November December 2022

Reflections on the Life of Calvin Burrell

Finishing Well by Whaid Rose   Few, it is observed, finish well. This underscores that finishing well isn’t automatic and that those who do are rare and are among the minority. Such was Calvin Burrell, the General Conference’s preeminent statesman of the last half a century, who recently crossed the finish line just days after […]

I’m Next

Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am (Psalm 39:4). When I was a lad, “I’m next” was a wonderful place to be: next in line for a ride at the fair or for carrying my plate to the smorgasbord. […]

How to Combat Hate

I’m new to wearing glasses. After the first day of trying to adjust, I was convinced they made my vision worse rather than better. It seemed everything was actually blurrier than before. I pulled the glasses off my face and held them to the light. That’s when I noticed the problem. The lenses were plastered […]

A Hard-Learned Lesson

Discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you (Proverbs 2:11). Head down, shoulders shaking, and tears flowing, this was not the Uncle Leonard we knew. Years of poor choices still showed in the crevices of his bony face. However, his wrinkles no longer widened with laughter that turned into a ragged cough. He wasn’t regaling […]

The Result of Hope

I love to tell the story; Tis pleasant to repeat What seems each time I tell it, More wonderfully sweet. . . . I love to tell the story; For those who know it best Seem hungering and thirsting To hear it like the rest. And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, […]

Fish and Chips

We were hungry and excited. The catering truck had come to Missoula, Montana! We showed up in the parking lot and got in line to place our order. The line kept getting longer as people flocked to get their fish and chips. Freshly cooked, with a little salt and vinegar, fish and chips is one […]

Hope

There is nothing like living in hell, but there is something close to it: incarceration. In my hell, where I’d lived since the winter of 2014, there was, as Dante understood, no hope. People think the worst part of a life lived in the concrete jungle is the violence. They are wrong. The worst part […]

How to Finish

I have always been afraid of not finishing what I start. As early as age eleven, I worried that I could not say with Paul, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). How did Paul remain faithful through more than thirty years of […]

A Man After God’s Own Heart

“But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you” (1 Samuel 13:14). King David is described in Scripture as “a man after God’s own […]

“You are My Witnesses”

One of the clearest identifying marks of God’s people has always been their call to carry the gospel into all the world. As a result, we are all familiar with the Great Commission verses of the New Testament — passages like Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:15; and Acts 1:8 that lay out the gospel purpose and […]