For the One Who Wants to See Miracles

You need a miracle.

You need a job. A cure. An intervention.

You need a savior.


Tim Pierce (CC)



So you keep looking and searching. You keep watching. Waiting. But what if there’s a better way? What if the best way to see miracles is with your eyes closed?

The Good Thing about Evil

When you first walk into the sanctuary of College Church of the Nazarene, the room seems smaller than it is. The back rows of pews have a claustrophobic feel since the low ceiling also serves as a base for the balcony above. But continue onward several paces and you leave the balcony behind, entering into a breathtakingly large and beautiful place to worship the LORD.


Atilla Kefeli (CC)




As an eight-year-old, it seemed even larger than it is. I used to lay on the pew—my chin on its rough red fabric—and stare at the ground. The tall ceilings boasted hundreds of light bulbs, and when the lights hit my parents' feet, they cast multiple shadows. There were at least four distinct shadows forming an X on the crimson carpet. Each was a different shade, as some shadows were layered upon others. This optical phenomenon intrigued me, and I would wave my hand over the ground to try and figure out which lights were casting which shadows. That is until my parents thumped me and told me to sit up.

When Comfort Puts Pressure on Your Faith

There’s a sense of urgency tied up in the word, “harvest.”

When you hear it, you probably think as I do of beautiful foliage, delicious produce, and the cooler temps that come with the impending onset of winter. It’s winter that drives this urgency. Winter equals death for so many things: perennials, birds who don’t fly south, and my supply of vitamin D. But it also spells death for the fruits and vegetables planted many months prior.

Aside from this pressing nature, harvest also connotes hard work. Picking produce, reaping crops, and all its associated tasks are not for the faint of heart. There will be sweat.


Jim Wrigley Photography (CC)


When you combine these two elements the result is anything but comfort. Reaping is stressful, laborious, painstaking, but despite all this the harvest is intrinsically good. It represents months of hard work and the promise of surviving the frost until everything begins growing again in the spring. As such there is nothing to be done in the days of summer and autumn but to work the fields. And yet some have other ideas: