I sat at a table in the Wright County Jail three years ago, with Jeremy sitting on the other side. This was his third incarceration for 5th degree drug possession. He’d been an addict since he was seventeen. “What is love, Jeremy?” I asked to start off this session with him. He stumbled and bumbled […]
Shawn murdered a young woman in cold blood and had been on death row for two years awaiting his execution. He was as guilty as guilty could be and had great remorse for what he had done. His appeals to escape the death penalty would run out sometime in the next year and then would […]
The following story is not meant to be a simile, metaphor, analogy, parable, or revelation from on high. It’s simply an observation I made yesterday morning at 7 a.m., sitting on a couch about a pillow’s throw from our lower-level gas fireplace. The pilot light is always on in the fireplace, a small blue flame […]
If you’ll remember, three weeks ago Padraic was talking to Matthew about what Jesus said at the Last Supper: “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him (John […]
This same Padraic did not sit at the Last Supper table, but he gladly served Jesus and the 12 apostles as their personal waiter. He saw and heard it all. When Jesus said, “Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves Me will be loved by […]
Padraic (pronounced Pod’ rake) became a disciple of Jesus Christ that very day and followed Him wherever He went. He was not one of the 12 apostles, but he may as well have been, for where they went, He also went. When Padraic got up on the morning, he did not go to Jesus and […]
In the 1st Century A.D, there was a Celt living in Galilee whose name was Padraic. This same Padraic happened to be in the crowd who listened to Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount, as we call it today. That day, he was transformed in an instant, like the flipping of a switch from […]
I asked a good Christian friend of mine what his take was on the pandemic that has engulfed the world from a spiritual standpoint. This was his reply. “The pandemic or a lightning strike should renew our humility before God and our dependence on His grace and mercy for all mankind and His seen creation […]
Last Sunday, I went to a service at Crossroads Church in Woodbury, Minnesota. It’s our oldest son’s church, and we were there for the weekend. This particular Sunday was Crossroads Youth Service Sunday, and my wife and I were in for a big treat. Twelve young people declared that they wanted to follow Jesus for […]
Some of you know that I’m a volunteer chaplain at the Wright County Jail and also visit some 15 jails and at least 5 drug rehab facilities each year to talk to inmates and addicts. If you’re at all interested in what I talk to them about, I have published a new book called 7 […]