Tagged: Audrey Frank

Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters! Let every person be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger (James 1:19, NET). “You never know what someone else is going through” sounds like a mother’s well-worn admonition to her children. I know I say it often to mine, and the words ring true if we stop a moment to think about it. In our fast-paced, busy culture, we race past one another, forming immediate judgments without pausing to truly understand one another. Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. Things aren’t always as they seem. Don’t judge a book by its cover. The English language is brimming with idioms which caution against hasty judgment. Yet, again and again, we trample… Read More

thanks, Edie Look towards him and shine with joy; no longer hang your heads in shame.Psalm 34:5, New English Bible Hello, readers. I am breaking tradition today and sending you this post a day early. According to the National Day Calendar, today is Save Your Photos Day. In a recent conversation with a friend, I was reminded of the power of shame to blot out our faces, to erase the photos where we once smiled and laughed. The photos where we belonged to a group of other smiling people, arms draped safely and comfortably around each other. Or the photos we didn’t take because we just didn’t think we were worth it. The first yearbook I remember receiving was in elementary school. I will never… Read More

for SW For forty days the Philistine came forward and took his stand, morning and evening (1 Samuel 17:16). Dear One,  The battle seems relentless. The attacks are cruel and unfair. You don’t want to ask, but you must ask, Why does God let it go on? Where is the victory? I see your shoulders drooped low with weariness. You have fought long.  And those hands. Strong hands, loving hands, serving hands. Hands that washed feet, hands that helped young men stand taller, hands that held the hands of widows and orphans, offering help and comfort. Hands that have delivered babies in the middle of the bush country where there was no doctor. Hands that have scooped up sand from a riverbed and loaded it… Read More

One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked (John 5:5-9) Sometimes suffering can go on so long we lose hope. We lie on the mats of our circumstances and watch others rush past in pursuit of… Read More

Come down from the cross (Matthew 27:40). We don’t often think of Calvary in terms of the emotional temptation of Jesus. But if we listen closely to those insulting dagger words thrown at Jesus by the chief priests, teachers of the law and elders, we will recognize the voice of the deceiver. Just as he challenged Jesus’ lordship in the wilderness during the famous temptation recounted in Matthew 4, he can be heard in the Savior’s weakest, most exposed moment on the cross, tirelessly seeking to break Jesus’ will.  W. Glyn Evans, in Daily with the King, describes it like this:  “The emotional strain of the cross was staggering. The chief ingredient was abandonment. The abandonment of Jesus was complete—people, disciples, and even (though only… Read More

God saw all that he had made—and it was very good! (Genesis 1:31, NET) And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done (Genesis 2:2). bzzzzzz! bzzzzz! bzzzzzz! My phone practically vibrated right out of my pocket as a flood of messages came in all at once. I was out of town, but my children and I have an agreement that they can reach out to me any time, anywhere. Sure enough, every text was from my youngest. The pictures my little girl had drawn lit up my screen and my heart. She wanted me to see her work and tell her it was good. In… Read More

God's words are like stepping stones through the landscape of life. Trust in the Lord and do what is right! Settle in the land and maintain your integrity! Then you will take delight in the Lord, and he will answer your prayers. Commit your future to the Lord! Trust in Him and He will act on your behalf. He will vindicate you in broad daylight, and publicly defend your just cause (Psalm 37:3-6, NET). In the worn pages of my Bible, this passage from Psalm 37 has scribbles and notes filling the margin and tumbling off the edge. Dates are written down, scattered like stepping stones through the landscape of my life, marking my search for stability. The world around us may quake, trials may rage,… Read More

O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant and showing steadfast love to your servants who walk before you with all their heart…You spoke with your mouth, and with your hand have fulfilled it this day. Now therefore, O Lord, keep… what you have promised to him saying, “You shall not lack…” (2 Chronicles 6:14-16). I am thinking deeply these days about how my Father gives us a job to do, then promises He will help us do it, then with His own hand completes it.  Covered Glory, releasing in just two days on August 20, is such a promise kept. Like Solomon after the completion of the temple, I have set my heart toward… Read More

What wall are you facing today? For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. Psalm 18:28-29 I have found comfort in this promise in some of the hardest places on earth. Facing life's challenges can seem like looking up at an immovable wall. Islam is certainly a wall, as anyone who has lived and worked as a follower of Jesus in its midst well knows. Sitting face to face with a witch-doctor on the hard dirt of an African village while the people watch to see whose God is stronger surely seems like facing a wall. But by my… Read More

My upcoming book, Covered Glory: The Face of Honor and Shame in the Muslim World, releases August 20, 2019 (Harvest House Publishers), and you are invited to join my launch team! What is a launch team? Edie Melson, my stellar writing mentor, says, “A street team—also called a launch team, dream team, tribe, posse, road crew, etc.—is a group of readers passionate about your book. These are people who believe in what you've written and see the value of sharing it with others. They agree to post reviews, mention it on Goodreads, share about it on social media, and of course talk about it in person.”  What have I written? I have written a tool I wish I’d had when I began more than twenty… Read More