Imagine sitting with a close friend for an hour or so and looking back at your life, talking about some of the highest, the lows, some good days, some perhaps not so good, but looking back on your life, I just bet that you would have some lessons learned, some real distilled wisdom. I count it one of my greatest privileges and pleasures in ministry to have served some time as a hospice chaplain, where I spent literally hours with people young and old looking back at life, telling their stories, lessons learned. Lessons learned is what we have in today's scripture from Psalm 37, a Psalm of David, in which David is passing down with the help of the Holy Spirit, he's passing down some hard-earned life wisdom... -------- Download a transcript for the June 5, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Theologian Ray Anderson suggests that on the day after the father throws that big homecoming party for his prodigal son, that on the day after the prodigal son returns to the far country, but that he returns in order to tell everyone how He had lied about his father, to tell everyone in truth, how extravagantly loving his father is. To tell everyone how his father forgives, rejoices, and celebrates a prodigal come home. I'm thinking about that today as I ponder some amazing words from the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah, now, I'm not sure that we usually think of celebration and joy when we think of the Old Testament prophets, but just listen to this passage from Zephaniah chapter 3, verses 14 to 18... -------- Download a transcript for the June 3, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

The other night, we were at some friend's house where the woman is a very wonderful, accomplished painter, and we were looking at a painting that she had just started, it was just the bare outlines of a painting, I couldn't see what the painting was going to be, but knowing the artist and knowing her work well, I knew that the painting would be beautiful when she was finished. Now, my thoughts about that artist and her unfinished painting takes me to a wonderful scripture verse that I want to share with you. It's one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It's Ecclesiastes chapter 3, verse 11, where Solomon portrays God as an artist... ----more---- Download a transcript for the June 1, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Isn't it fascinating how a God made the human eye so that when we enter darkness the eye dilates the eye gets bigger to let in more light? Now, as I look at scripture, I see something similar happening that when God's people enter a dark time, the eyes of the heart, dilate, they get bigger to let in more like much of the Bible was written by someone going through a dark time, to someone going through a dark time, such as the passage that I feel compelled to turn to the day. -------- Download a transcript for the May 29, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Do you ever wonder if your life is just going around in circles? Then maybe, now you hate to think it, but maybe you're just going nowhere? I mean, this thing happens to you and then there's that thing that happens to you. Things come at you from out of the blue and you wonder, you wonder if there is any sense to it, any rhyme or reason. For a few moments, I want to see how David looks at life. How we looked at where he's been, where he's going, where he sees it all leading him. -------- Download a transcript for the May 27, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

This morning as I was making coffee, I thought of the instant coffee theory of life that's put forward by Rabbi Harold Kushner. And with the instant coffee theory of life, you open a new jar of instant coffee and you dole out generous heaping spoon fulls because, well, you have a whole jar of it, but then by the time you start getting towards the bottom of the jar, you realize that that you don't have that much coffee left, and so you carefully go after every grain of coffee in the jar. And Rabbi Kushner says that that's a lot like we tend to treat the days of our lives that when we're young, we're usually not so mindful of our days, how much time we have left, but as we get older, we treat our days, at least we ought to treat our days a little more carefully. Making coffee this morning and the instant coffee theory of life takes me to a little prayer that I like to pray. -------- Download a transcript for the May 25, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

I just resigned from being the fourth person of the Godhead... That's what I said to my wife one Sunday on our way from church. I just resigned from being a fourth person of the Godhead... You see, I was tired of thinking that I bore the weight of the church. Tired of thinking like I had to make things happen. That it was about me and how I was doing. Today, I wanna talk with you about the person who does carry the weight of the church on his shoulders, the person who carries the weight of your life and my life on his shoulders, the person who empowers us, and the person who does make things happen, and that is the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. -------- Download a transcript for the May 22, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

I visited a friend in the hospital yesterday, and I asked him on a scale of one to ten, how are you? Today, I'm wondering about you who are listening by podcast, on a scale of one to ten, how are you? Whether you're feeling a one or a ten, I have a good word for you from scripture for the life of David, from a time when David is between a rock and a hard place, a time when David is in trouble again, and David has something good to teach us about difficult times. -------- Download a transcript for the May 20, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

I was waiting at a crosswalk the other day, and I pushed the button for the crosswalk to let me go, and there was this rude mechanical voice commanding... Wait, wait, wait. Well, I don't know about you, but I don't like to wait whether it's waiting in traffic, waiting in the supermarket line, are waiting because my computer doesn't seem to be working fast enough. The digital age is teaching me that waiting is bad for me, but the waiting is keeping me from getting what I want, that waiting is holding me back from the good life. And I, along with a lot of other people, don't want to wait. I want it now, but then I see in the Bible, I see God's people waiting... -------- Download a transcript for the May 18, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

