This just in from our global online tribe: I have trouble staying calm when I’m angry or when someone wrongs me or lets me down. I pray about it and ask for restraint but still struggle. What am I missing?    Remaining cool in the heat of life’s battle is one tough task for every believer on planet earth. It’s a challenge that comes in many forms and degrees. Some are pedestrian “that’s...

This just in from our global online tribe: “I am trying to listen to God, especially this month during your series on listening to God, but still feel empty because my dream of having meaningful relationships, a good career, and financial security have not materialized.”    I am very sorry to hear about this person’s piercing pain and have pledged to pray for him. What follows here are my...

This just in from our global online tribe: I have a quiet time with God every day, but I am lost. I pray every day, but I am lost. I go to church every Sunday, but I am lost. What am I doing wrong? HELP!    NOT LISTENING to what God says is surely missing in this scenario that has her feeling empty even though she is spending time with the Lord every day.    But it does NOT, by...

UNMET EXPECTATIONS are the pick-pocket thief we all fear in a massing crowd. You have been a victim of his sneaky sleight of hand, right? Rejection, loss, injustice, and grief all populate a list that has no end of unmet expectations.    The common thread running through that unending list of unmet expectations is DISAPPOINTMENT. Of course, we’re disappointed! We did not get what we wanted...

The world has been talking about SELF-LOVE for a very long time. For Christians, the most recent focus has been on loving YOURSELF first, and then you will be able to love OTHERS. But there is a flaw embedded in that thinking. To clear it up, I stopped talking about it and went to God’s Word to LISTEN for his take on it. I learned that “Love yourself first, and then you will love others,” is a perverted...

Do you know that mirrors are pathological liars? That they conspire to sabotage our view of self? That they can derail our walk with God? ALL TRUE.    That’s the theme running through my mind this morning and I’m sure it’s fall-out from my own scary encounter with a mirror yesterday getting ready for a video shoot. I’ll summarize that experience with these three words: HIGH RESOLUTION CAMERAS.    I...

The word LISTEN conjures a feeling of SOFTNESS because it requires us to be QUIET. But raging behind the listening curtain is a full-fledged, raging WAR. Especially when it comes to listening for God’s “still soft voice.”  Listening means we need to quiet our own mind and pay attention to a sound. For Christians, that sound is God.    lis·ten: give one’s attention to a sound.    I...

Early this morning while reading the Book of Proverbs I came across the word SLUGGARD and it stopped me in my tracks. Here it is:    “As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed.” Proverbs 26:14    It’s a word that, for me, has a cartoonish ring. A bit farcical. And a lot destructive because God did not create us to snooze through life. It keeps us from listening...

I struggled mightily this past weekend. My joy had drifted into stasis, momentarily absent from my consciousness…and I did not know why. Nothing had changed in my life. Nothing had changed in my relationship with God. And nothing had changed in my life’s purpose. Were my thoughts and heart being held hostage by some speck of negativity that appeared on my radar screen late in the week before this...

It’s time to shine some light on a word Satan uses as a debilitating weapon to prey on Christians: ABANDONMENT. The timing is right because we are halfway through this month’s exploration of how to LISTEN for God’s voice and a sense of abandonment is one of the most common barriers between a believer and God.    The issue is not whether we will ever feel abandoned. All believers, to one...