There’s one sure way for any politician to get an applause line in a stump speech. All he or she has to do is say “I support our troops!” And rightly so. The brave men and women who serve in our military perform a vital function in the preservation...
Yeah, he was my friend, but he had this annoying habit of everytime I told a story, he would come back with another story meant to be even more interesting or scary or funny than mine. Have you ever known someone who simply had to "one up" you every...
"Have you been saved?" The sincere lady was looking intently at me and waiting for my answer to her probing question. You see, she was "witnessing" to me in hopes I would be "saved." Most of us have either experienced this sort of question or know someone who has...
There is a deep weakness philosophically in we humans when it comes to Faith. We, all too often, reduce Faith to a mere mental assent to an idea rather than always pushing beyond the beginnings of Faith to actually doing the Faith. This interruption in Faith in our everyday lives...
"Well, I suwannee!" I remember saying that when I was in seminary in Boston, and the reaction from folks not from the South was, let's just say, interesting. "What does THAT mean?" was the common question. I confess I took pleasure in pouring on the Southernisms in Boston to...
I "tweet" now and again. Mostly it's my social media assistant who tweets out the daily devotional to give as many people as possible access to the daily ministry. And I confess that, sometimes, I read the tweets of others and think "What could possibly make this person think...
Ouch! That hurt! It wouldn’t have hurt anymore if he’d actually hit me with his fists. He had confronted me with the reality that my words had so offended his friend that that friend didn’t want anything to do with God anymore. Oh No! I was young and foolish (of...
What do you think is the opposite of love? The easy answer is hate but that isn’t even close. Because hate takes attention and focus and (usually) preoccupation with the object of your hate. And the truth is love takes the same. To love something or someone takes attention, focus,...
One of the questions I get often from parents trying to raise children in a society and culture that seems to have been reduced to sand. This reduction has occurred as we moderns have allowed the deconstruction of timeless wisdom preserved for centuries, all in the name of being...
The dictionary defines the word “obligation” as “an act or course of action to which a person is morally or legally bound; a duty or commitment.” When I was growing up, my mother taught me that I wasn’t free to do what I wanted until I did what I...
