Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this… Psalm 37:4-5 My dog is psychotic. Pepper is a friendly, shy little fellow who has been part of our family for the last 4 years. He’s a mutt, a rescue dog that we acquired from the local dog pound. He’s great with the kids, good on a leash and lazy- he spends 20 hours of…
Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery! We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. And so begins the Declaration of Independence, the foundational document of our republic which announced to the…
When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing… So Joshua said to them, each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell…
God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. ~Ecclesiastes 3:11 It’s back. I get it every now and again. It comes and goes. A vague dissatisfaction with life. A sense that time is passing me by, a feeling that I’m spinning my wheels and not really making a difference. It comes to me often in half formed or…
Genesis 16:13 She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me!” “What!?” my 9 year old daughter Katelyn said to me as I watched with obvious pleasure as she ate a cupcake. “Aren’t I allowed to watch my own daughter that I love?” I inquired. “No, Daddy!” She said, turning away with embarrassment, but a shy smile played at the corners of her mouth. Over the past month or so I’ve…
Good Friday morning to you! It’s hard to believe that it’s Friday and I’ve been so negligent in updating you on our trip. Hopefully you’ve been seeing some pictures go up on Facebook. When you are out of internet access from 7 AM to 6 PM, it’s hard to discipline yourself to pull together an update! So let me give you a little summary of each day. On Monday the team went to Garden Blossom orphanage, a state run orphanage…
Dear GLCC Friends and Family, News is trickling down here about the tremendous day you all had at church today- a wonderful spirit of worship, a great sermon (how could it be anything but great with P. Bob preaching?), an incredible outpouring of generosity to the tune of $185,000 and counting, and then an awesome all-church supper. From the very start our slogan or tag for this month long generosity emphasis was “paying down the mortgage to free up money…
f your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. Matthew 18:8 Late last night I turned on the TV to catch the Republican primary results from Michigan and Arizona before I went to bed. As I was flipping through the channels to get to CNN, I stumbled…
Psalm 62:8 Trust in [God] at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks at the Benedict house with the throttle wide-open for ministry and life in general. So last week my wife gently approached me to mention that we weren’t talking enough. Always a bit defensive with these types of conversations, I think I said something like, “Well, that’s news to me, aren’t we talking…
Mark 1:15 “The time has come” [Jesus] said. “Repent and believe the good news!” I was talking with Lance Utne, one of our 10th grade class shepherd, last night at the Patriot/Stonewall boys basketball game. He shared a humorous story from teen Sunday school this past week. Every week the senior high youth gather for a time of group instruction and then break out into various small groups for further teaching and discussion. Now, I was a youth pastor for…