I spent 20+ years earlier in my life living with embers of fear, doubt, and worry ready to catch fire. AND THEY DID! The resulting conflagration produced much pain and the consequences were horrific. But the coin has another side, a good side, and God is using that in my ministry to help others. He taught me that our tendency to doubt and worry resides in all of us to one degree or another, and it...

“This is hopeless…everything is hopeless…life is hopeless.”    “What good is my faith in God if the pain of life keeps coming?”    “I’m going to let go because taking the spiritual road is not worth it.”     Those are just a few of the thoughts I had early in my faith walk during an excruciating painful stretch of road. But God is now using that experience to help...

What happened to honesty? Not superficial honesty. Not manipulative honesty to get something we want. REAL HONESTY. The kind of honesty modeled by Jesus. It is crystal clear to me that Christ-like honesty has tumbled down today’s steep slope of moral relativism where everything is judged on a sliding scale to fit the new societal narrative. That makes it difficult for all of us to sort through what...

Earlier in my faith walk I thought God’s peace and joy would appear instantly and automatically! I know, it sounds crazy, but that is exactly what I was thinking back then. It gets worse. I was also convinced that my profound sadness would leave me like David Blain vaporizing a truck from his Las Vegas stage.    I was WRONG.   There’s more. Another “spiritual misread” on my part...

It’s true. Early in my faith walk I used my own flawed logic to decide what was REAL and what was FAKE. I manufactured my own life path and then perpetuated it with selective interpretation of new information. I had unwittingly created a FAKE narrative for my life that became “permanent” as it morphed and multiplied and mowed down my connection with God. It was horrible. But in God’s infinite goodness...

  Needing “THINGS” to be content is a trap because the need never stops asking for more. There is never enough pay-off. The cravings never end. We think having more and more will equate directly to our happiness level. But there is never enough. This is a vicious cycle because those cravings actually increase over time as we come up short in our quest for happiness in order to “get ahead.” The...

There is only EARLY or LATE. If we are spiritually weak and unprepared to face the challenges of life when they hit our shore, it’s too late. I look at it as “simple,” but complicated. We may think we’re prepared for the next challenge life tosses our way. But when we “snap our fingers” in the moment, we often find there is much less spiritual strength to summon than we thought. It’s just like the...

My “God Connection” was severed as a young Christian when I learned that our “success dreams and destinations” may not be part of God’s purpose for us. In fact, they may be the polar opposite.   What!? I thought being a Christian meant we can have anything we ask for in Jesus’ name.    You may think this story’s next chapter will feature me pledging to be content with what I have...

Yep. It’s true. Last night I went to the county fair with my family and saw thousands of smiles (one of them you can see above on my grandson’s face). I saw thousands of people in relational bliss. And I saw thousands of people happy in that moment, their NOW.    My drive home in the still-warm night was filled with those images that were frozen in the cinema of my mind, along with thoughts...

The day my natural self was vanquished is a vivid memory seared into the cinema of my mind and firmly attached to the walls of my now-free heart. Instead of trying to manage and control the “bad things in life” that produce pain and angst, God helped me see those events as the gateway to glorify him. The door to discerning his will. The ticket to trigger what it means to walk in trust with Christ....