I have some good news for you. Good news for you, as you seek to be in the world but not of the world. Good news for you is you try to navigate the craziness of a post-Christian world without being harmed, without being corrupted by the world. Some Christians choose to withdraw, to drop out from the world. While other Christians choose to compromise with the world. Well, let's look at what Jesus prays for you and me. About being in the world, but not of the world... -------- Download a transcript for the May 15, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Do you ever have those moments? Well, when you just know you need to forgive someone, but you can't find it in you to forget, or you have a moment to you sense God calling you to do something and you don't wanna do it, or you're wanting to obey God, but you don't know if you can... Well, if you ever have moments like that, I've got good news for you. It's a scripture verse that many have found helpful in moments like that. Philippians Chapter 2, verse 13, in which the apostle Paul writes, It is God who is at work in you, enabling you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Often people think of God as high up there in his heavens and well, in us down here trying hard to live for God, trying hard to serve Him, but that is not the Bible's teaching, God has not left us to ourselves... Note what the Apostle Paul says here, it is God who is at work in you. So that puts a whole new light on things... It is God who is at work in you. -------- Download a transcript for the May 13, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Henry David Thoreau said, the path of least resistance leads to crooked rivers and crooked men. Good words, I think as you and I live in a culture where it can be so tempting to take the path of least resistance, tempting to just go along, to get along. Well, I was in college, home for spring break, talking excitedly with my mom about what I was learning and what I was doing, and my mother listened quietly, and then she warned me, Tim, you're like a sponge soaking up everything around you... Well, I knew that my mom was pretty smart about things, and I try to take seriously her warning about not being a sponge, about taking everything in and taking the path of least resistance going along to get along. Now, all this takes me to a verse of scripture that I do pray will guide me that it might guide you. -------- Download a transcript for the May 11, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Albert Einstein said that he thought the most important question facing humanity was if the universe was friendly. Well, that is an interesting question, isn't it? Asked by a man, certainly a genius, but a man who didn't think much beyond atoms and electrons and physical existence... No, I have a better question. A more wonderful question. And that is the question asked by the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 8, verse 31, What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? That's a better question. And then whether the universe is friendly or not. If God is for us, who is against us? -------- Download a transcript for the May 8, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Do you ever have trouble sleeping? Well, if you do, don't feel your the Lone Ranger, it seems the coronavirus pandemic has become a kronosomia pandemic, an epidemic of people having trouble sleeping, trouble following asleep, trouble staying the sleep. As we worry about jobs, about the economy, about our kids being gone from school, we worry about getting sick. Well, I know quite a bit about sleepless nights which takes me to the word of God where we see many of God's spiritual giants also having a hard time sleeping. Well there is Job in Job 7:4. The night is long, and I am full of tossing until dawn. There's David in Psalm 6, verse 6, I am weary with my mourning every night, I flood my bed with tears, and there's a Psalmist Esoph in Psalm 77 verse 2, in the night, my hand is stretched out without wearing. So please don't feel guilty if you're having trouble sleeping, you're in pretty good company, but it's what we do with those sleepless nights, that makes a difference. And I wanna suggest to you three things that help me, three things that I've learned from scripture about what to do in those nights I'm having trouble sleeping, so that I try not to fight it, but to go with it. -------- Download a transcript for the May 6, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Do you remember as a child, the wonder you felt the amazement as you begin to become aware of the incredible world around you? When you first learned that funny-looking little cocoon thing hanging on a tree that would morph into a caterpillar, that would morph into a butterfly... I remember when I was a boy catching in a jar, this little thing that was swimming around in our irrigation ditch and showing it to my mom, and my mom told me something that I found hard to believe, she told me that that was a tadpole that would become a frog. It is all pretty amazing. They were pretty wonderful, but not nearly as wonderful or amazing as what God is doing in your life and my life as God is morphing us, transforming us. Making us more and more like Jesus. ----more---- Download a transcript for the May 4, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

I think of it as one of the perks of the profession of the minister, that I actually get to be with people in the ups and downs of life, to be with people on the mountain tops, and to be with them in the valleys. I think of it as holy ground, to be with the people and the extremities of life, and to experience God's presence, and to learn a little bit more about God, and to learn a little bit more about the mystery of suffering. I'm gonna share with you today a brief scripture from the Old Testament Book of Job, whose name is, well, it's synonymous with suffering. And with all the questions that go with suffering, and what we might learn from suffering... -------- Download a transcript for the May 1, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Wow! Did you see that supermoon the other night? It was so beautiful. A supermoon is when the moon comes closest to the earth and it is so big and bright. Well, I looked up at that supermoon and I thought, I thought how the Psalmist is right, that the heavens do declare the glory of God. But sometimes when I look up at the sky, I think the Hubble Telescope reveals that there are more stars in the observable universe than there are grains of sand on all of the earth's deserts and beaches. I look up at the sky and I can feel so small, so insignificant, and I wonder, what does it mean for us to be human beings... What are human being? That is the question posed by David, and a Psalm that I wanna look at today, a Psalm in which David... Well, he is in awe of the magnificence of the night sky, and David asks, What are human beings? And you know that that is what are the most important questions facing our culture today, a question that in many ways is dividing our culture. It is a burning question, What are human beings? -------- Download a transcript for the April 29, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Have you ever wondered why you're here? Why God put you here? Why now at this time, with your particular gifts and talents, with your life situation, with the things that have happened to you? Why are you here? Mark Twain said, the two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. Why? That is a big question. And I've talked to a lot of people over the years that live through life, not knowing why they're here because of a lot of hurts, a lot of wrong turns, a lot of emptiness. Well, let's see if we can't figure out why. You and I are here. And let's go straight to the top. Let's go to God's word to find out God's purpose for you and me. -------- Download a transcript for the April 27, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

It has been said that people can live 40 days without food, about three days without water. And about eight minutes without air but can only live for a second without hope. We desperately need hope. We live in some difficult times. And we need hope. But what do people do who have no hope... No hope for the future. Where does one go to get hope? Well, has a passage of scripture that could help us with that. A scripture guaranteed to give hope for today. Hope for the future. Hope for eternity. -------- Download a transcript for the April 24, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.

Have a word for you today. It's the word peace. Is there a more lovely, a more wonderful word than peace? That's why early Christians loved to greet one another with the word peace because that's what they had experienced, peace. The Bible calls God the God of peace. And Jesus it calls the Prince of Peace. Imagine Jesus standing in a storm-rocked boat, commanding the waves, the wind, with the word peace. Or imagine Jesus on that first Easter greeting scared out of the wits, disciples with the word peace. Your heart, my heart longs for peace. Most of all peace with God. -------- Download a transcript for the April 22, 2021, Selah episode **This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and may not be 100% accurate.