Nothing restores my soul like beauty. Like just this morning . . . .
I was driving down Judge Ely. There was the abandoned Skinny’s building, and the building United abandoned years ago (now occupied by “Healing Hands”), and the new billboard sign obscenely large enough for Dyess pilots to read, and the long field full of trash, and the soon-to-be-abandoned Wal-Mart building, and the strip-mall next to Wal-Mart that will undoubtedly be abandoned when Wal-Mart pulls out, and the convenience store in front of Wal-Mart that will probably also shut down, and the abandoned Luby’s building.
Ah, beauty in the mornin’.
Wondering about the ugly baby Satan is holding in “The Passion”? Here’s Mel Gibson’s answer.
Wonderful trip back from Nashville: missed plane, broken plane, delayed plane, closed airport (Abilene International), etc.
Nashville has been my “second home” these past dozen years. I’ve been there so many times for Wineskins editorial meetings and now for Zoe planning sessions. So many people at Woodmont Hills and Otter Creek that I love. So many good memories of speaking at Jubilee from 1989 (I gave the first keynote the first year) to 2000 (the last year of Jubilee).
One oddity: I’ve never set foot on David Lipscomb campus. Not opposed to it. Just never invited. But, alas, the last thing I need is more traveling!
I’m not generally a “Christian concert” guy. But last night — Bebo Norman, Amy Grant, and Mercy Me — well, that’s as good as I hope to see any time soon . . . unless Steven Curtis Chapman and Sarah Lynn go on tour together. (Non-Highland readers won’t know that Sarah Lynn is the young woman who used to lead our praise nights.)
Amy Grant said she knew everyone would want her to sing the old songs, and then proceeded to sing her new ones. Where was “Sing Your Praise to the Lord” and “Father’s Eyes”? I guess she’s been singing them for a quarter of a century, though. May be time for a rest.
Loved hearing my three favorite “Mercy Me” songs: “Word of God Speak,” “The Love of God,” and, of course, “I Can Only Imagine.”
I’m pretty sure that yesterday I preached the worst sermon I’ve preached in a long time. And it’s also been a long time since so many people responded in person or by e-mail to say they had been helped by a message.
Now there’s a kicker. It’s almost as if the impact of God’s Word doesn’t depend on the effectiveness of the speaker. It’s as if the Word itself is able to “penetrate even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.”
Go figure. . . . The stuff they never tell you in seminary.