Blog
Once, when I was pastoring, a woman I knew in our church made an appointment to see me. On the day of our appointment, my secretary led her back to my office. She didn’t say anything as she walked through the door and sat down. The woman looked directly at me and...
On a walk last week, I saw a group of turkeys sitting on a fence. It got me thinking about how we can become so afraid of offending someone that we shy away from expressing the truth, especially about hot-button social issues. To a passerby who wants to see a...
As summer winds down, I’m thinking of the summer of 1973. It was a special time. On Mother’s Day, I proposed to Jan, and we set the date of our marriage three months later. That summer was carefree and filled with expectations of a new life and a new future...
You are looking at your spiritual fruit tree in its winter season and you are disappointed. You are disappointed because you see no visible fruit. The tree is not dead it is only resting before the next season of growth. God used the metaphor of seasons to describe...
You are about to deal with a difficult person - again. You feel exhausted and wish this situation would go away. The investment you have made of time and energy has brought no visible return of their love and respect. This has brought you to the brink...
As you look ahead into your future you see no pathway. This has caused you concern. You want a detailed way and a defined path to place your feet upon. A predetermined path is not the way of faith. A life of faith is a journey paved with the...
You have caught the scent of something new - a fragrance of coming change. God is the one who has awakened this sensitivity in you. Like a person experiencing an exquisite perfume for the first time this unfamiliar fragrance has turned your head in a new...
Some of your life is out of alignment with the purpose of God. Like two gears out of synch with each other there has been a missing alignment between the gear of heaven and your life. Your forward motion has stalled. You need to stop trying to make this alignment work...
Recently, you have felt the weight of something pressing down upon your life. It has become like emotional gravity. This constant pressure is having a cumulative effect on your ability to see the goodness of God in this season. The effect of this gravity...
That challenging experience in the last season of your life has left you feeling exposed. You are experiencing an uncomfortable nakedness in the presence of those who know what took place. But you have a different reality than this feeling of exposure. You are not...
You look like a little child standing before this immense need. In your hand is an empty straw basket. To those who lack spiritual insight it appears that your childlike posture of faith cannot meet this need. Your basket is empty for a reason. You have relied...
You want to run, but you know you cannot outrun what is coming. This immense wave of circumstance that is building before you has caught you beyond the security of the shoreline in the shallow waters of knee-deep vulnerability. Your only survival...
Your departure into the next season of life will be like a hot air balloon ride. The last blast of heat from the burner has filled the canopy. The balloon is filled and ready floating just a few feet above the earth. Nothing else needs to take place except...
Your life resembles one of those party games where people hold a weighted object straight out in front of them seeing how long they can hold it up before their arm starts trembling from exhaustion. In this season of life you have been holding the weight of your...
Your life has been idling at this intersection for too long. This was only a temporary stop, not a place to park. As you pulled up to this season of life God intended you to stop and like driving a car you needed to move forward again, but you haven’t. The...