Imagine for a minute that you’re five years old. You have taken your crayons and, on your own initiative, made a card for your grandparents. No special occasion… just an “I love you” message of your own design.
Hopefully you are motivated by a simple desire to express love to your grandparents. At the same time, even at age five, you probably also assume that your parents, teacher(s) or somebody will also be proud of you.
Praise you.
Approve of you.
The big word for that: validated. And it feels good.
But what if you got something else in return? [click to continue…]
Have you ever wondered if God gets bored?
I already know the answer, of course. Whatever else I understand about the Lord, He is eternally interesting. And when it comes to us, He’s eternally interested.
But every once in a while, in the middle of the every-day kinds of exchanges, somebody actually takes at face value what He said, and comes calling.
No, I mean calling. As in, asking wasn’t enough – now I’m seeking. And since I’m not finding, I’m knocking. And when somebody like that cries out to God, I believe all of Heaven sits up and pays attention.
That is what the Lord encouraged, right?
Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious things which you still do not know about (Jeremiah 33:3, NET).
I wonder if He really meant that. [click to continue…]
Want to spend a little time in a lab?
Forget the white coat, safety glasses, and things that smell like they’d melt your skin if they ever touched it. This is a different kind of experiment.
In four days I’m going to post a new article about a yet-to-be determined subject. Today and two days from now, I’d like to show you how I get there.
The article will be an outgrowth of something that is a passion of mine: taking truth from God’s word and applying it in a practical, relevant, way – first to my life, then to the lives of others.
There’s a lot of talk in Christian circles about revelation of God’s truth. What’s often missing is relevation – making that truth relevant to specific life issues and dimensions. That’s what I want to show you today – how I apply God’s truth to the power bill, or my relationships with friends or students, or my goals or time management or weaknesses or any other issue that presents itself. [click to continue…]
An important part of creating a compelling future has to do with remembering. That’s why lately I’ve been visiting some museums on a fairly regular basis.
I’m not referring to anything with the words, “Smithsonian,” “Historical,” or “National” in it. The museums I’m talking about are in my head, some really old computer files, and my journals.
Lately I’ve been visiting the Dream Museum. I suggest you do the same.
The idea for this little excursion was planted in my heart last August at a men’s retreat, where my friend Mickey asked a compelling question:
What dreams have you had either stolen or detained, to the point you have given up on them? Maybe the Lord is telling you to pick that dream back up again.
That really registered with me. “Electrified” may be a better term.
(Pause. Are you entering your dream museum yet? Visiting what’s in mine may help me, but it won’t do much for you. So let me ask you what Mickey asked all of us: What dreams have YOU had that were either stolen or detained, to the point you have given up on them?)
I didn’t have an immediate answer to the question, other than some unfulfilled physical dreams that I believe were prophetic. But I couldn’t get over the gut feeling that some long-ago dream had been shelved to the point that I had forgotten about it, but the Lord hadn’t. [click to continue…]
There’s a reason you wouldn’t name your precious baby boy “Herod.” He made Judas look like a choirboy, and Peter look like, uh, the Pope.
Herod Antipas was the kind of guy who would torture your cat for no apparent reason. A thug and a bully, Herod was a manipulator and would betray his own family if it meant getting more power. The only thing sacred to this man was whatever he wanted in the moment.
Herod’s first wife was an Arabian princess. No joke. Can you imagine a more romantic idea for a lifetime companion in the Middle East? Apparently Herod could. [click to continue…]
This has been a season for sinking souls.
In California, two very dear friends are facing their second-greatest fear as their son is deployed with the Marines to Afghanistan. They know the promises of God. They know full-well that every other military parent or spouse has walked this same path. But that doesn’t change the fact that the emotions are more than they bargained for. Tossed about and beat up, their souls are sinking.
