Dale Cresap's blog

Has your mind ever wandered in daydreams? This is a means of escape, a way to disengage and be absent in mind even as you are present in body.

Have you ever heard stories of kidnapped children? These are heart-rending and inevitably traumatic for the children, but no matter how much they have suffered, the parents always want them back.

Do you look for satisfaction in everything you do? If you are hungry you can eat until you are satisfied, and this is a good place to stop, but not everyone does. There are many areas of your life in which the right amount is necessary and beneficial but to continue is detrimental.

Is there an ending for every beginning? Yet endings are usually followed by another beginning. Does this seem like an endless cycle to you, in which one lesson follows another, and one grade follows another, and the same is true for trials and character refinement?

In most schools material is presented according to a curriculum. This organizes a complex course of study into individual lessons. There is too much to assimilate all at once, but the curriculum divides it into manageable pieces.

One thing have I desired of the Lord, to behold the beauty of the Lord. Your culture has a strong but distorted sense of beauty.

If you are in need of healing, does it strengthen your faith to see other people healed? Yet what if many others are healed and you are not? This may reinforce your belief in the power of God, but does it give you a crisis of faith regarding my love and intentions toward you?

Are you afraid of money? Do you know anyone, including yourself, who isn’t eager to have more? Yet my word warns those who would be rich and says that the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil.

You are familiar with the concept of getting to know someone. Everyone presents a public image, usually of superficial politeness, for casual encounters with other people. You don’t consider that you really know someone until you can look beyond that.

Is there anyone that you would send to hell? My own disciples asked for my approval to call down fire from heaven on some who rejected me, and I rebuked them. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and I am not willing that any should perish. Neither should you.