Dad: Do you have the car? Are we going home? Me: No, we can’t go home. You’re in the hospital. Dad: Oh. When are we going to go? Me: I’m not sure. We have to find a place for you to rehab. Dad: Can we go home. Where’s your car? Me: Dad, we aren’t going […]…
Author: Matt Tullos
A Prayer of Collective Repentance
Lord, have mercy upon us. We have shouted more than we have listened. We have looked through rage and defiance and have brutalized our brothers and sisters. We have forgotten your Word, which calls upon us to turn the other cheek, to defend those who are on the bottom rung, and to live at peace…
When Jesus is in the House
Just another time to worship… Then, suddenly, something happens. Flecks of the ceiling are falling on the teacher’s shoulder. The flecks turn into chunks and out of a gaping hole a paralyzed man is lowered down by four guys in the first elevator in church history. The man is healed and the people went away…
Grace is on a Family Tree
My friend loves Jesus. That sounds commonplace, doesn’t it? It becomes less pedestrian when I tell you that his Mom died a drug addict and his father was a devout atheist. My friend was gloriously saved at the age of 10 at a Vacation Bible School event and never looked back. This. Makes. No. Sense….
When You Say Farewell
We all learn that people come and people go. You could lose the one you love in the turn of a road, in a sudden bend in the stream and life in its infinite mystery vanishes like the morning dew in the warm break of dawn. The universality of loss is indellable. I remember dropping…
The Two Questions that He Keeps Asking
After the resurrection, Jesus returns to the disciples and sets his attention on Peter. You remember Peter. He’s the cussing disciple. The sword wheeling, water stumbling, denier whose tongue sprinted a few miles ahead of his brain on any given Sunday. Jesus gives the disciples a little fishing advice that produces a record catch and then Peter…
A Sacred Connection
The child arrives on the planet and a new daddy shouts, and the grandparents weep with joy, but the mother is the first to see her child deeply. Children are born and you don’t have to teach a mother or child how to feel love. They bring their love with them. She sees her baby and…
Sometimes It’s Hard to Sing
Every now and then, pain steals something so important to us. External forces or internal conflicts arise and over time, we discover that we have lost our song. How is it possible to sing when our hearts are heavy and our hope wanes? You lose a friend to cancer. You are unjustly attacked. A child turns his back on you….
The First Words of The Resurrected Jesus
The seven last words of Jesus have been lauded in songs and art. But when we consider the first words of Jesus after the resurrection, we discover what this new reality and commission looks like for believers. Let’s take a look at seven of the first sayings of Jesus. All of them are found in John 20. “Woman, why…
It’s Sunday!
It’s Sunday. And Jesus is with us! His obituary is in the paper and, for goodness sakes alive, He is sitting at our breakfast table! He is supposed to be behind a stone, flanked by Rome’s finest. Dead, dead, dead… But instead He’s hungry and wants fish this morning! And where has He been since…