I watched yesterday’s 53rd Super Bowl with the rest of you and came away “somewhere in the middle” on most of what came across my viewfinder. It was average and mundane. It was an average game (barely). The ads were average (except the brilliant dog-show spot from Mexican Avocados). And the players played average without a historic highlight-reel moment.    When the battle trudged to its...

I spent much of this past weekend trying to manage a cyclone of noise racing through my restive mind. It felt like my head was hosting a birthday party for 5-year-old boys jumping off the wall of an inflated “Bounce House.” It did not take long for me to bring into my viewfinder how a noisy mind quickly breeds fear and worry like mosquitoes replicating exponentially at dusk on an eerily-still pond.    It...

Have you ever had a day 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? That was my yesterday. But it’s ok today because I know that winning the expectation battle is possible with God. Sure it takes courage to call on his strength to push through our unmet expectations and...

I spent much of this past weekend trying to manage a cyclone of noise racing through my restive mind. It felt like my head was hosting a birthday party for 5-year-old boys jumping off the wall of an inflated “Bounce House.” It did not take long for me to bring into my viewfinder how a noisy mind quickly breeds fear and worry like mosquitoes replicating exponentially at dusk on an eerily-still...

Waiting is a ferocious foe that induces fear. Waiting patiently is a herculean challenge that feeds fear. And waiting without being full of fear is impossible without God. Fear is a liar that empowers our enemy and wants to steal our ability to wait on God.    Realizing that we will never understand everything should bring us patience knowing that God will deal with the unknown and EVENTUALLY...

I love watching adventure documentaries on Netflix! The more risk and suspense, the better. I’m looking for energy. I’m looking for excitement. And, most of all, I’m looking for ADRENALINE and its immediate rush of spine-tingling exhilaration! But that is only part of the adrenaline story because in an instant, it scoots out of frame and is gone. Left behind is a gaping void where our insatiable appetite...

Early in my faith walk I had no idea there was danger lurking in MY mind. For me, danger was running across the street without looking both ways. Danger was touching raw chicken. Danger was going overboard into the stormy sea on a Caribbean cruise. Danger in my mind? That’s just silly.    I WAS WRONG.    Everything we allow into our life impacts how much we grow spiritually....

We can be deceived by the strong temptation to marry a small amount of God’s Word with our own understanding that “makes sense” (to us, at least.) That approach may technically sneak past being considered a denial of God, but it cannot escape being an unvarnished rejection of what God proclaimed and Jesus taught. When we lean on our own understanding, we are calling God a liar.    Living...

Our faith walk is much less demanding when we are living it out in front of others to see. Much less stressful when we join others at church on Sunday. And much less work when we are serving God’s Kingdom in front of a crowd. Those provocative thoughts ran through my mind like a flash flood last week when a friend was talking about his faith as if his “seen” behavior was somehow different than his...

There is so much pain in our world today that many people see no other option but to collect it like sports memorabilia or vintage Barbie dolls. The purpose of their pain-collecting hobby? ASSIGN BLAME! Here’s how it plays out… Pain collectors develop an internal narrative that plays continuously in the cinema of their mind. The script is predictable. Take a look at a few cuts: “Focus on how you...