Daily Bread

Los judíos construyen su altar como uno de sus primeros actos oficiales. Simbolizaba la presencia y la protección de Dios.

We are in the Christmas season, and that makes some of us happy and expectant: family, food, and sometimes gifts, but the main thing is to be with family and special people.

My previous appointment was in my hometown, and, by the way, I didn’t know it would be my last ministry field in Mexico before returning to Fort Worth.

I think most of us have had days when it seems that everything starts to pile up and things don’t go as planned, and just like a domino effect, something goes wrong, and other things start going wrong, too.

I’m not sure where I first heard this story. In 1994, two Americans answered an invitation from the Russian Department of Education to teach morals and ethics (based on biblical principles) in the public schools.

There’s a story about a grandfather who found his grandson, jumping up and down in his playpen, crying at the top of his lungs. When the grandson saw his grandfather, he reached up his chubby little hands and said, “Out, Gramps, out.”

Have you ever thought of yourself as a lover letter from God to the world?

Much of the book of Acts is about the missionary journeys of Paul. His life and ministry can be summed up in the verse above. “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul.” Advent and Christmas remind us that God can and does do extraordinary things through each of us.

Have you ever left a present under the Christmas tree? Forgotten it was there and inadvertently left it there only to discover it when taking the tree down and getting it ready to stow away until next year? Linus asks, “What did you want . . . a chance to warm up first?”