Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
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It seems my articles in the Quay County Sun this year often have fallen close to holidays, which gives me plenty to write about, but I don’t remember it happening much in the past. Next Monday is Memorial Day, when we remember those who gave their lives in war to protect the United States of America, although the holiday was expanded to remember anyone who’s passed away. While I haven’t been intentionally keeping count, I checked, and this is my 20th year writing religion articles for the Sun. During that time, as best as I can count, I’ve ment...
This past Sunday was Mother’s Day. That should’ve been no surprise to anyone who watches TV or looks at the ads that come by email and snail mail, including the inserts in your Quay County Sun. As a matter of fact, while there’s been a celebration of motherhood for millennia throughout the world on various dates, Americans have known for over a 100 years the second Sunday in May is our Mother’s Day holiday. This year, Mother’s Day came on its earliest possible date. In 2023, it’ll come on its latest possible date, May 14. The holiday bou...
I’ve written a lot about light lately because the Bible says a lot about light in relation to God that cannot be covered in a single article. John 1:1-5 states of Jesus, “In him was life and that life was the light of men” and, “The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (NIV Study Bible, 1985). When Jesus came as the Light of the World, God’s plan for salvation was revealed to the dark world (John 8:12; Romans 1:16-17; 16:25-27). This being said, Jesus’ closest followers were some of the most confused people on ear...
Two weeks ago, I wrote about waking up in the dark due to the time change. The Bible says a lot about light, especially pertaining to God being the light at the beginning and end of this dark world’s tunnel, so to speak (Genesis 1:1-5; Revelation 22:1-5; John 16:33; Matthew 6:34). Next Sunday is Easter, the annual celebration of Jesus’ triumphal resurrection over our sin (Acts 2:22-24; 1 Peter 2:21-25). We often see pictures of light coming out of the open tomb at Easter, and I’ve wondered about a Scriptural basis for that because I figured as...
This Friday is April Fool’s Day; I hope everyone survives. The origin of this holiday has been widely disputed, and it’s considered an official holiday only in Odessa, Ukraine. I wonder if they have a trick up their sleeves planned this year. Anyway some biblically non-scholars centuries-ago connected April Fool’s Day with Noah releasing the first dove from the ark before the water had receded, stating it occurred on April 1 and calling it a foolish move on Noah’s part. First, the biblical account gives Noah’s reasoning for sending the dove...
It’s been a few days since we confused our internal clocks with the change to daylight saving time. While I’ll eventually get used to the time change, I’ve revisited some previous experiences related to waking up an hour earlier in a dark room. I had deluded myself into thinking I knew where everything was in the room until it became pitch black. I lost my bearings and began running into things not in my normally traveled path. Regaining my bearings was impossible until I saw a glimmer of light. While the old saying “familiarity breeds contempt...
The Lenten season, which is celebrated by many, begins today, March 2. Lent is based on Jesus’ 40-day and night wilderness fast when he was tempted by the cravings of the flesh (food – Philippians 3:18-19), lust of the eyes (materialism – Ecclesiastes 5:10) and pride of life (thinking too highly of oneself – Romans 12:3; Isaiah 14:12-15). These represent the temptations everyone faces (Matthew 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13; 1 John 2:15-17; Genesis 2:15; 3:6; Romans 3:23). To overcome Satan’s temptations, Jesus used God’s word (Deuteronomy 8:1-3; 6:13...
Valentine’s Day was this past Monday. Last year, I ordered a living plant for my wife online and then the weather turned really nasty. So the delivery was delayed and when the plant arrived, it was frozen. My wife still accepted that as a show of my love for her. I recall an account of a wife who complained her husband never said he loved her, although he often showed it. He reminded her he said he would love her through good and bad “until death do we part” when they got married and if that ever changed, he’d let her know. Obviously, the wife...
The date for today’s Quay County Sun is Feb. 2. I like to and actually need to get an early start on my articles as it sometimes it takes me the full two weeks between deadlines to write them. So, when I started this article, the 10-day weather forecast predicted snow for today, which means our local equivalent of a groundhog didn’t see his shadow and go back into hiding. I can recall when weather predictions were, at best, seven-day forecasts, and the reliability declined greatly after three days. But weather modeling based on historical rec...
When two of our grandsons spent a few days with us recently, we asked them whether they liked spinach. Both emphatically replied, “Yes!” While helping my wife with dinner by preparing the spinach, I started singing a version of the Popeye song I learned while young. Here goes: “I’m Popeye the Sailor Man, I live in a garbage can. I eat all the worms and spit out the germs, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.” The grandsons got a kick out of that, and it got me thinking about this article and verses I could make up based on my thoughts. Then, I decided t...
New Year’s Day was just four or five days ago, and I suspect many resolutions already have been broken, especially those that had to take effect on Jan. 1 (for example, resolving to never have evil thoughts again). “Always” and “never” always should be avoided and never used because statements or claims including them are seldom true unless you’re talking about God and his promises and attributes (James 1:17; Joshua 24:14; Matthew 28:18-20; Hebrews 13:5-8; 1 John 4:8; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8). Even taking evil thoughts captive to conquer the...
Depending on how one views it, as of the date on today’s newspaper, there are at most only three shopping days left until Christmas. I remember stores posting signs showing the number of shopping days until Christmas as a warning that time and, possibly, inventory was becoming limited. The rush to increase sales and minimize year-end inventory through Christmas shopping is so great that the shopping season starts earlier and earlier every year. This year, because of projected supply-chain issues, we were encouraged to buy early, even at the b...
