Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. – 1 Corinthians 4:2 You have all the time you need to do everything God wants you to do. For several weeks, James didn’t return any of the six text messages I sent. When we finally connected, I just…
Name Your Thirst
Whenever I ask a man to make a list of what his soul is thirsty for, I may as well be speaking Cantonese. Early in my own healing journey, my counselor encouraged me to talk about my longings. It was like trying to describe gravity. So to give men a place to start, I…
Secret Messages Inside New Folsom Prison
Editor’s note: Casey Diaz was a violent gangbanger whose crimes had caught up to him landing not only in jail but in solitary confinement. Then he experienced a miraculous encounter with Jesus and chose to follow Him. As he grew in his faith, he began to look for ways to share the Gospel among…
Spend Your Life
On Saturday nights, our family gathers at my parents’ house to eat and laugh and drink to grace. My sisters and their husbands come with their tribes and I with mine. My grandmother, mother to my father, went into the ground on top of a hill two years ago. James Irwin Wilson comes to these…
Leading Is An Acquired Skill
How many times have you heard someone say about a successful quarterback (or governor or pastor or entrepreneur), “They’re just a natural-born leader”? A line from Shakespeare comes to mind. In the second act of Twelfth Night, the uptight antagonist Malvolio is handed a bogus letter supposedly from the woman he hopes to woo.…
God in Your Grief
Editor’s note: Anthony Griffith, a stand-up comic from Chicago’s South Side, has lived on the borderline of comedy and tragedy. At the very time his career as a stand-up comedian was taking off and he had finally achieved his dream of appearing on The Tonight Show, he was also enduring an unimaginable personal nightmare:…
One Shot at a Time
Editor’s Note: The Masters — golf’s biggest tournament — begins tomorrow. To be a champion golfer, you have to train your mind for the challenge. The same is true in our spiritual life as we “press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called [us].” Sports psychologist Dr. Morris…
Never Bring a Horse to a Tank Fight
You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. — Jesus I stand by everything I’ve given you in the three cards we’ve laid on the table. But without the…
How God the Father Initiates a Man
Desperate for Initiation A man needs to know his name. He needs to know he’s got what it takes. And I don’t mean “know” in the modernistic, rationalistic sense. I don’t mean that the thought has passed through your cerebral cortex and you’ve given it intellectual assent, the way you know about the Battle of Waterloo or the ozone…
The Church: Strength and Service
A Place of Strength For me, the best part about the Church is that God has uniquely wired it as His vehicle to heal and offer grace to hurting people. The church is a shelter from the storms. There have been times when my sin and guilt and shame have so overtaken me, I felt like I…