Fruit or no fruit? Which tree do you most resemble?

Lately, I have felt more like the tree on the right, withered, dry, brittle lacking any life. Sometimes we let things, circumstances, and even people drain us of our vitality. What might have taken days, weeks, and months to turn us into a shriveled mess in an instant can be changed around. When I turn …

What is one to do when one’s heart becomes troubled?

Did you know? Johann Sebastian Bach fathered 20 children, only of which 10 survived, all having tragically died before adulthood.  In total, he lost three children to his first wife and seven children to his second wife. Illness, plagues, and the limited medical care of the times meant many didn’t make it past their young …

Pick Me Up and Turn Me Around

So often we fancy ourselves as secure and think we can go it all alone, but when God hides His face from us because we choose to go it on our own, our soul cries out to Him. “Lord, help me! Rescue me!” PICK ME UP AND TURN ME AROUND  (Psalm 107). In Psalm 30 …

That’s ridiculous!

Don’t we all worry and think negative thoughts at times? “Negative worry is imagining your future with God not showing up “(from Worrying with God by Steve and Wendy Backlund).  Isn’t that ridiculous to think? Perhaps because worry is based on past experiences in life, right? But what if we imagined only positive thoughts instead …

WORSHIP AND RISE

On a Sunday morning in 2019, my friend Martin saw musical notes rising from the top of my head. He would pen his vision on a 3-hole punch lined paper, and later give it to me at the end of the service. “Take your flute everywhere with you, Bill” he said. Spelled in large letters …