Today’s Walk in the Word

We will do everything the Lord has said.                                   —Exodus 24:7 The office manager and I had a cordial conversation about the lease increase. She said she’d get back to me by the end of the day. That was […]

Whatever your lips utter you must be sure to do.  —Deuteronomy 23:23 They live three doors from me: dad, mom, and first-grader. I saw the child every day for a week, leash in hand, walking her puppy. It was Norman Rockwell cute. Then I began seeing the mother walking the dog; daughter nowhere to be […]

Bad company corrupts good character.                    —1 Corinthians 15:33 Work at the perfume counter, and you’ll smell like perfume. Work in the fish market, and you’ll smell like fish. Companionships shape you: those you hang out with—and those you don’t. Proverbs pegs some company to steer clear […]

If you possess these traits . . . you will never be ineffective.                  —2 Peter 1:8 AA works because they’re all in the same boat: recovering alcoholics. So they are comrades, not critics; supporters, not superiors. The church should be a safe harbor because we’re all in […]

[Elisha] used wood from the plow to build a fire.        —1 Kings 19:21 “Burn the boats” comes from a legend of Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés ordering his men to burn their boats, eliminating the possibility of retreat in their conquest of the Aztec empire. The story is questionable. But a story in […]

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.               —Psalm 40:5 Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin declared war on bacterial infections. Penicillin became dubbed “the miracle cure.” Not to downplay Dr. Fleming’s revolutionary discovery, from which we’ve all benefited—but thousands of years earlier, God planted potent […]

A man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.               —Isaiah 53:3 Portrait artist, Robert Henkes, wrote: “A portrait is not a photograph, nor is it a mirror image.” A portrait, he explained, goes beyond the outer appearance “to capture what the person is really about.” The first portrait I […]

You do not know what a day may bring.                                —Proverbs 27:1 Hilary Lunke was a professional golfer. But in 115 LPGA Tour starts, her first—and only—win was on July 7, 2003, when, against all odds, she won the U.S. Women’s […]

Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor.        —2 Corinthians 8:9 Police reporter Jacob Riis worked the impoverished ghettos of New York City. His personal experience of poverty—surviving on scavenged food and sleeping in foul-smelling public areas—combined with his observation of the poor in the city slums, led him […]

There is a remnant chosen by grace.                       —Romans 11:5 Jesus told his apostles, “I have chosen you out of the world” (Jn 15:19). When two men were put forward as prospects to fill the vacancy left by Judas, Luke used the same verb (eklegomai): […]