It was during my years as a striving-and-stressed CEO that the FEAR of keeping it all together—making payments on a mansion and sports car while fulfilling my role as husband and father—hit the critical danger level. If it was a James Bond movie the red lights on the control panel would be freaking out. It was then that I allowed God to break through and help me build a new attitude about fear.    The...

Tired and spent, 2018 just left town and paved the way for 2019 to appear on the scene with its fresh face. The time for reflecting on the past 12 months has vanished like a child’s balloon escaping into the hungry sky. With that, we can start considering what’s next for us on God’s road. You know by now I am not a fan of new year resolutions. The biggest stumbling block for me is how most of the...

As 2018 begins walking off stage, I am mindful of the fresh canvas God gives us for a new year brimming with its inspirational promises and powerful rush of glorious hope. That fresh canvas, peeking over the horizon right now, is the same offer of forgiveness and grace that God gives us every day. It’s God’s fresh canvas to be forgiven and look forward with bold, Christ-like confidence. It’s God’s...

Reality is obstinate and stubborn. Obdurate and inflexible. Recalcitrant and uncompromising. Reality is what will not go away when we stop thinking about it or escape momentarily from its grasp. Yes, Christians have been accused of escapism for a very long time. Karl Marx accused Christians of using their religion as an opiate to escape life’s discomfort.     This dystopian view of...

I’m watching 2018 begin its final march into the sunset with a burning desire to make 2019 more significant than the year it nudges off the horizon. More significant in understanding my life purpose. And more significant in serving others who need God’s love and hope. But making that dream a reality is not an automatic result from making another passive resolution and prayer for the new year. NO!...

A close friend of mine is struggling mightily with the notion of fairness right now as he endures a barrage of attacks from a troubled bully. His plea for prayer last night got me thinking that all of us face this challenge. That’s why I include this two-part question in my year-end spiritual assessment: 1) How did I handle personal attacks in the past year; and 2) How should I deal with them in the...

Life on earth is full of TOXICITY that can quickly ooze into our bloodstream and eventually reach our brain…and then our heart…and, eventually, our soul. These ubiquitous toxins greet us on each cyber wave we surf and each image we put into our mind’s projector. They are predacious and pervasive and powerful…stopping at nothing to compromise our faith and hijack our hope in Christ. The danger...

The planet is in a perpetual winter of sin that has produced a deep state of spiritual hibernation. And early in my faith walk I had joined that group in spiritual slumber. At the time, I looked at the Bible as sacred and important, but it was dead and dormant in terms of being alive in my life on a daily basis.  Like hibernation in the animal world, the Bible describes sinful man as hibernating...

December is my time of reflection on the past and repositioning for the future. A time when I confront reality head on and resolve to think different; act different; be different. This year my thoughts quickly turned to the notion of refuge—where I went when the storms of life crashed my pad. And I thanked God for how he gave me the strength to seek him out with a healthy sense of reality that I...

Expectancy is one of the most powerful words on the planet! It drives my faith and animates the desires of my heart. And it only takes 36 seconds to give it wings and the power to fly. We just need to do it! Earlier in my life I underestimated the power expectancy had on my worldview. But then God showed me that if I wasn’t expecting him to turn my life in a new and joyous direction, how could...