Of course everyone loves it on the mountaintop where the exhilarating spiritual highs move us closer to God. It’s the spiritual equivalent of living in the Alps. But we cannot stay there indefinitely. We must come down willingly or we run the risk of a terrifying free-fall descent.  But there is good news off the mountain.    God’s grace and love and hope are part of a balanced...

Most of us have had that thought, whether we express it out loud or keep it under wraps. This “I’m Right” dynamic shows up in our closest relationships, at work, socially, and even financially when we assume our purchase is “right.”    Thinking we’re always right is largely about CONTROL. But its more pervasive driver in many cases is JUDGMENT that shows up like this: Answering before...

A 2018 poll of Christians showed that when someone they know posts a significant achievement online, their reaction is personal pain, not joy for the achiever. The more they want to be like this other person, the more pain they feel and the less chance there is of them being happy about that achievement. This “comparison reaction” is not new. The disciples following Christ wanted to know which one...

I’ve said those words. You’ve no doubt spoken that line. And most Christians have probably uttered the phrase at least once. And that’s good!    Prayer is a sacred responsibility and we should always be on the look-out for people to pray for and things to pray about.    But there’s a catch. It cannot be a hollow greeting or a polite gesture of affection.    Jesus says...

Long-distance runners have many choices to make when it comes to how they run their races–conditioning, diet, and training to name just a few. But when it comes to the race itself, PACING IS THE KEY. How hard a runner goes out of the starting blocks, and the level of speed early in the race, will largely determine when the runner feels the tape kiss his chest at the finish line. If a runner...

Have you ever had a week where you were crushed when your expectations crashed? Where your idea for how something should go was obliterated? Where your stomach cried out through its piercing ache? This week was that kind of week for me. A week full of excruciating emotional pain. A week that is finally limping away as this Friday yawns against the sun’s rising warmth tapping my shoulder.      All...

Avocados must be harvested every day of the year to satisfy the stratospheric demand. What is not harvested on any given day must be harvested the next day with that day’s harvest. Miss two days and on the third day there are three days of volume to harvest. It’s the law of COMPRESSION. What isn’t done today is pushed to tomorrow and forced into a new, compressed schedule.    com·pres·sion...

When Jesus died and darkness suffocated the land, his followers wondered if their Messiah would rise and rejoin them as he had promised. But for me today, I woke up on this Holy Week’s Sabbath Saturday CERTAIN that he would return. Because HE DID! It is no surprise that his followers were uncertain of his return as he lay in a temporary tomb after completing his mission for mankind. By all outward...

It’s tough to look at Good Friday as a celebration with all of the pain and cruelty Jesus endured on a deadly timber atop Golgatha. All of the optics—at least on the surface—scream bleakness, futility, and hopelessness. But we celebrate anyway because God made these three days that changed the world forever to be a victory march to life.    Though we may be tempted to sugar-coat the Easter...

It’s Holy Thursday and my attention is locked on God’s SERVICE-DRIVEN LOVE. Holy Thursday is yet another opportunity to reflect on the incredible gift Jesus gave us by dying on the Cross. To right our wrongs. Heal the fractures in our soul. And, of course, to pay the ransom for our sins.    But there is so much more.    On this day in this glorious Holy Week, Christians around...