What kind of parents would refuse to let their kids grow up? What kind of parents would try to keep their kids in a dependent state even when they have grown up?

We would instantly recognize that as highly dysfunctional behaviour. When it occurs, which from time time it does, we would see it as producing a very dysfunctional family.

I am progressing toward the end of my natural life.  Don’t get alarmed, I’ve still got a few miles left in me yet.  But the end is a lot closer than the beginning.

When you are looking at a far-off horizon, you really can’t see very much.  You can imagine what it may look like, but you’re not sure.  Sometimes as you draw nearer, objects turn out to be something completely different than what you imagined in the distance.

Some of the hardest but most fruitful times in life involve transition.

Think of leaving home, going off to college, getting your first job, moving to a strange city, getting married, buying a house, having kids, changing jobs, buying a bigger house, raising your kids to be adults, buying a smaller house, retiring, stepping down from a place of leadership, moving to where your kids are or where the sun shines, leaving your house behind and buying a condo, looking after grandkids and getting ready to move one last time into a retirement residence.

The other night I had a dream, one of a handful I have ever had through which I felt God spoke to me.  I woke up with a start and realized the significance of it at once.

The subject of whether God still speaks to us is more contentious than you might think.  On the one hand, some people feel that the very idea of God still speaking undermines the authority of Scripture.  On the other hand, people attribute to God all sorts of wacky things they have concocted mostly out of their own imagination.

It’s unlikely that you would find the entire genealogy of Jesus, as recorded in the third chapter of Luke’s Gospel, adorning a plaque or fridge magnet.  Apart from its being far too long, it doesn’t have quite the inspirational zing of “Be still and know that I am God” or “The plans I have for you are for good and not for evil.”  But it does have its own powerful meaning.