Jon Pratt Following last week’s Nick of Time essay entitled, “Fate and Providence,” I received the following email from a pastor: Dear Brother, I always enjoy and appreciate your writing. I struggle with this present [essay] however. Just recently a young lady started attending our church. Nine years ago she married her college sweetheart—(both from a Christian… Continue Reading
Jon Pratt One of our local sportswriters described Sergio Garcia’s recent victory at the Masters golf tournament as a triumph of fate. Similar attributions to blind chance frequently find their way into sports columns. Why did the Chicago Cubs finally win the World Series? Baseball gods. Or Michael Phelps winning multiple gold medals at age… Continue Reading
Jon Pratt God brings trials of various kinds into all our lives, and we are not to be surprised by this (1 Pet 4:12). But I admit that recent events in my family’s life have been quite unexpected and extraordinary. In His grace, the Lord has taught me many lessons through this experience, and I would like… Continue Reading
Most of the time I write these essays either in my study during working hours or else sitting upstairs at home in the evening. This one is different. I’m writing from home, but I’m writing after midnight. As I write, my wife and son are playing piano duets downstairs—not for artistic purposes, but mainly to… Continue Reading
What is the best book ever written on America? What is the best book ever written on democracy? Amazingly, at a well-seasoned 177 years old (the first volume was published in 1835, the second in 1840), Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America can make a strong claim to be the answer to both of those… Continue Reading
Samuel Rodigast, “Whate’er My God Ordains Is Right” This outstanding hymn was introduced to our church back in 2009, and after singing it for a month of Sundays in order to learn it, we hadn’t sung it since because it is not in our hymnal. Definitely a situation which needed rectifying, so I re-introduced it… Continue Reading