Daily Photo Parable

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, June 7, 2025

A little over a week ago, from my perch at our local library, I observed through an opening in a wooden screen a young lady sitting at a nearby table. As you can see in the photo above, she was wearing a white hoodie bearing a brief message: Essentials: Fear God.

She’s most likely a Christian, and most likely a Christian who has been introduced to a deeper and more complex view of God than you might think a hoodie might advertise. But she seems to have understood not only how Biblical but how security-establishing that truth is.

In fact, she may have been exposed to thoughtful verses like the five you’ll find at the link just below. Check them out.

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/fear-lord

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Friday, June 6, 2025

Thursday of this week as I was arriving at our local library I noticed, directly in my path, this magnificent old car. After I snapped this photo, I sidled reverently past it, and reached out to grab hold of the left front fender. I know that nowadays there are old-car kits made with modern materials, some of which are plastic. But no, this fender was solid metal.

Is this a genuine old Model A? I wondered. I got the answer by looking at the license plate on the front. Not only does it say “1931” (and a Google Images search reveals several examples of this exact car made that year), but the license plate frame says “Gallopin’ Gertie A’s,” which seems to be a vintage Model A auto club based in Tacoma, Washington, and whose name alludes to the famous collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge in 1940.

So this car is real, and is nearing 100 years old. And what’s so fascinating is to compare it to modern cars. Take the bumper: my Toyota Corolla’s is plastic. The older car’s is just as metal as the fenders, and if called upon, it would bump. And the horn – see the squawker below the headlight? My Corolla’s hides discreetly under the hood, and its feeble bleat probably sounds half as loud as this one.

The headlights themselves are perched accessibly out where the untutored layperson can get at them to change them. That’s not the case for my Corolla’s lights, which require a specialist, wearing blue rubber gloves, using the skills of both a surgeon and a contortionist.

I wish I’d taken a photo of the car’s interior, but I did glance inside. No fancy accessories, just a steering wheel and a tall stick shift arising straight out of the floor.

So, what’s my parable point? This car, nearly a century old, has the basics – the essentials – necessary to get the passengers where they need to go. Everything we’ve added since then has been convenience-frills.

What’s the essential equipment for a Christian as we face difficult times? The whole Bible gives a lot of courage, but here’s one list of verses which will help:

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/assurance

Photo ©2009 and Commentary ©2025 Russell Jurgensen
Thursday, June 5 , 2025

This scene on a woodsy trail caused me to stop and enjoy the peacefulness of the place. This verse speaks about peace:

Consider the blameless, observe the upright;
a future awaits those who seek peace.
Psalm 37:37

May you have a peaceful week, and find times when you can stop and ponder the grace of Jesus.

Photo and Commentary ©2025 Robert Howson
Tuesday and Wednesday, June 3 and 4, 2025

The prophet Jeremiah faced a difficult task, to speak in such clear tones that the citizens of Jerusalem and Judea at large would recognize their own wickedness and change. The Lord gave him this promise, “If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city.” (Jeremiah 5:1 NIV) The story sounds similar to the account of Abraham pleading for the deliverance of Sodom if just a few righteous could be found. Sadly, such was not to be. Such was the miserable condition of the capital of the Jewish nation.

So what do these flowers have to do with this less than optimistic passage? A regional botanist from Northern California would identify it as Calochortus amabilis, but it is also loosely referred to as a Globe Lily. More specifically, it is known as Diogenes’ Lantern, and it is here we make our connection with Jeremiah. But to make this connection, we will have to refer back to ancient secular history. Some three hundred years before Christ, there was a Cynic by the name of Diogenes who, according to legend, walked around the city each day with a lit lantern, looking for an honest man. The implication, like that of Jeremiah, is that he failed in his quest. As a side note, another story involving Diogenes took place when he was an old man and encountered a young Alexander the Great. The powerful conqueror asked the aged philosopher what he might do for him, to which Diogenes replied, “Stand out of my sunshine.”

Today we are inundated with a plethora of information, yet the elusive search for truth will apparently continue down until the end of time. Paul described a group of people who are “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.” (II Timothy 3:7 NIV) Maybe Diogenes had the right idea after all. A little divine light could go a long way in our personal search for truth.

