toddcast

Last Sunday I preached about heaven. I love preaching about heaven but I always feel like any description I give falls so far short of what it will actually be like. And I must admit, I have many questions. What exactly will it be like? What will we be doing? Will the bonds we've formed here remain intact?  Heaven, in so many ways is incomprehensible to me but there is one thing I am confident of – it will far exceed any of my expectations. I find it maddening when my expectations fall short of reality. Someone recommends their favorite restaurant and I find it so-so. Someone raves about a movie and I find myself dozing throughout. There have been times when someone would say to me, "You've gotta see this," or "You have to go there," and when I do I wonder what all the hype was all about. Unmet expectations are frustrating. But that will not be the case for heaven. No matter what you or I think, it will be better. I've had that experience at least a coup...

In the last few years when our family travels instead of booking a hotel we have used an Airbnb or a Vrbo. If you’re not familiar with this concept it’s basically people renting out their homes to tourists. It’s especially convenient if we have a lot of family to house. We can all stay together, eat meals together, play games together, and generally make someone else’s home ours for a few days. They have normally served us well and even though they are generally decorated nicely I don’t always agree with their selection of furniture or their choices of paint colors. Sometimes I notice that something might be broken or not working quite right. It’s a little frustrating but one thing I have never done at one of these vacation rentals is redecorate, repaint, or make repairs.   I don’t get very upset if things don’t match or appliances don’t work. Since I’m only going to be there a few days I just live with it. No sense investing worry, money, effort, and time in a place that is s...