And so it begins… again. Continue reading
Author: joethewaller
Friday Night Faith and Family
Last Friday night, I left the house where my parents and brother live and headed home to the seminary. As I was driving to the apartment, my parents were driving my younger brother to the emergency room.
Continue reading
Pluck Your Eye Out
Thoughts on Sin and Salvation
I would rather have the whole world against me and have God with me than have the whole world with me and have God against me. Continue reading
Singleness, Marriage, and Devotion to the Lord
I’ve jokingly referred to 2015 as “The Year of Weddings.” We’ve just recently hit the eight month marker, and, thus far, the vast majority of my friends from college are now newly married, engaged, or are in relationships that are heading toward marriage. As the year goes on, more join that group. Relationships are forming and solidifying on a near epidemic scale. The single boat is apparently sinking, and most people I know are partnering up and jumping ship. Continue reading
For Whose Name’s Sake?
I have a bad habit of wanting to be profound. Whether I’m writing or speaking, I have a desire to say something memorable, something life changing, something people will quote after reading. I know I shouldn’t pursue such things. I know that the movement of God won’t be hindered by my inability to alliterate every point in a lesson. I know all that really matters is whether or not I’m obedient to the Lord. So why does this matter to me so much?
Continue reading
Matthew 7:21-23
Follower:
Into a converse we now look
Between the Master and a crook.
Relationship the man mistook;
Now caught is he by fatal hook.
The Word
In the beginning was the Word, our God.
In him, creation is and is sustained.
In time, upon this earth, he came to trod.
This Jesus: God translated, God explained.
But man, in darkness, did not know the Light,
Nor took the Word as more than persiflage.
The blind still claimed to see with certain sight.
Their law: a mere intransitive triage.
But glory from the Father through the Son
Has broken through the barrier of sin.
The saving work of heaven has been done.
The Word once dead will never die again.
Awakened by the will of God, we claim
Salvation in the Word’s most holy name.
Day 192
More continue to fall.
Our numbers are thinning. I fear that, in time, we all will be taken. Two of the four of us are already gone. The third’s days are numbered, and I already see him fading away, changing into something different than the man I met years ago. He’s not yet gone, but I know it won’t be long. He knows it too. Poor old boy doesn’t even fight it. Soon, I’ll be the only one left.
The influence of “the others” is staggering. For so long, it all seemed manageable. For years, we laughed, ignorantly confident, at what we then only knew as legend, that which is now reality. We never dreamed they would be so strong. God, help us.
For now, I’m safe, but I have no way of knowing how long that will last. Will I be taken as well one day? Only God knows. There’s no wisdom in worry. I can only submit myself to the Lord and pray for grace and mercy.
I pray for those who remain with us. I pray too for those being taken. Lord, bring us safely home. Amen.
– Joe Waller
Day 192 of the year of weddings
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash
Meditation on Isaiah 55
Your word, once sent, will not return
Without accomplishing its task
Its working is not our concern
But to be ready when you ask
Acknowledging our role in this
Is knowing not your detailed will
Your movement here our eyes might miss
But you, we know, are moving still
With thoughts far higher than our own
In ways unsearchable to men
You are the God unknown yet known
Triumphant o’er the curse of sin
You give the food and drink we need
Though we are poor and cannot pay
We, from futility, are freed
For you, O God, have made a way
So let us, humbled, seek your face
Forsaking all unrighteousness
And pardon us with perfect grace
To worship you in holiness
as i learn to walk 