The Periodically

Below is an adapted version of what I sent to my parents upon recently being diagnosed with a retina disease. We would appreciate your prayers! -Pastor Ben Good news and hard news... The good news is I have an opportunity to draw near to God in a new way. I have a chance to bring honor to God in my response. And I will have more eagerness than ever for heaven and the promise of a new body! The hard news is I was diagnosed with an "inherited disease of the retina" by Dr. Pete Lagouros at Illinois Eye Center (IEC). I have not done well on the field of vision test for the last 6 years when I've gone to Bard Optical in Washington. Bottom line, I don't have as much peripheral vision as most people. Not a big deal, but the eye doctor at Bard (my friend Mark Hahn who attends church at BCC) has sent me to Illinois Eye Center a few times for further tests and nothing really came of it. I was referred by Dr. Hahn to IEC again this month too as I failed the ...

I was recently reading through Romans chapter 1 and came across verses 28-32 and realized the profound impact they have on parents and children in discussing obedience. In these verses, God gives a list consisting of, "not see fit to acknowledge God, … [given] over to a depraved mind, [doing]things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice; they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil,… without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful, [and] give hearty approval to those who practice them. " Right in the middle of the list of all these "very bad things" He also states, " disobedient to parents" (v.30). Often times we take disobedience lightly. With smaller kids we make it more of a joke to laugh about. With older kids we say, "What did you expect, they're a teen." These verses, however...