An Arkies Musings

The vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus is coming again. The same Jesus who came to our world 2,000 years ago; who was born in Bethlehem, crucified on a Roman cross, resurrected on the third day, and ascended into heaven—is coming again.  He has a plan to do away with all sin and evil. 2 Peter 3:13 (NKJV) tells us, “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” The Second Coming of Jesus is a precious doctrine, and I love to study my Bible to learn more about it. I have been studying the Second Coming for more than 40 years. Recently as I have been studying, I have looked at it from a different perspective. For many years the focus of my study was proving how Jesus will come. I haven’t been alone in this. In our second coming doctrine, we have some very good news to proclaim. Like all biblical truths, the second coming doctrine is a window into God’s love. So let’s take a look through the window. Wh...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the September 26, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. The airport intercom crackled to life as the travelers at Gate 73 strained to hear the announcement. “If you are flying on Frontier flight 634 to Tulsa, the plane has been delayed, but will be arriving soon. We will unload the passengers and start boarding as quickly as possible.” It was already a half hour past the boarding time for the flight. People were nervous about missing their connecting flights. About twenty minutes later the plane finally pulled up to the gate. From our seats near the window, we watched the passengers disembark the plane and walk down the movable ramp, filing past the window and into the airport. When the last passenger had made his way down the ramp, we thought that it wouldn’t be long before we started boarding. We watched as all the luggage was loaded into the cargo hold of the plane and the door was closed and locked. But still, there was no announcement about board...

One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. A fireman stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to the boy, "Jump! I'll catch you." He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see, however, was flame, smoke, and blackness. As you can imagine, he was afraid to leave the roof. The fireman kept yelling: "Jump! I will catch you." But the boy protested, “I can't see you." The fireman replied, "But I can see you, and that's all that matters." In life, each one of us finds ourselves in the same situation as the young boy on the roof.  We will be destroyed unless we do something.  If we stay in our current situation, we will be destroyed by fire.  The biggest question in our lives is, what must I do to be saved. In the little boy’s situation, the answer was; jump. What is the answer in your life? Let’s start by looking at a story in the life of Paul.  Paul and Silas ha...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the September 19, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. Our area was forecast to receive two to four inches of rain. My son-in-law is an avid river rafter and was excited to see the possibility of a good rainfall. He made plans to visit over the weekend so that he could go rafting. Thursday came and went without any significant rainfall. Friday had very little rain. Friday afternoon he drove up from Louisiana with a rubber raft and an inflatable kayak. He was hoping for enough rainfall on Saturday to be able to go rafting on Sunday. On Saturday, the rains didn’t come. We enjoyed the rain-free day and spent the afternoon walking on the paths around the lakes on the University of Arkansas Rich Mountain campus. My son-in-law regretted bringing the raft and all the equipment needed. He was disappointed that after all of that work we would not be able to go rafting. Saturday evening as he sat at the computer checking the area river levels, he saw t...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the September 12, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. The line of cars stretched out as far as the eye could see. For many miles, we had slowly trudged along the highway trying to get back to Denver. It was a holiday weekend, and it seemed like everyone was making their way back to the city. The traffic had become heavy as soon as we turned onto Highway 285. We became a part of a procession of vehicles snaking their way down the road and over the brow of a hill, with cars bumper to bumper. It was the first time that I had been to the South Park area of Colorado. South Park is a grassland basin surrounded by mountains in central Colorado. The high valley ranges in elevation from 9,000 to 10,000 feet and features a colorful river valley with views of several 14,000-foot mountain peaks. After twenty miles of stop and go traffic we came to an area where we could see large areas of burnt forest on our left. In June of this year, a fire started in th...

Every year when September 11th comes around, the emotions of Americans are heightened as we remember September 11, 2001. Most Americans can remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the awful news that airplanes had crashed into the World Trade Center. I was at work when my wife called me to tell me what she was seeing on TV. I turned on my radio and listened all day as the news reports came in. I first wrote of my feelings about this terrible event in 2008 shortly after I started writing on this blog. You can read that post by clicking here. While my wife and I were studying our family histories, I came across a historical event that I had never heard about before. A couple of things struck me about this event. It happened on September 11th and was one of the worst massacres in American history. The date was September 11, 1857, and the place was Mountain Meadows in Southern Utah. The story starts when Alexander Fancher and John T. Baker along with 140...

My An Arkie's Faith column from the September 5, 2018, issue of The Mena Star. As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I saw a post about the opening of a local zipline. It read, “to celebrate we're giving away a free ticket. To enter: Like our page, like this post, comment, and share this post. The winner will be announced Sunday morning.” I thought to myself, “why not?” As a local business owner, I believe in supporting local businesses. I didn’t think about it again until the next Sunday morning when a message popped up on my phone. “Congratulations, Richard!! You are the winner of our free zipline canopy tour ticket. Give us a call or message us when you're ready, and we'll reserve a spot for you.” I found it hard to believe that I had won. When I called, I spoke to the owner, Shelly. As we were visiting, she gave me some of the background of the zip line. She has been interested in a zipline for ten years, but it was more of a dream than anything else...