Joe Barnett

A fool gives full vent to anger, but a wise person quietly holds it back.           —Proverbs 29:11 While his wife was making breakfast, Dan suddenly hollered, “Be careful!” She jumped and said, “What?” “The eggs!” he shouted. “You need to be careful, or they’ll stick to the pan.” A minute […]

Give us today our daily bread.             —Matthew 6:11 On August 5, 2010, the ramp into the San Jose copper/gold mine, twenty-eight miles north of Copiapó, Chile, collapsed, trapping thirty-three miners 2,300 feet underground. The miners retreated into a steel-reinforced safe room where emergency rations were stored—only enough to feed

I am making everything new. —Revelation 21:5 On February 12, 2014, a sinkhole forty feet wide and thirty feet deep gashed the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, swallowing eight vintage Corvettes. Only three were salvageable. The most valuable was the one-millionth Corvette that had rolled off the assembly line on July 2, 1992.

[I]f anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these . . . he will certainly not lose his reward.                —Matthew 10:42 “Random acts of kindness” has become a part of our vocabulary and hopefully our conduct: paying the check for the person in the

He . . . brings out the wind from his storehouses.                          —Psalm 135:7 Biosphere 2, the world’s largest closed ecological system, debuted on September 26, 1991, in Oracle, Arizona, with a crew of eight. It was initially meant to test the viability of

God is love. —1 John 4:8 The words of Mia’s father cut deep: “You’re a total failure, an embarrassment to our family.” Compared to her talented siblings, Mia’s dad viewed her as an underachieving disgrace. She excelled in composition and communication, but her father’s censure made her feel worthless. In a rehab center, after Mia’s

[H]e still speaks, even though he is dead.                      —Hebrews 11:4 An elder at a church where I had been invited to speak, shook my hand and said, “Your father had a big influence on me.” He told me he was only three-years-old when my dad,

Generations come and generations go.          —Ecclesiastes 1:4  On March 29, 1974, a party of Chinese farmers made a stunning discovery while drilling a water well in Shaanxi province in northwest China. They uncovered what became known as the Terracotta Army—life-size clay models of more than 8,000 soldiers, 150 cavalry horses, and

[I]n Christ we who are many form one body.                           —Romans 12:5 John Wooden, legendary basketball coach at UCLA, was insistent on team play. “There’s a reason basketball is played with five men on the court,” he said. “One man does not make