Our Life Group was discussing knowing God and how the relationship changes over time. Someone mentioned a quote by Brother Lawrence, “The more we know Him, the more we will desire to know Him. As love increases with knowledge, the more we know God, the more we will truly love Him. We will learn to love Him equally in times of distress or in times of great joy.” Then another asked, “Have you ever felt that better knowing God makes you fear him more or less?”…
Read MoreCaught on the Dot
Most of us have heard the line, “When you're up to your neck in alligators, it's hard to remember your objective is to drain the swamp."
Good advice for life. We don't have to allow the present to dominate our thoughts and emotions. Let's not get so obsessed by so enjoying the present that we ignore saving for retirement. Let's not get so obsessed with our current problems that we ignore more serious but less immediately urgent ones. I struggle with that, particularly in…
Read MorePerfectly Imperfect!
Many Bible passages trouble me. They push my limits; they invade my comfort zone; they require following Jesus as more commitment than I sometimes want to give. The worst, for me, came with Jesus’ statement, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We tend to define perfect as flawless or exact. Dang, that doesn’t sound like me at all. Humorously, the older I get the better I get at spotting my flaws. And we can’t quibble—the perfect used for the Father is the same grammatically as our target.
In the original language, the word includes being…
Read MoreBe a Hammer
An editor once asked about my writing goals, and I answered we write for either therapy or impact, and I focus on impact. Yes, they overlap, and my writing changes me, but impact dominates. Ironically within days, a quote by St. Dominic came up on Facebook, “A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer…”
Read MoreWho Is This Jesus?
Most love Christmas, as we celebrate Jesus’ birth. But his life transcends being a babe in a crib, and for followers of Jesus, or those intrigued with him, knowing his nature will drive how we follow. John’s story of Jesus’ life doesn’t detail the events of his birth, but summarizes them, “The Word (Jesus) became flesh and…
Read MorePurposes Fulfilled
John Southwood and I led 6 people on a month-long mission trip to Penasco, a small town close to Taos. Two of us rode bikes, four rode in the van. The many abandoned old homes along the Arizona roadside grabbed my attention. Made of stone or blocks or wood. Many with missing roofs, all deserted. People built them, lived in them, worked to scrape out a life in the blazing desert, only to leave them. So why did they take off?
Read MoreLove is a Feeling--Really?
“Love is a feeling you feel when you feel you’ve never felt that feeling before.” I first heard that from marriage counselor and author, Norm Wright. And while slightly over the top, it does reflect our society, doesn’t it? We go by feelings, by our gut. That’s why the pic above means so much. The morning in Idaho started off pretty chilly, and we geared up for cold weather, including insulated pants. Insulated pants that you can only remove with great difficulty and flexibility, particularly if you keep your boots on. But…
Read MoreMisery--A Choice?
In early October around a Sunday mid-afternoon, the F150 pulled into a Rock Creek campground. Gear quickly shifted from the truck to the site, I used a flex hose to connect the propane tank to my camp stove, and headed down to the stream for some solo fishing. Not another fisherman in sight, and the trout bit eagerly. A great beginning, and I cleaned the two keepers.
Time now for dinner, so I got the tamales and chili ready to heat, but the stove showed no flames. At all. But the lantern at the top of the post worked, so I knew the tank was giving out gas. I…
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