John Mark Hicks

This is one of the most beautiful images of rest, calm, and peace. Our souls are like a nursing child resting in her mother’s arms after a feeding. This is the hope of Israel, and invites us to humble ourselves before the Lord, whose greatness we can never exhaust or fully comprehend. O Israel, hope […]

Headed to the Promised Land with Israel Hebrews 4:1-13 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest is still open, let us take care that none of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For indeed the good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not […]

Inheritance (or, possession) occurs fifty times in the book of Joshua, and everyone of them, except for five (11:23; 23:4; 24:28,30,32), occur in chapters 12-21. Further, the verb “to possess or inherit” occurs nine times in Joshua, eight times in Joshua 13-21. So, fifty-three of the fifty-nine occurrences of this word group occur in Joshua […]

Before the movie, first the biblical story…or at least my reading of that story…. This is not a children’s story. The animals going into the ark two by two do make a classic VBS song and it certainly makes a great flannel graph. But this story is more like a horror movie than a Disney […]

Why does God need to rest? Is he fatigued? It must have been exhausting work for God to create the cosmos, the earth and everything in it, right?  NOT! So, why did God rest? In some of the ancient creation myths the gods built their own heavenly sanctuary when they finished their creative work (or battles) […]

Friends With the advice and counsel from some under whom I have placed my care, I have decided to cease blogging for the rest of July.  I appreciate your kind emails and comments as well as the dialogue some of us have had over the past few months.  And I have enjoyed entering the blogging […]

In several posts over the past month or so, I have indicated that I am experiencing a season of grief. More specifically, I have been working through some past traumas in order to integrate them into my life in a more healthy way. This has been a healing process for me. It is painful but it […]