“If God is your co-pilot change seats!” read the sign at Avondale Presbyterian Church in Charlotte for a week or more this February. This sign amused me because I have long thought of my life as an airplane with God as the pilot and me the co-pilot. There is a lot of back and forth […]
Eight years ago when I launched this blog I was writing on the same topic as I am today– how to live a life centered in God—but today I write with a stronger voice, a harder-hitting voice. Five years ago we were just beginning to pull out of the recession of 2008, things were beginning […]
We know exactly what it feels like to be obedient. We toe the line. We do exactly what is expected of us. We follow each and every rule, crossing every “t” and dotting every “I” so that we get it exactly right. This is how we as children had to remember to behave, because it […]
A big reason why we don’t follow Jesus, why we get stuck in beliefs without the real relationship with Christ, why we limit what the Gospel is telling us so it is palatable and pretty easy to follow, is this: we’re too focused on ourselves and not on God. We are pretty naturally self-involved […]
One of the great lessons I learned in 37 years of marriage was this: when Hank was mad at me, I had triggered some memory in him that caused him to react, but that I was not the source of his anger. Inadvertently I might have pushed his buttons, and on some days, maybe I […]
Wading down into the deeper waters of the Jordan River… Putting himself in John’s hands who would immerse him in the sacred waters…Rising again, soaked and dripping wet…Climbing up the bank…Seeing the heavens torn open and the dove descending…God’s voice coming from heaven: ”You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well […]
A belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God is the first step, the gateway into acquiring the mind of Christ(1 Corinthians 2:16), but it is not the end-all and be-all of the Christian journey. If we stop at this threshold of belief and never turn our lives over to Christ—the second step—we […]
One of the things that I have learned in following Christ is that timing is everything. And that without an inner ear tuned to what he is asking of me right now, I can violate his timing by being too early or too late or I can miss the boat totally. It is only in […]
As we approach Lent this year, which starts on February 10th this year, it is on my mind that we should be giving up something substantial in our lives, something that has real meaning and could make a meaningful difference in your life. And I am not talking about chocolate! Unless we’re also giving […]
It is easy in this time of heightened anxiety to succumb to fears for our safety, our lives, fears of people different from us. Since the Paris and the San Bernardino attacks late last year, we don’t know what might occur next and whether it might happen to us. These words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt […]