Focus on Eternity

            As a writer, I am always looking for ways to improve my craft.   I want to learn how to make what I write interesting and more appealing to my readers.    I want to learn how to purposefully draw readers into my stories for the sake of enjoyment and learning.  This past week, my youngest daughter and I began to listen to a lecture series on how to improve our storytelling techniques.   She aspires to be a great fiction writer someday.   At the current time, she gravitates toward fantasy fiction.    Her actions prove that she would much rather be a great fiction reader than a writer.   She rarely writes, but she loves, loves, loves to read.   We are a reading family; all of us love to read.      The lecture series comes from The Great Courses curriculum.  It is called, “Writing Great Fiction, Storytelling Tips, and Techniques” by James Hynes.  With the school year quickly drawing to a close and most summer activities canceled, I was challenged with the thought of ho

     My aim in writing has always been to encourage myself and others to get into God’s Word to find answers that help us live better lives.  This morning while reading 1 Thessalonians 4, I recognized the practicality of Paul's instructions to the church in Thessalonica.  He was revealing a code of conduct for Christians.  This was a timely lesson for me.  It helped me to focus on my personal value system by reviewing an outline of what is pleasing to God.  In 1 Thessalonians 4:9, we read, “Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.”   This passage gives three specific steps:   aspire to live quietly, mind your own affairs, and work with your hands.  It then concludes,  “so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:12, ESV).   By reading verse seven last, rather than before verse 9, 11, and 12, we can see the overriding reason that Paul

    I used to attend Central Michigan University, and I remember a young man standing out in front of the library which I visited frequently.  He was always holding a sign and shouting at students as they entered the building say, "Repent, the kingdom of God is at hand."  It was an annoying 'in-your-face' way of sharing the truth, and the approach seemed to barely make a dent in the conversions of college students to change their course.  Many ignored his rants.  Most would not have agreed with his method of sharing this vital message.  But he was truly convicted and prepared to meet his Maker.      When would the word “many” or even “most” alarm you?  These words so often are used in the context of agreeing with one another.  Agreement most often means that many of us would look favorable at these words.  But in the context of Matthew 24, these words reveal the grim reality that we live in a very lost world.  In four short verses, the word “many” is recorde