“The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom” (Isaiah 35:1). A little girl walking in a garden noticed a particularly beautiful flower. She admired its beauty and enjoyed its fragrance. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. As she gazed on it, her eyes followed the stem down to the soil in which it grew. “This flower is too pretty to be planted in such dirt!” s...

“Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).This is, undoubtedly, one of my favorite verses in scripture. I think about it almost daily and meditate on it regularly. I suppose we all get the value of this admonition spiritually. However, perhaps we often forget the biblical context in which it is given. In the verses that precede it (v. 8-9), the psalmist pictures a battlefield after the host...