Photo ©2009 and Commentary ©2025 Chuck Davis
Monday, June 2, 2025

July 25, 2009, at 6:00pm was an excellent time to be at Gem Lake with a camera. The surface of the lake was glass-smooth and displayed Chair and Kaleetan Peaks in flawless reflection.

I view the reflections in this image as an allegory for the intercessory work of our High Priest. “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works”
(Revelation 20:12 KJV).

Christ’s intercessory work is to infuse within us a reflection of Him, so that when He opens the books, Christ can say, “Father, here is another one that believes in me.” The Father will look and see His Son, a perfect reflection in every way.

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV).

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, June 1, 2025

The noise started before breakfast. A large, unrelenting, aggravating noise. Some heavy equipment was at work, and not too far away. The sound was familiar, yet we couldn’t quite place it.

As I stirred the oatmeal I gave thanks once again that my husband and I are not prone to headaches, because this jarring noise could certainly produce one.

All through breakfast the noise pounded our ears, so we were confident we’d be able to trace the source when we headed out on our morning walk.

And we did. Leaving our cul-de-sac, we turned right and followed the sound to a nearby neighbor’s house. We saw what you see in the photo above, a jumbled pile of broken-up concrete slabs. Out of sight to the left of this photo was a large air compressor, with a cord snaking its way to the backyard.

A fence prevented us from seeing the demolition site, but the mystery was solved. It was a jackhammer that had provided our breakfast background “music.”

As we walked on, a Bible verse came to mind: “Break up the stony ground.” Old Testament? New Testament? Who said that? What was the context?

Upon returning home I was eager to track down that verse. Apparently it doesn’t exist, at least not in those precise words. What I did find was a verse in the Old Testament, Hosea 10:12, New King James Version, God speaking:

“Sow for yourselves righteousness.
Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.”

I checked more than a dozen Bible versions, and most of them spoke of fallow ground. Others described the ground as uncultivated, unplowed, unprepared. None of them spoke of stony ground, so I let go of that word in order to hear what God was saying in this passage.

Reading the whole chapter, and then the chapter before and the chapter after, it’s clear that God’s chosen people kept stubbornly choosing to turn from Him to other gods. “My people are bent on backsliding from Me.” (Hosea 11:7a)

And yet we hear God’s heart yearning for them: “How can I give you up . . . how can I hand you over . . . My heart churns within Me.” (from Hosea 11:8)

When I “mis-remembered” Hosea 10:12 as “Break up the stony ground,” I was probably bringing in memories of other Bible verses that talk about stony ground, such as Matthew 13:5, 6, where the sower’s seeds “fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth,” so the shallow soil couldn’t produce healthy roots.

I must have been thinking, too, of my favorite stony verse, Ezekiel 36:26, where God promises: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”

My mind jumbled a batch of Bible verses together, just like that jackhammer produced the jumbled pile of stone pieces. But I’m thankful for the thoughtful path I took through Hosea, Matthew, and Ezekiel. I’m thankful most of all that God is willing to be active in my life, not with the fierce force of a jackhammer, but with a gentler hand of deconstruction and reconstruction. Because it’s time.

“For it is time to seek the Lord,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.”

Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Maylan Schurch
Sabbath, May 31, 2025

A little over a week ago on a morning walk, I passed a neighborhood corner where elementary kids wait for their school bus. To my surprise, I noticed this Oreo cookie-half.

I got to wondering about it. What kid with a normal appetite would voluntarily abandon such a popular treat? And even if it might not have seemed appetizing at the moment, why not put it back in the lunch box, or pass it along to a buddy?

And why is it so neatly and exactly broken in half? No teeth-marks, even. Did Mom slice it so its segments could be shared with a sibling?

Who knows? Cloudy as are the causes and effects, one solid fact remains. This cookie was left behind. The kid hopped on the bus, and the cookie remained, to be photographed by a walker, and then most likely pecked to pieces by a crow.

The Bible is very clear that when Jesus finally arrives to take us to heaven, “You can’t take it with you” becomes emphatically true. No matter the qualities of our “cookies “or other possessions, we’ll be leaving them behind.

But think where we’re going! We need to make sure we’re ready, so why not discover – or review – the facts about Jesus’ return, at the link below?

https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/second-coming-jesus-christ