The Forward Day by Day Archives

Usually, we think of these words as comfortable and encouraging.

Our society is becoming more polarized, and our politics are becoming more strident and judgmental. It makes me wonder if we are adopting a darker and more disturbing saying: “If you search for something to....

In May, just after the snow melts, the Yampa Valley is a carpet of little yellow lilies. The lilies and every growing plant testify that God makes abundant displays of the rare and precious. The green leaves are full of cells with the pigment chlorophyll, which is used for photosynthesis, a critical....

Mother was a skillful seamstress and sewed my older sister’s prom dress. The night before the prom, she was tired, and it was not going well. My dad asked, “Why don’t you finish it tomorrow?” Knowing her full plate, she replied, “You don’t need a prom dress after the prom.”

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I have many sins against others, and many will not be forgiven. I am a stumbling block. I have failed many trials, and the resulting hard feelings may be forgotten only because the children do not share the memories.

Many of the sins have to do with timeliness. I often und....

My older brother’s wife was a psychiatrist who did a great deal of work with Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD. From her, I learned that the part of the brain that controls emotions is much faster than the analytical part of the brain. Our emotions commit us to action long before we even begin ....

John, the author of Revelation, loves to talk about living as a Christian.

In this passage, he compares the vision of all of God’s children coming together to the beauty of a bride and groom on their wedding day. In awe and expectation, they are ready and willing to love....

I was the right-hand man for a resort developer, and then it all came tumbling down. Some say they were crooks; some say they were so smart, they ended up being stupid, and some say it was a “black swan event,” something unpredictable and rare. Maybe it was a little bit of all three. All I know ....

Our daughter, Kate, is an ICU nurse, and through the years, she has seen many families on her floor, all in fear and trepidation and grief. One afternoon, she noticed a woman in the hall and asked her how she was doing. She replied that she was okay. Kate responded, gently explaining that it was oka....

I am always blown away when I find someone who embraces God’s steadfast love and does not repeat the selfish sins and ways of their parents. My friend Peter is such a man. We met in college and shared classes and a common faith. As our friendship grew, he shared some of his personal story. His par....

Our daughter, Katie, offered to take salt to the cows in the river pasture, a wide canyon with an ash, elm, and cottonwood forest. We told Katie she would have to cross the rickety bridge, go up the hill, through a gate in the next pasture, and then back through a gate into the river pasture.

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A cow consumes several ounces of salt every day, and we add trace minerals to the salt to supplement her diet when required. In the spring, lactating cows on new grass are vulnerable to grass tetany, a calcium imbalance that can be fatal. Adding a bit of magnesium to the salt can prevent the conditi....

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness indicates that the satisfaction will not last, that righteousness is a temporary condition. John baptized for the forgiveness of sins. However, when Jesus was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, the voice from heaven proclaimed, “This is my son, the bel....

John has just experienced a vision of a vast, uncountable multitude from all nations, languages, and races, and they are all robed in white. He sees the church—the followers of Christ—totally wrapped up in the Word. In this vision, the people are completely immersed in God’s healing and cleans....

Perhaps the greatest challenge in raising our kids was teaching them to apologize and forgive. With their shoulders hunched up, backs turned, and scowls on their faces, they would spit out, “I’m sorry,” and “You’re forgiven,” even though it was clearly lip service. As they grew into adul....

We sold lamb frozen in little white packages, and I helped the butcher with the harvest. After I had the lamb held down just right, in one swift motion, the butcher cut the veins, arteries, and trachea and then snapped the spinal cord in the neck. In an instant, the lamb was dead, and there was no g....

My wife and I offered bread made from our very first wheat crop for Holy Communion. We ground kernels of wheat in a blender for five minutes as we tried to make flour. It did not measure up to our expectations. With the first bite, we worried that we would be responsible for cracking everyone’s te....

While my son was on patrol in Iraq, a man offered him an ice cream cone. At that moment, a sniper’s bullet pierced the head of the man and shattered the security they were there to provide. My son spent the rest of his tour of duty with bloodstains on his boots. Haunted by that event and many othe....

We had fifty ewes. In the summer, we kept them in electric fenced paddocks and moved them several times a week to fresh pasture. They learned the sound of my voice and would come to the gate to go to bed or to feed. In the winter, they would come to the hay I fed from a horse-drawn sleigh. During la....

The day after our son was born, I was fired. My wife, Nan, had already been placed on unpaid maternity leave. Every day for the next three months, we would wake and pray, “Lord, send us work.” Then the phone would ring, and one of us would go to work as a temporary vet or draftsman, and the othe....

To me, the Book of Revelation is all a jumble of time, and I always wonder as I read, “What is? What was? And what is yet to be?”

We tend to forget that when we become separate from the Creator, all creation suffers. With the resurrection of Jesus our Lord, all creatio....