Happy New Year!
Let me be among the first to welcome you to 2015! None of us can know what this year holds in store, but we can all know that God has gone before us and has good plans for all of us. Today I pray that you are walking forward in the confidence and hope that ...
Pastors now wear so many hats, they have only small “windows” of time to pray, give attention to the ministry of the word, and tend to the sheep.
When pastors are spread paper-thin, the place we think they would go for help is to their knees. But sometimes they ...
During the fall of 2013, the church witnessed a devastating travesty. A Georgia pastor, Teddy Parker, was one of 12 pastors to die by suicide. In a sermon that aired during the investigation around his death, Parker made the following statement: “I try to pray, but ...
In Cheryl Strayed’s bestselling book Wild, she recounts her 1,100-mile trek across the grueling and beautiful Pacific Crest Trail, a trek she undertook mostly because she was beaten down by hardship and heartbreak and was headed down a dangerous path in life. Knowing ...
It may be easier to roll a boulder up hill than to change holiday traditions. Several years ago, when I declared to my family that we would start new practices in the month of December, their response was not thundering applause.
“Ugh,” grunted my firstborn. ...
Humility is throwing oneself away in complete concentration on something or someone else.
—Madeleine L’Engle
Sometimes I banter with God. Every now and then, I’ll tease him, telling him that since he disciplines the children he loves (Heb. 12:6), he must ...
A few years ago my children and I walked into a department store during the Christmas season. A lady working there stopped us and cheerfully asked if my children would like to write a Christmas list to Santa Claus. There was a statue of Santa by the entrance, with a big red ...
