by Barry Creamer | May 15, 2024 | Devotionals
Raptors captivate me. Growing up, if I did see one, it was cruising what seemed like a mile high, and might as well have been a turkey vulture. I don’t know what started to change in my mid-twenties—that is, whether it was the raptor population which bloomed or my...
by Barry Creamer | May 8, 2024 | Devotionals
In the late 1980s I quit my Master of Divinity program partially because of the seminary’s intolerance of conservative views and partially because I didn’t believe I really needed it. In church, I had already been pastoring in a full-time context for a couple of...
by Barry Creamer | May 1, 2024 | Devotionals
In the first religion class of my first semester at the Texas college for Baptists, my professor told us that Paul made the same mistake as everyone else in his day by claiming Adam was a real man in Romans 5:12. I ended up majoring in English. A half-dozen years...
by Barry Creamer | Apr 24, 2024 | Devotionals
When I first became VP for Academic Affairs at Criswell College, I made a little list of priorities, first of which was: “Promote a Christian workplace and learning environment.” You would think such a specific reminder would be unnecessary in a college for...
by Barry Creamer | Apr 17, 2024 | Devotionals
When the rain finally relented after a wet spell not too long ago, I spent a late night trying to get a good picture of Saturn. I didn’t. Instead I got an image slightly distorted and softened by atmospheric turbulence and my own processing imperfections. While...
by Barry Creamer | Apr 10, 2024 | Devotionals
About 30 years ago a young adult in the church I pastored commented to some friends that I could be the brother of… (It was obvious the sentence would conclude with a celebrity reference, so I thought, “well, I part my hair like him, and we’re about the same age, so...
by Barry Creamer | Apr 3, 2024 | Devotionals
A 17 year old high school senior, the day after my partner and I won the tournament for the largest debate camp in the country, I woke to no fans outside my bedroom window, no keys to the city, not even a mention in our ultra-local newspaper. Although the world had...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 27, 2024 | Devotionals
John taught his disciples to pray and fast, yearning for a deliverance which had been hiding for centuries just beyond the horizon. This is why Jesus contrasts John’s fasting disciples with his own: “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?”...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 13, 2024 | Devotionals
It is a chilly Monday morning and I stand with hundreds of others waiting for the busses we have just seen depart to return so they can also shuttle us from a parking lot near the finish line of this MLK Day parade to our designated location near its starting point. A...
by Barry Creamer | Mar 6, 2024 | Devotionals
The sun is setting behind a ridge across the lake when I notice a couple of things simultaneously. First, insects are not bothering me. I have watched and photographed the sunset for about 20 minutes and have not experienced a single buzz or bite—a stark contrast...
