Lutheran Witness: September 2018

Learn to “number your days” and come to grips with the reality that “you can’t do it all” in our September issue on time and limitations.

Contents:

From the President: About time

Features:

To number our days —  Tim Saleska

In God’s time — Gerhard Bode

Chaplain’s log: June 14 — Paul and Heather Weber

Herb and Vi — Mike Gibson

Getting it done — Mary Moerbe

A day of light, a day of darkness — Brian J. Kachelmeier

Departments:

world views: A monthly news column from Gene Edward Veith

searching scriptures: Loving despite limitations — Anthony Oliphant

bene+diction: You can’t do it all — Jonathan Fisk

From the editor

Superman has Lex Luthor. Batman has the Joker. Thor has Loki. And me? If I had my own personal arch-nemesis, it would almost surely be finitude.

fin·i·tude: the state of having limits or bounds.

No matter how hard I try to squeeze everything in, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day for all the things I want to do. I’m just not strong enough, smart enough, organized enough, driven enough to pull it off. I’m not … enough. And I hate it.

If you, like me, have ever grappled with that foul fiend finitude, I invite you to walk with me through the pages of LW’s September issue on time and limitations. Here you’ll learn “to number your days” and look forward in hope to the great and glorious “day of the Lord.” You’ll meet people who live and love through trying times, even to the bitter, blessed end of life’s journey. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll begin to come to grips with the painful truth that, as Jonathan Fisk reminds us in his bene+diction essay, “you can’t do it all.”

May we all, like Pastor Fisk, find our peace and comfort not in what we can (or more likely, can’t) do, but in what Christ has done for us — in the fullness of time, out of the abundance of His infinite grace — on Calvary’s cross.

Rachel Bomberger
Managing Editor, The Lutheran Witness
lutheran.witness@lcms.org