Author: Dwight Clough

"Lord, the one You love is sick." — John 11:3It’s a simple prayer. Many times the more desperate we are, the more needy we are, the more simple our prayers become. "Help!" I remember times when I was so sick that all I could pray was, "O God! O God! O God!" over and over again because my brain couldn’t contain anything more. There was no theology, just raw need and a Father in heaven.This is also a prayer of expectation. Mary and Martha knew where they stood with the Lord. Jesus could do what He wanted, and they knew…

… the spirit returns to God who gave it. — Ecclesiastes 12:7Here we have the single most important fact of our existence. When I scan back through my own life, I see snapshots — walking down Chicago Avenue at night and seeing a million lights reflected in the rain, sitting on the bathroom floor next to my wife in agony during her first miscarriage, driving past the palm trees at Fort Fisher and seeing the result of my dad’s trimming efforts — one leaf sticking straight up. I see myself holding my newborn babies, and watch them close the coffin…

Cast your bread upon the waters, for after many days you will find it again. — Ecclesiastes 11:1My mind goes back to 1986. One October evening, my wife and I went for a walk along the beach. The seagulls were there, and I was breaking off pieces of stale bread and tossing them in the air. The gulls wheeled and dived, screaming at each other, as they caught each piece in midair.Afterwards, my wife said to me, "If you should die, this is how I will always remember you, here with the seagulls."Why would we cast our bread upon the…

[Jesus] came unto His own … — John 1:11God is not satisfied until He enters our world. Jesus didn’t make phone calls from heaven to inquire about the condition of the human race. God is not a voice from the past that we can only know through His writings. I’m speaking to the 20 year old me and to anyone else who might rise up early to pour over the scriptures, to sing hymns, to pray through a long, long list, but never feel like he connected with God. We don’t connect with God by sending radio signals out into…

No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. — Ecclesiastes 8:17The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools. — Ecclesiastes 9:17I don’t care how good a Christian you are, you will eventually come face to face with things in life that you cannot understand. Tamara White who runs an inner city ministry for teen "throw aways" told me stories of little children who trusted Jesus as their Savior and were molested the same night. How do you explain that? I cannot. Pat answers like: "We live in…

… while I was still searching but not finding — I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. — Ecclesiastes 7:28There are a few verses in the Bible that are just plain provocative and this is one of them. I cringe and wonder, "How did this get in here?"But there it is.And if ever there was a verse that didn’t square with my experience, this is one of them. I know many godly women who love the Lord with all their hearts, and, honestly, not as many men. So let’s see if…

Do not be overrighteous; neither be overwise — why destroy yourself? — Ecclesiastes 7:16We get some crazy ideas. I used to think if unchurched was bad, and churched was good, then more churched must be better, right? I figured if you knew how to sweat when you prayed, stomp when you preached, and "amen" when you sat in the pew, then that made you a mighty fine guy. I knew how to put on my church face, shake hands and act like I was in a continuous state of revival.Are you getting sick yet?When I was in college I worked…

Therefore stand in awe of God. — Ecclesiastes 5:7How do I convey this? Do I tell you about a June morning in 1977 when I stood shivering at the top of a cliff and looked down at people picking apples a mile below me in ninety-degree heat while off in the distance a blizzard was raging in the high Cascades? Do I try to describe a cold December night when I looked straight up with nothing between me and stars so far away there is no way the human mind can comprehend the distance?One day I stopped on a nature…

I thought this was an interesting article about understanding the persecuted church:http://www.pastors.com/rwmt/default.asp?id=281&artid=9921&expand=1"Now I know … — " 1 Kings 17:24What is the difference between the person who knows and the person who doesn’t? They say the same words. They confess the same creeds. They attend the same church. They may eat at the same table.But one knows and another does not.In this case, the woman who spoke these words watched her son gradually lose his life. When he finally stopped breathing, she blurted out what she thought she knew. "What do you have against me, man of God? Did you…

There is a time for everything … a time to be born and a time to die … — Ecclesiastes 3:1,2My dad passed away in 1999. My mom was recovering from surgery. She felt up to taking a little drive, so my dad drove her around in the country. It was a hot summer day, and when they got home, she went inside while he finished up a little project in the yard.When he walked in, he didn’t look right and he didn’t feel right. "Could I have a glass of water?" he asked. As my mom went to get…