The Journey

Photo by: Tiko Giorgadze I love research. When something piques my interest, I am always compelled to dig a little deeper into the subject matter. Of late, I have been delving into the biblical book of Esther. There are so many takeaways and life lessons in just a few, short chapters. The narrative is as riveting as anything Hollywood or Disney could conjure up. My favorite Old Testament book chronicles the life of King Xerxes and his marital woes with a disobedient queen who would later be replaced by Queen Esther, a Jewish orphan child reared by her doting cousin in the Persian country. The Bible tells us "she won the favor of everyone who saw her." (Esther 2:15) Before becoming a royal bride, however, there was a two-part, purification process that took place over the course of one year. The prescribed beauty treatments consisted of six months of oil of myrrh and six months of perfume and cosmetics. Having only heard of myrrh in reference to the gifts presented at the bi...

Photo by: Keyur Nandaniya This week I experienced pain and grief like I have not felt in quite some time. Blindsided, I experienced an overwhelming, devastating, painful wreckage. The toll of the complete stress I have endured for many weeks manifested itself yesterday. During Sunday morning worship, I collapsed---body, soul, mind, and even spirit.  Complete shutdown.  Okay, how did I get here, again? Then, revelation fell from Heaven and came to rest in my soul.  All this turmoil began with just one lie.  1 Kings 13 recounts the events that led to the violent death of a prophet while on divine assignment by God. Though I have read this story many times, the tragedy always perplexed me. Here we read of a man on a mission by the Lord who traveled to Bethel to confront the king about the ritual of burning incense on the altar which was in defiance of God's law. The man of God was commanded by God to neither eat nor drink in that place nor...