Simply put two drops in each ear. It doesn’t sound like the punch line of a joke, but it is. At least, my parents thought so when I was a kid. Whenever something turned out to be waaay harder than anyone expected, they would burst out laughing and say to each other, “Ha ha ha! Simply put two drops in each ear!” The line isn’t funny to anybody else in the world, of course. Eventually I noticed this and asked them about it. Turns out that when I was [...]
Last night the coach of the Boston Celtics preached a great message. (Too bad his team didn’t listen.) He said, “Guys, trust! If you trust, you’ll play free. And if you play free, you can’t be beaten.” Whoa…good stuff, Doc. Not just for NBA players but for those of us who have suited up in righteousness and are leaving it all on the court for Jesus. For us, as for Garnett and gang, trust is the key. As long as we trust Jesus—His love and commitment to us, His power working [...]
It happened before I was born, but as a kid I heard the story many times. About my dad, mom and sister rumbling down the Oklahoma highway in a Studebaker headed for grandma’s house. The sweet smell of summer streaming through the car’s open window. My sister’s cherub-blonde hair whipping across her face. No car seat laws for children back then, she was standing in the front seat beside my dad as he drove when she seized the moment as only a toddler can. Reaching for the car keys, she [...]
The celebrity media is all abuzz these days about the wrinkle-free face of 47 year-old Demi Moore. I shouldn’t know this, but I do. Not that I read the tabloids or anything. I just see the headlines about it when I go online to check the day’s news. Today I learned from them that Demi’s husband, a toddler named Ashton, has reaffirmed that her youthfulness is genetic not synthetic, and that they’re planning to have a baby. As I pondered the accompanying photo (and the tag line that promised [...]
Just read a great article by Jack Hayford warning about the lack of serious discipleship in today’s church. Pointing to the current ecclesiastical emphasis on marketing and consumer appeal, he says: “We're within frightening reach of being able to grow bigger churches while failing to grow bigger people. We are increasingly tooled and trained in technology and management techniques, better resourced with music and media effects, and better housed and staged for added consumer appeal. While not attacking these outsourced resources, I'm asking about our outcomes. Amid our heavyweight enterprises [...]
I’ve been in Oklahoma City for the past few days, attending a writer’s conference. Not a Christian writer’s conference, mind you, but the secular type. It wasn’t too secular, of course, because of the location. As everybody knows, you can’t swing a dead armadillo in Oklahoma without hitting a dozen Baptists, a handful of Charismatics, and a Nazarene or two. But, still, the conference had a refreshingly unreligious feel to it. What I liked best about it was the marvelous variety of “characters” I encountered there. A motley crew, [...]
When my daughter and son-in-law were newlyweds, they rang our doorbell late one night to introduce us to the newest member of their little family—a muscular, square-jawed boxer puppy named Maddie. Her full name, they informed us, was Madeleine, in honor of Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State. I can’t recall why they chose the name but it’s a distinguished one, for sure, and over the years Maddie has almost lived up to it. She is not fluent in English, French, Czech, and Russian, with good speaking and reading abilities [...]
Do you ever wonder if something is lacking in our spiritual diet these days? Does it ever seem to you that many contemporary Christians seem kind of...anemic ? That we lack the robust, rugged endurance, the commitment and character of believers in ages past? Our hearts are not of inferior quality. No, we’re cut from the same divine cloth. Born again in the same image of Jesus that produced missionaries and martyrs of days gone by, our spiritual genes are identical to theirs. But sometimes we seem so weak [...]
The mouth of the righteous is a well of life... (Proverbs 10:11) Spoken words of love, faith, gratitude, and encouragement cause the garden of our lives to flourish. Leaving them unspoken deadens it with drought. What would happen if every day, on purpose, we drew from our well and drenched our whole world with life-giving words? How would the landscape of our lives be changed if day after day we made it a priority to water the people around us--especially those with wilted leaves and drooping countenance--by showering them with refreshing words of grace? The Lord [...]
Watching the Winter Olympics reminds me afresh that I am not an athlete. I will never swoosh and carve my way down slopes of sugary snow to a proud place on the podium. I will never have an athletic shoe named after me. No cereal box will ever sport my smiling face. Still, I trot laps around the health club each morning. Daniel Webster says that to trot means: to go at a gait between a walk and a run. That pretty well describes what I do...and I do [...]