Christmas is upon us, and many of us are enjoying the holiday hubbub, especially as a release from the COVID restrictions that kept families apart for well over a year. Others, such as Martha, are so caught up in the mundane holiday preparations, shopping and travel that they’re missing out on the fun (Luke 10:38-42). We were returning from Albuquerque recently, and it must have been a good day for our grandson because he said he wished time wouldn’t fly when you’re having fun. He preferred that time stood still when you were having fun and it...
We’ll celebrate Thanksgiving in America this week, but the times seem pretty bleak right now with all that’s happening in our nation and around the world. I’m not just talking about political strife, COVID, empty shelves, natural disasters, or just plain evil. While evil will increase over time and take a lot out of us, there’s still hope it will all end and life will be better (2 Timothy 3:12-13; Matthew 24:4-13, 21-22). But this article isn’t necessarily about the present evils. It’s about how we should still be thankful despite all that’s...
I occasionally reuse themes or phrases from my previous articles without reusing articles in their entirety. To commemorate Veterans Day over the past three years, I’ve written about the increasing political and other strife in our country, and it hasn’t slowed down any. So what follows is much of what I wrote in 2018. Because I wrote about national strife/peace also in 2019 and 2020, I’m reminded of a preacher who continued presenting the same sermon. When asked why, he replied when people started doing what he preached about from the Bible, h...
Samhain was an important ancient Celtic religious festival because it was believed the pagan gods became visible to humans that day and played many tricks on their worshipers who were fearful and offered sacrifices and gifts of every kind were to counteract the mischievous, if not outright evil, activities of those deities. Probably rightly so, Samhain is considered by some to the precursor to Halloween, which will be celebrated this Sunday. The connection between Samhain, held on Nov. 1, and Halloween came about largely because after...
Winston Churchill said we should, “never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense.” Giving in often leads to giving up. Our recently retired preacher taught from the Book of Hebrews about why people give up. The lesson didn’t pertain specifically to COVID, but the disease’s effects have led to a lot of giving up, especially due to the restrictions on in-person worship. The first step in giving up is neglect, giving in to matters contrary to our convictions (Hebrews 2:1-4). During COVID, many became accustomed to online worship...
My Sept. 15 Quay County Sun article was titled, “When misery loves company.” While the term usually means that people feeling down want to be around others who also are depressed for mutual consolation, another meaning is that when we’re miserable, we want others to also be miserable (e.g., “if I’m not happy, nobody’s going to be happy”). In that article, I listed many causes of misery mentioned in the Bible, but sin is the most common cause of misery in this life and through separation from God for eternity (Genesis 3:1-24; Romans 3:10-18, 23;...
Most people likely know the phrase, “misery loves company,” because it’s been used in various forms since at least 400 B.C. I’ve always understood the term meant that when someone is depressed for any reason, they want to be around others who also are at a low point for mutual consolation, which is one of the definitions I found online for it. An example given was that two friends had just broken up with their boyfriends, so they decided to go to a movie together. But I also found that it could mean that we want others to be miserable also (e...
Next Monday will be Labor Day, the national holiday celebrated each first Monday in September since the late 1800s to commemorate the social and economic achievements by American workers that led to the USA’s strength, prosperity and well-being as a world power. Without setting aside the American worker’s place in our nation’s success, this article is about America’s real source of strength, prosperity and well-being — God. First, God is our source of strength, which includes the ability to accomplish whatever we decide to do that’s wi...
In James 5:13-18, we see Elijah was a person just like us or like we can be. Elijah was powerful and effective in prayer because of his righteousness, but he wasn’t the source of the righteousness, and neither will we be. According to Romans 1:16-17 and 3:10-26, righteousness comes from God through our faith. Elijah was a prophet of God whose faith was very strong, at least most of the time (1 Kings 17:1; 18:1; 19:1-18). He knew God well enough to know that God would grant his requests, but he probably also had gotten the assurance from God bef...
In my July 21 column in the Quay County Sun, I wrote about Christians being wholly owned and operated by God with a network of other Christians, God’s word and the Holy Spirit to provide for our needs during our life on earth. To remain wholly owned by God, we must become and stay wholly holy — sanctified, sealed with his Holy Spirit, set apart to his purposes, and growing to attain the fullness of Christ (1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Acts 2:38-39; 22:16; Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:11-16; 3 Peter 1:3-11). As each member of the body (local congregation) gro...
I’ve seen advertisements for businesses that were wholly owned and operated locally. These are generally smaller, independent, family-run businesses that, although they make all the decisions based on the best interests of their customers and employees and bear all the risks of profit and loss, they also rely on a network of suppliers from elsewhere to provide their goods and services locally. Tucumcari has many such businesses, most of which successfully navigated and survived the COVID-19 pandemic. The whole world is wholly-owned and operated...
Over this past weekend, Americans celebrated that, for 245 years, we’ve been free of governmental tyranny. Throughout our history, we’ve continued to fight against one form of tyranny or another, either against another country or ourselves, the latter of which led to the greatest trauma because almost as many Americans died during the Civil War (the one against ourselves) than all others combined. After nearly every war, though, the wounds have been allowed to heal and the opposing nations have become our allies. While significant progress has...
My, how times are changing! Actually, they’re not, because there’s nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Kids will still be kids, but the mischief I got into seems nothing compared to what my grandson does. There’re a lot more opportunities for naughtiness now than when I was young. Two things haven’t changed, though, regarding mischief or naughtiness (let’s call that for what it is — sin). First, sin is usually fun, often in a warped way. That is, we sin seeking pleasure, but the kind we shouldn’t desire (Hebrews 11:24-26, 13-16; John...
