I knew exactly what I was doing. How difficult could downhill skiing be? After ignoring the instructor’s lesson on how to ski, I made my way up the hill and started going down. Panic set in when I realized that I did not know how to slow down, stop, turn, etc. What do you do when you realize that you are in trouble on skis? You just fall down and tear the cartilage in your knee. Did I mention I was on the bunny hill and my ego was forever damaged?

The cliché that faith can move mountains is part of our culture. Often it is taken to mean that if we believe in ourselves, or if we believe in our dreams, we can accomplish anything regardless of the obstacles in our way. Some Christians take Jesus’ words to mean that if we simply believe that God will answer our prayers, he will do anything we ask. Do we want a new sports car? Just really, really believe and ask God!

Even though Jesus doesn’t answer their question, he answers their question. John the Baptist had his authority from heaven, as everyone with any spiritual insight recognized. The leaders couldn’t deny John the Baptist’s authority, plus they were afraid of the people, so they refused to say that his authority was from human beings. On the other hand, they couldn’t admit that John the Baptist’s authority was from heaven, because that meant acknowledging that Jesus’ authority was from heaven, too.

After forty long years in the desert, years during which one whole generation had died, years of signs and wonders but also years of tedium and frustration, the people are about to enter the land promised to them so long ago. Why did it take forty years to get to this place? Because even after they saw the amazing work of God in bringing them out of Egypt with great power they had not believed that God was great enough to bring them into this land.

Certain days change and mark our families forever, sometimes tragically, or sometimes because on that day a new beginning was made. Even if not everything worked out as was hoped, nevertheless nothing was ever the same after it. Sometimes such days of new beginning are days of physical moving, from one city or even from one country to another. When that happens there are also moments that for one reason or another are never forgotten.

Why, instead of simply moving north from the Sinai Peninsula and entering the Promised Land from the South, as every invading army since has done, did God have this mass of people continue east of the Dead Sea, then North, then face West with a river in between them and their objective? It’s like so many things that happen in my own life and in the life of my family that I don’t really understand. It seems like there should be an obvious and easier way for God to direct me.

Have you ever given everything to fighting a battle, only to be ambushed by an unexpected attack from a different source?

Scholars link Psalm 60 to a series of military campaigns described in 2 Samuel 8. But where the Samuel passage has a victorious tone, Psalm 60 seems to have been written at a particularly desperate moment.