Dan R. Crawford's Page

A few Sundays ago, my pastor preached on Psalm 73, reminding me that I had also preached on that Psalm – several times in fact. It is the age-old conflict of the prosperity of the wicked vs. the suffering of the righteous, and the Psalmist began by asking tough questions. Make no mistake, the wicked do prosper, and our questions make little difference to them. But one must quickly get past the questions to Psalm 73:16-17, “When I thought how to understand this, it was too painful for me –…

I was recently faced with a major decision concerning my future. I realized that the older I got the fewer options I had, and this one was complicated because it involved financial issues. In the midst of the decision, as I was listening for God’s directions, I read Isaiah 30 as a part of my daily Bible reading. When I got to verse 21, I had to pause, as if it were written just for me. “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’.” “Behind,” I wondered. It…

The days are different. Some days I find myself with high energy, desiring to accomplish much. Then on other days, I just want to sit on the porch and sip coffee. Carl Sandburg expressed it this way: “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.” However, Helen Keller countered with “One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.” The idea that compares youth to soaring like an eagle, is mentioned several…

Most of my early heroes were workaholics, and some were also perfectionists. What an amazing, yet deadly mix! No surprise then, that I developed the same two traits. Then I discovered that I was good at multi-tasking. Most of my life, friends seemed to be amazed at how much I could accomplish. I assume, to whatever degree that was true, it was because of the blending of these three ingredients. I had the “disease” of which Nigel Cumberland wrote in his book, 100 Things Successful People Do,…