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Gone But Not Fogotten

  They walked and they walked. Step after step. Mile after mile. About 68 miles in 9 days. Many died along the way. Many more died in POW camps. It is estimated that of the 12,000 Americans who were on the Bataan Death March, only about 1,700 survived to the end of the war. This week is the 84 th anniversary of the Bataan Death March. This horrible event took place on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines from April 9-17, 1942. It was the largest surrender in the history of the US Army. If you read what the sadistic Japanese soldiers did to our soldiers, it will make you sick and angry at the same time. I won’t share all the gory details. You can find them online. I have read many books about the Bataan Death March, and I have read many survivor accounts. I have the dates of the march marked on my calendar every April. I do that so I will never forget the sacrifices of those heroic men. Each year, I try to do something in honor of the men who were on that march. One year I h...
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The Dawning of a New Day

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    The ball has dropped. Auld Lang Syne has been retired for another year. The fireworks have all been fired.   Another new year has dawned. It is hard to believe that it is 2026. It seems like only yesterday it was 2025 or 2015 or 2005. Another new year stretches in front of us like a new sheet of paper that has not yet been written on. It is a great time to give some thought to what you will write on that paper. Leap forward in your mind to January 1, 2027. What will you wish you would have done in 2026? What changes will you wish you made? What relationships will you wish you tried to mend? What will you wish you had done in your walk with the Lord? What Bible verses will you wish you had memorized? What kind of person will you wish you had become? Now come back to the present. The good news is that you have a new year in front of you to work on all the things you will wish you had worked on a year from now. But a year is a long time. It is easy to become ov...
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Future Thanks

Another Thanksgiving Day is upon us. It’s a day of good food, family, and maybe some football. And don’t forget the thanks. It’s actually in the title. Thanksgiving is a day set aside for the purpose of giving thanks to God. We often thank the Lord for food, family, and friends. We thank Him for the many blessings that He has given to us. And we should give thanks for all those things. But sometimes giving thanks does not come so easily. Pain and suffering can choke the thanks right out of us. In those moments, we need future thanks. Future thanks is when we give God thanks for things that are not yet but will be one day. They will be because God has promised. God promised to make things new. As Christians, we can look into the future and give thanks today for the things God has promised to do one day. God has promised a new heaven and a new earth. The things that squeeze the thanks out of us today will one day be no more. God has promised. One day, God will wipe all tears from our eye...
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All the Way Home

  I woke up last night with a song on my mind. I don’t know why it was on my mind, but it was. The strange thing is that it was a song that I have not heard in about 40 years. Our church youth ensemble used to sing it when I was in high school. We traveled each summer and did concerts at churches in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Last night, I woke up with one of those songs stuck in my head. The song is “All the Way Home.” The version that we did was sung by a group called Truth. My rebellion I called freedom Took my birthright in its hand And I woke up in the pigpen Of a distant, alien land. On the road back home to Father I’ll not stop along the way I was born to higher purpose I’ll not waste another day Won’t be camping on the border Just in sight of what I’ve known It is all the way or nothing Yes, it’s all the way back home. The song is obviously about the prodigal son from Luke 15. In addition to the song being stuck in my mind, I also felt compe...
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