by jakeowensby | Jan 19, 2023 | Lenten Study, Matthew 4:12-23
Despite the heat and humidity of late-July Florida, I strapped on my shoes for an afternoon run. The relief of getting out of the house and capturing a few quiet minutes on my own outweighed the threat of heat stroke. Andrew, our firstborn, was just a few weeks...
by jakeowensby | Dec 2, 2022 | God's love, Matthew 3:1-12
A dear old mentor of mine passed away a few years ago. But the lessons he taught still help me see things—see myself—a little more clearly. Maybe the most important of those lessons came in the form of a story he once told on himself in his usual self-deprecating...
by jakeowensby | Oct 28, 2022 | Luke 19:1-10, Zacchaeus
Honestly, sometimes I just lose my mind. I hear things that nobody is saying. For instance, Joy came back from her usual morning walk with our six-month old Lab-mix Gracie. Gracie was ecstatic. Joy, not so much. “Ugh. She was awful,” Joy said. “She kept jumping up for...
by jakeowensby | Sep 24, 2022 | God's love, Human Dignity, Luke 16:19-31, Respect
Eavesdropping is impolite. But sometimes you can’t help overhearing somebody else’s conversation. Waiting for a flight from Atlanta to Chicago, I was sitting across from a man in his early twenties. He was talking on his cell phone. Loudly. About his mother. “What a...
by jakeowensby | Sep 17, 2022 | Luke 16:1-13
Friendship, says C. S. Lewis, “is born at the moment when one [person] says to another “What! You too?” You love this thing that I love? And so it was for one of my oldest friendships. In our boyhood and teen years, R- and I shared a love of Tolkien’s Lord of...
