believed in the promises of God, one of which is the promise of restoration. Their greatest example of that restoration was the day Jesus died. Everything went black…

Paul and Silas sang at midnight because they believed the promises of God. They believed His promises because God cannot lie. They believed God’s promises because God kept the mother of all promises when He sent Jesus to live as a man, to experience every temptation known to man, to die on a cross for our sins and then to conquer death by rising again.

“Is God really sovereign? Can I trust Him now…even in this?” The steady, virulent progress of the malignant brain tumor gave real urgency to these questions for David. The disease had progressed relentlessly; a cure seemed unlikely. David knew he didn’t have much time.

What happened in that prison cell? Lots of miracles! Pitch dark. No natural light. It’s midnight. Two men imprisoned on trumped up charges. Severely beaten, stripped of their clothing, put in stocks…

Let’s go back to that prison cell where Paul and Silas sang and praised God at midnight. What do you think they hoped to accomplish with their singing? Some people teach that if we have enough faith God is obligated…

Jesus uses events in our lives to show us new things about ourselves. Within a year after our son Mark’s death, our daughter Heidi married Greg, our son Dan started college, and our oldest son, Chuck, married Melanie…

What is your purpose in life? Many of us think our purpose is to recapture the Garden of Eden and our pursuit of that goal starts with our births. Think about it. Newborn babies come into this world with their own agendas…

Christians sometimes offer false hope to struggling people because their theology is skewed. Browse a Christian bookstore and check out the titles. Are you drawn to titles like these: You Can be the Wife of a Happy Husband…

As a young man, Dr. J. I. Packer said: “Theology is bad for one’s soul.”  What? This from a world-renowned theologian? Instead of a study of God transforming hard hearts into soft, tender expressions of God’s

Last week we took a quick look at Paul and Silas singing at midnight. Acts 16 tells their story. They were arrested under false pretenses; they were severely beaten, thrown into the inner prison and locked in stocks…

Several years after Mark’s death God seared into our souls a vivid image of the privilege of corporate worship within our covenant community (i.e., our circle of believing Christians friends) as described in Today’s Treasure - Hebrews 10:25…

Our son Mark’s death stripped away all religious pretenses. I wanted, no I needed to know that everything I had taught, everything I said I believed about the love and sovereignty of God for me, for each of His children was true…

I know what the title of your next book should be,” our friend said as she greeted us after church.  She continued, “Read Acts 16 where Paul and Silas are imprisoned unfairly, and you’ll see why I think the title should be, Will you sing at midnight?”

Leonard Cohen, author of A Broken Hallelujah was Jewish. For a time he also practiced Buddhism. He was not a professing Christian and there is a dark message in this song as well. In explaining the message of A Broken Hallelujah Cohen said…

Frederick Buechner, American author, theologian and preacher among many other things said that praise is not offering God compliments but that we “learn to praise by paying attention.” Perhaps this is what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote Today’s Treasure…