Author: Jon Gauger

Have you ever been terrified while reading Scripture? Numbers chapter 20 gave me quite a zap. In the middle of the desert, the Israelites were without water—or faith.  Their grumbling against Moses quickly morphs into the ridiculous: “Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?” (vv. 4,5).  God’s response to Moses: “Tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of…

Have you ever seen so much frustration in America? Forget the “melting pot,” America is a boiling pot! Between the tragedy in Afghanistan, the venom over voting, and the gender revolution, we’ve become a cauldron of the caustic. Federal mandates versus states’ rights, masks versus anti-maskers, vaxers versus no-vaxers—everybody’s angry over something. And that includes Christians. Of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion. Disagreement is the stuff of democracy. Unquestionably, believers should vote for candidates and policies that honor Christ. But I fear many of us—myself included—may have forgotten something Jesus said when on trial. Addressing Pilate, Christ said,…

Spiky branches thwacked at the edges of our trail as we rolled deeper into the thicket. An emerald canopy overhead created a cooling air pocket as the tractor-pulled wagon groaned at every jolt on the rooted path. It might have been a safari. Except this was northern Illinois. Nevertheless, two-year-old Emma kept her eyes open for any possible animal sightings. Upon her return from the would-be rain forest, where she missed nothing, she announced, "I saw squirrels and turkeys. But no giraffe." She seemed genuinely disappointed. Given the density of the woods and Emma’s less-than-1000-days-of-life perspective, it’s not unreasonable that…

Cheese fries, funnel cakes, and elephant ears.  The air was heavy with the smog of greasy grills and heart-unhealthy taste treats. But what a fabulous fragrance it was smothering the grounds of the Bureau County Fair. Fleeing these temptations—and the sun's unrelenting heat—we dove into buildings where colorful ribbons declared the winners of creative competitions: largest pumpkin, tastiest apple pie, best pen and ink drawing, etc. In one building, we saw folks handing out safety brochures, nail files, cup holders, and ten-thousand other logo-emblazoned products: many of them solutions in search of a problem. Then there was the unassuming table…

I should never have clicked the link that came with the headline. I’m talking about the images of Zaki Anwari the 17-year-old soccer player determined to leave Afghanistan hanging on to a C-17. Capable of flying two M1A2 Abrams battle tanks, or 16 Humvees, the plane's belly swelled with passengers desperate to evacuate. You’ve seen the photos. Zaki clutched at the landing gear with a gritty resolve as the transport accelerated to 50, then 100, then 120 miles per hour. Just a few hundred feet into the air, Zaki lost his grip. Nor was he the only one to die…

Taking offense. In the last two or three years, it has replaced baseball as America’s pastime. These days, it seems everyone is offended and going to bat about something. There is nothing, it seems, over which we will not be offended. While humans have managed to irritate each other since Adam and Eve, today's cultural climate offers two distinct differences. First, social media has created a global platform to air those grievances.  And air them we do. Second, a sustained pattern of lawsuits has given birth to the notion that "If I am offended, so you must placate me." The…

A friend at work recently texted to thank me for praying about a family health situation. Good thing it was a text and not FaceTime. I’m sure there was a strained look on my face as I pondered whether, in fact, I had prayed. Perhaps I did pray initially, but not nearly as much as my friend credited me. Can you relate to that? Someone asks you to pray, and you give hearty agreement to their request with every intention to follow through. And then, you don’t. Your friend is assuming you’re praying—counting on it. They've told others that you…

Attempting to put sunscreen on a two-year-old is like trying to catch a greased pig. You can try, but it’s not going to be pretty. Yet Emma wanted to play in the park and it was sunny outside and since she was in our care, we dug out the sunscreen. A dab on her nose and each cheek should have been easy to smooth out. Should have. Did I mention Emma is two? She looked this way and that and up and down and around. I tried rubbing that lotion in for all I was worth. And failed. Her head…

Air travel is back.  In a big way! Between July 1 and July 5, TSA workers screened more than 10 million people.  That's a record exceeding any pre-pandemic numbers. Snaking through the Disney-like security lines at O’Hare last week, I observed a flight attendant's ID tag marked in bold black letters, "Known Crew Member." The speed with which she breezed through lines that bogged down the rest of us gave new meaning to the expression, "cleared for takeoff.” Finally shoehorned into my airplane seat, I watched as fellow travelers attempted to mash luggage into overhead bins that seem to shrink…

I heard something the other day that nearly curled my toes and curdled my milk. Some guy was relating a personal incident that he summarized with the phrase, "that's my truth." Like a noxious weed, this expression is invading the landscape of American thought. The big deal? Truth and personal experience are both treated as equals. But there's an ocean of difference between the two. Truth operates independently of experience. Experience is personal, flexible, and open to interpretation. Truth is impersonal, fixed, and not open to interpretation. Truth exists outside of opinion—yours or mine. For me to claim that water…