Life Lessons: Why Does Life Suck? (from a Q&A session)

In a panel discussion I participated in with youth workers, the question came up from a student, “Why does life suck?”. While I’m sure we all wonder this some time, I had a little bit of unique perspective. I’ve recently worked my way through a particularly frustrating journey through life “sucking”.
Nothing in my circumstances have [...]

Wally

The other day I was at Wally’s funeral. I never got to meet him before he got debilitated because of a brain tumor 6 years ago. I did, however, have the joy of having the younger of his 2 sons in my small group Bible study. It was at Wally’s funeral that I got a [...]

A Few Thoughts About Setbacks

I’ve been striving for an elusive goal for 10 years. I can never seem to nail this down. I’ve got the skill set needed, tons of experience, the drive to accomplish it and the passion to back it up. I just can’t seem to make it happen.
Tonight I had a few thoughts about this on [...]

Learning to Lead

This weekend I’m in Dallas visiting my sister and her family so this morning I got to visit their church. It was great being in a different church and being exposed to fresh ideas. It’s a great reminder of how easy it is to be stuck in a bubble in my own church. It’s healthy [...]

Life Lessons: Spiritual Dryness

My mom travels a lot this time of year. When she’s gone, I water her plants for her. Because we’re having the hottest weather of the year right now, I got to thinking I better put a lot of water on her flower beds. By being generous with the water, it can absorb deeper into [...]

Give To Ceasar What Belongs To Him

Now tell us what you think about this: Is it right to pay taxes to the Roman government or not?” But Jesus knew their evil motives. “You hypocrites!” he said. “Whom are you trying to fool with your trick questions? Here, show me the Roman coin used for the tax.” When they handed him the [...]

Perspective and Humility

When I took a look at the graph of my blog stats today, it reminded me of the need to keep perspective and be humble. We should never be too proud of our accomplishments in life or too down on ourselves on the off days. We’ll have our share of ups and downs. My pastor, [...]

Life Lessons: God Never Changes

A friend of mine, Charles, works for a food distributor. One of his best and oldest clients canceled its coffee order. The complaint was that the coffee had changed. It didn’t have the same flavor it had over the years. Customers were complaining about the flavor.
Knowing nothing had changed with the coffee, Charles paid a [...]

Life Lessons: Running To Win The Prize

I’ve struck up a pretty good relationship at the gym with the elliptical machine. We get along great. It’s easy, low impact and a great way to burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time.
What I love about running on the elliptical instead of on a track is that the machine tells [...]

Life Lessons: Rose Parade Craziness Vs. Jesus' Chill-out-ness

When I was in college, my fraternity held our biggest fundraiser at the Rose Parade every year. We’d camp out at a house or church for a few days taking turns reserving a large spot along the parade route. On New Year’s Eve, we’d deliver about 100 chairs to the location & set up camp [...]