Tag Archives: hiding from God

Hedged behind and before

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

My wife and I bought two puppies a couple of years ago and started collecting information on how to raise them. Nearly every author recommended crate training, and then had to take time to defend the idea. Apparently they had heard lots of people protest that confining an animal overnight seems cruel. But dogs are not people. They are denning animals and find crates homey and comforting, especially when we put blankets over them to make it nice and dark.

Sure enough, two years later our dogs still sleep in their crates. Bed time comes and we walk together into the bedroom.… Read the rest

Jonah the disobedient prophet

Grace and Judgment Posted on by

What I find utterly fascinating about the book of Jonah is that everyone and everything else in the story obeys God except his prophet. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, which is east of Israel. So Jonah decided to go to Tarshish, which is roughly modern Gibraltar, or as far west as anyone at the time could think to go. If he’d been able to find a boat going to New York and change to one bound for Buffalo, he would have bought a ticket there.

And so a storm came up. The weather obeyed God. The sailors, figuring some god was up to something, cast lots to find out whom to blame.… Read the rest