Below is an excerpt from the personal devotional included in this year’s 1517 Advent Resources.
The Lord’s provision doesn’t rest on the strength of our gratitude.
A Bit of Earth is about the garden, but it’s also about us—as we are made from dirt.

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No, when the Lord is ready for battle, of all creatures, he commissions Mary’s little lamb.
A crisis of faith always occurs when we begin to believe that God has betrayed us.
Have you ever played hide and seek with a 2-year-old? News flash: They’re terrible at it.
I became like God’s child David, whom the Lord pardoned of his adultery and murder. I became like Noah, Abraham, Judah, Aaron, Gideon, and so many more wayward children.
I have my list. It may seem strange to you, but, when I think about my own death, I often think in terms of positive failures.
Stephen Fry, the English actor, author and game show host once disparaged the “grammar Nazis” who felt it necessary to enforce all the rules of language but who had forgotten, or just didn’t care, about the joy of language.
We're of little faith. Or rather, we have big faith, but it’s in something else. Our faith is in our ability to control situations, manipulate them to our advantage.
Either one of those verses alone is scary; but both of them together are terrifying!
I'm in the middle of a series on Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
Faith does not require that we always Hoorah what the Lord does. God wants children, not brown-nosers.
When Simon the Pharisee got his holier-than-thou panties in a wad over what this woman was doing, Jesus insulted him by pointing out how much a better host this prostitute was than he was.
He has wandered away into the darkness of his doubting, got lost in his grief, confused by the pains he’s suffered. It happens. Shepherds sometimes become lost sheep as well.