assistance

When was the last time you wandered in the desert wastes of addiction or anger, dissensions or divisions, enmity or envy, idolatry or impurity, sensuality or strife, finding no way to fulfill the hole in your heart, but desperately trying to anyway? When have you faced betrayal or blame, cancer or...

The story of the flight of Katie von Bora from her convent and her arrival at Wittenberg, where she eventually married Martin Luther, is well-known. Few are acquainted with the person who engineered the flight, Ursula von Münsterberg, granddaughter of King George of Poděbrady of Bohemia and cousin...

This blog is adapted from Dan Doriani’s book, published in July, Work That Makes Difference. At the moment, Western culture is facing a post-covid crisis in our view of work. Everywhere we go, we see Help Wanted ads. Restaurants that recently paid $9-10 per hour are offering $16 and a signing bonus...

Solan Gidada – An Ethiopian Christian Hero His family name, Gidada, meant “one who weeps for his people.” But when Solan Gidada became blind at age five as a result of smallpox, his parents wept for him. But he was alive. Seven of his siblings had died from the same illness during an epidemic that...

I enjoy good children’s books, and not just to read to my children, but because they can be beautiful, fun, and moving. Oh the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss is one of my favorites. It contains a page halfway through that is dedicated to the Waiting Place, drawn in dreary shades of grey, blue, and...

Gudina Tumsa – Martyr and Thinker On July 28, 1979, Gudina Tumsa led a Bible study at Urael Church in Addis Ababa, one of the congregations of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY). He had barely left the church when he was kidnapped, together with his wife, Tsehay Tolessa, by some...

Waiting is hard. Whether it is sitting at a traffic light or standing in a checkout line, we have no choice but to wait and watch the seconds tick slowly by, often with gritted teeth. We wait because we are dependent on things outside of ourselves – the timing of the lights and the number of cars,...

“Therefore, become imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2). In much Jewish thought the idea of imitating God was anathema. With the initial sin of Adam and Eve in “desiring to...

How can the believer reconcile the suffering, trials, and persecution they are guaranteed with the astounding assurance in Psalm 121 that the Lord will keep them from all evil? Some might misinterpret this passage and claim a false gospel of health and wealth. Others may question God’s wisdom when...

About one year ago while lying in bed I whispered to God in desperation: “ I am so afraid.” It was the most heightened sense of dread I had ever experienced (and I and my household had already made it through some pretty horrific times over the last half decade). Then the voices of children from a...