Bible Gateway Blog

This is the one-hundred-sixth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

Mel is the author of the upcoming A Chronicle of Grief: Finding Life After Traumatic Loss.

The global health crisis has been disruptive and disturbing. Most people have experienced a sense of loss of one thing or another. We miss handshakes and hugs, gatherings and congregational worship, spontaneity, and simplicity.

One would think that solitude would come easy, but for many of us in the modern world it’s as difficult as any other spiritual discipline. Quietness is threatening. To have something noisy happening all the time is to protect ourselves from what might happen if things suddenly got very quiet. Noise prevents us from thinking and it lets us off the hook in our responsibility to think and reflect. In a busy culture of sheer pragmatism solitude looks like a waste of time, or an unjustifiable indulgence.

Continue reading →

This is the one-hundred-fifth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

Mel Lawrenz will be offering daily online ministry during this health crisis. Sign up here.

Mel is the author of the upcoming A Chronicle of Grief: Finding Life After Traumatic Loss.

Do you like it one someone tells you that things are about the change? Given human nature, we often worry that change will mean loss. Right now the whole world is going through a health crisis that is shaking people’s confidence. It is change—dramatic change. Some things are lost, and we grieve them. But there are things about life that we can count on. That do not change. That remain.

Continue reading →