bible

May 25, 2025

If you will

Sometimes the most effective healing Jesus offered was no healing at all. Take the story of the man at the pool of Beth-zatha, for example (John 5:2-9). For thirty-eight years he had been there, most of his life, waiting to be healed of whatever ailed him. And for thirty-eight years he had seen others healed Continue reading

Ruminations

Abba Joseph, Abba Lot, authority, be made well, become all fire, bible, change, dependency, desert fathers, discovery, faith, God, healing, health and wholeness, Jesus, kingdom of God, kingdom of heaven, letting go, new life, paralytic, risking change, risking growth, the pool of Beth-zatha, the unknown, unanswered prayer, unknown world
May 18, 2025

The mark of the Christian

Love is more than a commandment of Jesus (see John 13:31-35). Love is an invitation and a promise. It’s the condition in which we experience the abundant life into which Jesus invites us (John 10:10). It’s the land flowing with milk and honey into which God promises to deliver us (Exod. 3:7f). It’s the house Continue reading

Ruminations

bible, Christian love, christianity, commandment to love, debt of love, God, Jesus, love, promise of God
February 9, 2025

Sent

The question seemed simple enough, but simple questions can quickly turn out to be not so simple. “Whom shall I send,” God asked, “and who will go for us?” The question that came to Isaiah in the temple was his call to carry God’s message to his people. I wonder what he might have felt Continue reading

Ruminations

1 Corinthians 13, bible, call of the disciples, calling of Simon, christianity, faith, God is love, Here am I, How beautiful upon the mountains, Isaiah’s call, Martin Luther, Oscar Romero, questions of faith, reformation, send me, simple questions, speaking truth to power, the love chapter, Whom shall I send?
October 9, 2024

The top eight ways to hear God

I’ve often wanted to have a conversation with my twenty-something-year-old self, to share some wisdom from this end of my lifespan and to offer guidance to make his life not necessarily easier but more fulfilling. Some things I’d share, my younger self could never imagine. So I wonder about the wisdom I cannot imagine today Continue reading

Ruminations

ask and it will be given you, Be still, bible, conscience, David Letterman, Elijah, faith, God, God’s voice, guidance, guides, hearing, hearing God, Isaac the Syrian, Jeremiah, Jesus, ladder to the Kingdom, listen, Listening, living with full attention, new covenant, prayer, silence, sound of sheer silence, spiritual disciplines, St. Benedict, teachers, test what you hear, the ear of your heart, the persistent widow, the set of the sails, Top Ten List, Wesley’s quadrilateral, Will Rogers, wisdom
August 11, 2024

Under the broom tree

It’s an ancient and deeply human question, as relevant today as when the psalmist put it into words three millennia ago. “When the world falls apart, what can the good hope to do” (Ps. 11:3 ICEL)? Or as Eugene Peterson paraphrased it in The Message, “The bottom’s dropped out of the country” and it seems Continue reading

Ruminations

bible, bread of life, broom tree, crisis, dream, Edgar A. Guest, faith, God, God’s whispers, Jeremiah, quietness, renewal, rest, Retreat, returning and rest, sabbath, sacred places, sacred time, sleep, Thoreau, trust, Wendell Berry, When Things Go Wrong, wilderness
June 19, 2024

When we see faith differently

Some who claim a seat at the table with other Christians appear to be attempting to narrow the grace of the gospel, or narrow it even further than they have already done. According to a report on Ministry Watch (ministrywatch.com), “The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) will spend the next year investigating the book ‘Jesus Continue reading

Ruminations

amazing faith, bible, different perspectives, disagrement, expanding faith, growing faith, Jesus Calling, Jesus’ faith, PCA, Sarah Young, scriptures
June 17, 2024

Everything has become new

You may have seen artist Charles Allan Gilbert’s depiction of an elegant young woman seated at a vanity, admiring herself in the mirror. With a slight shift of perspective, the image becomes one of a human skull. Gilbert’s art is more than a trick for our eyes or a comment on vanity. It’s also a Continue reading

Ruminations

Alice, Annie Dillard, bible, born again, Charles Allan Gilbert, Cheshire Cat, comprehending, comprehension, God, Jesus, man born blind, new creation, Nicodemus, patience, perception, prayerscaping, seeing, seeing anew, seeing truly, trust in God, understanding, vanity, waiting patiently

About Me

Rich Neal is, in no particular order, a wordsmith and graphic designer; lover of typography, books, and publishing; photographer; contemplative; saunterer; and a retired and still-active pastor. He claims neither special wisdom nor particularly deep insight into life, only occasional glimpses of what lies behind the veil along the way. He shares them here in the hope of connecting the pieces of life’s puzzle that come to him in the journey and would consider it a gift if sharing them also connected him with others who travel an unmarked path toward the same unknown end.