Nearly every day in the summer, I take my dog to Westmoreland Park, where she plays in the creek. She runs up and down through the creek bed, diving headlong into the water, chasing ducks. Sometimes when I watch her I think about how good life can be, if we only lose ourselves in our…
The Reason God Hasn’t Fixed You Yet
I saw a story on 60 Minutes a few months ago about the happiest country in the world. It was Denmark. A study done by a British university ranked the happiest countries, and America was far down the list, but Denmark was on top. Morley Safer explored why. Ruling out financial status, physical health,…
All Relationships Are Going Somewhere
Here’s something I heard recently. “Men move toward whatever makes them feel competent.” As soon as I heard that I knew it was true. Every man I know migrates toward something that makes him feel powerful and in control. If it’s work, he puts in more hours, if it’s sports he’s constantly at the gym.…
New Starts at Burned Out Faith
There is a time when every person who encounters Jesus, who believes Jesus is the Son of God, decides that they will spend their life following Him. Some people, like the Apostle Paul, make this decision the minute they meet Him, the minute they become a Christian. Others, like the Apostle Peter, endure years of…
Great Parents Do This Well
The stuff it takes to be intimate is authenticity, vulnerability, and a belief that other people are about as good and bad as we are. And I’m learning these core values contribute to more than just healthy love stories, they contribute to healthy families, healthy parenting. I’ll be honest, my greatest fear is Betsy and…
Codependency: You Will Not Complete Me
When I was a kid I remember seeing the movie Jerry Maguire. There is a famous scene in the movie in which Jerry Maguire tells Dorothy Boyd that she completes him. That scene was all the rage back then and couples everywhere were saying it to each other in coffee shops and bars. Even I thought it was a beautiful sentiment.…
Loving Jesus
A guy I know named Alan went around the country asking ministry leaders questions. He went to successful churches and asked the pastors what they were doing, why what they were doing was working. It sounded very boring except for one visit he made to a man named Bill Bright, the president of a big…
Alcohol Doesn’t Make Bad Decisions. People Do.
There are some subjects we rarely hear discussed openly in church, not because they are bad, but because they are easier to ignore. It is even easier to overstate a case in hopes that people will not press the point. Many of our laws were designed so that a person would stay far away from…