Hopewit

Searching the Michigan Dunes Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken. I’ll be reading this as the Old Testament scripture this morning on what’s been called, “Doubting Thomas Sunday.” It’s a Psalm characterized by confidence, a Psalm that somehow seems an inappropriate text for the day. But when we consider that the Psalms are various—that one rings out despair akin to Jesus’ lament on the cross, (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me) while the next is jubilant and devoid of doubt—we may have come closer to understanding Thomas’ declaration that he will need tangible, physical proof before he will believe in a risen Christ. You see, Thomas wasn’t always a “dou...

"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." (Romans 13: 8 – 10) It’s understandable that we would arrive at the conclusion that if Christ were to bundle all the laws into one neat package as he did in Matthew 22: 32 – 39, i that the Christian life would be much simpler, God’s will much clearer. In this passage, Jesus clearly says that there really is only one commandment to know, that is the one enunciated in the Jewish Shema Yisrael: "the Lord our God, the LORD is one" and further that, in essence, that age-old adage common to most religions of the world is it...

How the gold has lost its luster, the fine gold become dull! The sacred gems are scattered at every street corner. How the precious children of Zion, once worth their weight in gold, are now considered as pots of clay, the work of a potter’s hands!              Lamentations 4: 1 & 2 Nature's first green is gold Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.                 Robert Frost I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them...