Latest Posts

  • The Cost of Spring Making

    Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose hearts are the highways of Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs. Psalm 84:5-6 The desires of our heart, the ones originating in God’s heart, then planted in ours by His hesed love, often come at a cost. To make the Valley of Baca a place of springs is a noble desire. There is much talk… Read More

  • Let’s Begin Again

    I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.  Isaiah 42:8-9 St. Francis of Assisi loved the tau symbol of the cross. As the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet, it signified for him not merely an ending, but an… Read More

  • Until He Does What He Said

    I’ve posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem. Day and night they keep at it, praying, calling out, reminding God to remember. They are to give him no peace until he does what he said, until he makes Jerusalem famous as the City of Praise. Isaiah 62:1,6-7, MSG She stared up at a straggling strip of plastic trapped in the barbed wire along the top of the gate. Faded birthday balloons once bright and colorful danced… Read More

  • This Strange Gift Wrap

    This popular devotion originally appeared on audreyfrank.org in February 2021. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4 It came in strange gift wrap, not at all what I expected. But the gift was right there inside. I turned it over in my hands, joyously held it to my heart, and wondered at the mad methods of my Lover. It is exactly what I asked for,… Read More

  • Take Heart and Get Up

    “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Mark 10:46-51… Read More

  • Unless You All Stay Together

    Paul said to the Roman officer and his soldiers, “Unless you all stay together onboard the ship, you have no chance of surviving.” Acts 27:31 (TPT) When the winds rise and the ship’s timbers groan, the natural human inclination is to panic. Our innate fight or flight instinct trips and the little amygdala deep in our brain urges, Protect yourself!!! The soldiers on board Paul’s battered ship to Rome were no different. As they sneakily… Read More

  • We Must Run Aground

    But we must run aground on some island to be saved. Acts 27:26 Sometimes in life we must run aground to be saved. If it were up to us, we’d avoid shipwreck. Who wants to be dashed against the hard rocks of life? But it’s not often up to us, especially if we live in community. In community, no one lives unto himself. The reality is, everything we do impacts others. We can choose to… Read More

  • Hide Me

    Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 17:8   Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8-9   For in the… Read More

  • We are Not Enough

    Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.  2 Corinthians 3:5 Sufficient: enough, adequate, plenty of, ample, abundant.  Antonyms: insufficient, inadequate. Just one search on Amazon books returned 393 results for the word enough. Sufficient yielded over 10,000. We have an obsessive-compulsive relationship with the need to be enough. The need to be sufficient nags at us until we do something about it. Then it nags again.… Read More

  • Come and be Small

    But God has chosen the foolish things of the world, the things that are not, to nullify the things that are. 1 Corinthians 1:28 Come and be small, said no one ever. Except, perhaps, one who learned the hard way that less is more, small is truly big, and to lose one's life is to find it. Saul's name meant sought after. One day, he would be called Paul instead. Paul means little. But that… Read More