ODB: Hands Off!

I remember bobbing for apples when I was a child, a game that required me to have my hands tied behind my back. Trying to grab a floating apple with my teeth without the use of my hands was a frustrating experience. It reminded me of the vital importance of our hands—we eat with them, greet with them, and use them to do just about anything that is vital to our existence.When I read Psalm 46:10,

ODJ: broken for tim?

While away from home on a lengthy work assignment, I attended a church quite different from my one back home. For instance, my adopted church observed communion (the Lord’s Supper) every time they met. Instead of the pastor or elders serving, ordinary members of the church shared responsibility for distributing the bread and wine.
On several occasions the lead elder asked me to assist with

ODB: Mosaic

For 3 weeks every fall season, our city becomes an art gallery. Nearly 2,000 artists from around the world display their creations in galleries, museums, hotels, parks, city streets, parking lots, restaurants, churches, and even in the river.Among my favorite entries are mosaics made from small pieces of colored glass. The winning entry in 2011 was a 9 x 13-foot stained-glass mosaic of the crucifi

ODJ: mistaken identity

Although we’re 5 years apart, people often confuse me with my older sister. From the staff at my favourite coffee shop to my sister’s nursing students, we have many stories of people who try to ask me a medical question or who talk to her about writing. The mix-up seems humorous to us, because we don’t see the similarities that others view so clearly.
But with God, there is no mistaken

ODB: What Love Is

Years ago I asked a young man who was engaged to be married, “How do you know that you love her?” It was a loaded question, intended to help him look at his heart’s motives for the upcoming marriage. After several thoughtful moments, he responded, “I know I love her because I want to spend the rest of my life making her happy.”We discussed what that meant—and the price tag attached to

ODJ: work ethics

Every October the office where I work becomes extremely quiet. The leaders are away attending annual meetings in another country. So those of us who are left behind say to each other with a wink, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”
Jokes aside, when our bosses aren’t watching, do we continue to do our job well? The apostle Paul admonishes believers to work primarily for the Lor

ODB: Music And Megaphone

Christopher Locke buys old trumpets, trombones, and French horns and transforms them into acoustic amplifiers for iPhones and iPads. His creations are modeled on the trumpetlike speakers used in the first phonographs during the late 1800s. Music played through Christopher’s AnalogTelePhonographers has a “louder, cleaner, richer, deeper sound” than what is heard from the small speakers in the

ODJ: doing good

Edward Kimball was a Sunday school teacher determined to win his class to Christ. A young Dwight Moody would fall asleep during his lessons, but Kimball remained resolute and even met Moody at the shoe shop where he worked and urged him to give his life to Christ. Kimball left the shop thinking he’d failed miserably, but because of that encounter, Dwight Lyman Moody did commit his life to Christ

ODB: Shadowed

Someone was shadowing me. In a darkened hallway, I turned the corner to go up a flight of stairs and was alarmed by what I saw, stopping dead in my tracks. It happened again a few days later. I came around the back of a favorite coffee shop and saw the large shape of a person coming at me. Both incidents ended with a smile, however. I’d been frightened by my own shadow!The prophet Jeremiah talke