Here in Lubbock, a bright young professional had launched a successful and lucrative career when his work was upended by petty, jealous people. He lost his job and another significant source of income. And though he was innocent of the lies told against him, and though he has bounced back in a different setting, he still retreats to an emotional cave of isolation, as if he were totally guilty. Broken, bewildered, and just going through the motions, his soul is sinking.
In my home state, a once-confident, faith-filled woman lives in the wake of one of the most grotesque griefs of all – the death of a dream. Sure she had heard from the Lord about her future, and bold in her expectations of how He would order her steps, nothing has turned out as expected. First the heartbreak. Then the waiting. Then more disappointment. Now rudderless and aimless, she feels powerless to choose any direction… her soul is sinking.
However committed or expectant you or I are, none of us is immune to the sinking of the soul. [click to continue…]
Think fast. Salvation aside, if you were to lose everything you own – visible and invisible – what would be the most costly to replace? Your house? Your land? Your health? Your friendships? Your family? Your valuable antiques?
Tough question, isn’t it? But it’s an important one. After all, we spend a great deal of time and money protecting ourselves against possible losses. That’s what the insurance industry is all about. And just as insurance underwriters have a system for determining “replacement value,” we also need a clear sense of what is most valuable. The Bible gives us some direction for that in Proverbs 22:1:
“A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
Loving favor rather than silver and gold.”
Your most irreplaceable possession cannot be bought or sold. It isn’t a commodity – like family or health – that can be earned or borrowed. Your most precious possession is your integrity. Your good name!
I can hear some of your brains now. “Oh, THAT! Yeah, I guess so.”
But think about it. [click to continue…]
If I were to tell you that I can show you a completely foolproof plan to make extraordinary gains in every dimension of your life, would you be interested in learning more?
Yes, money. Still curious?
Relationships, too. How ‘bout now?
Sure, it works for getting more out of your time, improving your professional life, and deepening your spiritual life.
This one secret, handed down through ancient wisdom, has always – always – marked the difference between winners and wannabes.
Oh, and what if I were to tell you that this guarantee is backed up by God Himself? Meaning, of course, that it works for all time and eternity, too.
I know, I know. If it’s that obvious, and that old, everybody else will know it and be doing it, right?
Not exactly. [click to continue…]
“I swear, I keep thinking, if somehow I press through, I can get where I want to go. If, of course, it doesn’t kill me or I don’t kill myself in the process.” (from my journal, July 18, 2005)
+++++++
“This is warfare,” Robin said.
“It’s God!” I snapped back, dispirited and resigned. “Let’s just go home.”
Well, there you have it. Now you know what we fight about at my house.
It was the day from hell. It started with a hard funeral – a suicide victim – at which I was to speak. My message to the grieving family and friends was to “be still – cease striving – and know that he is God.” It was on a Monday, following a very harried and stressful Sunday, in the middle of a very harried and stressful summer.
But this was the Monday when the scenery was supposed to change. With the help of my office staff, we had scheduled a trip to the mountains to write.
As in, the LifeVesting book.
Here’s a little proverbial advice, for what it’s worth: Beware of trying to change your scenery on Monday. [click to continue…]
It all started with that 55-mph speed limit. In the mid-1970s, Americans traded in their muscle cars for Toyotas and slowed down.
But a certain segment of the population balked. These people were paid to transport goods to their destinations in a timely manner, and felt that the new speed limits were doing considerable harm to their livelihood. So they started working together to cover each other’s back.
This created a fad that spawned a counterculture, complete with its own lingo, music, and personal identities. Everybody, it seemed, rushed out to get a CB radio.
Once the stuff of rescue workers, hobbyists, and the like, citizens-band radios became standard equipment in many vehicles. Gone were the official call-letters used by the “legal eagles” who actually paid for a license to use the things (KFN 0508, if you even remotely care what ours was). Everybody used a “handle.”
A handle was a nickname you gave yourself so that people could “grab hold” of you by saying something along the lines of, “Break, one-nine. How ‘bout that Blue Goose? You got your ears on”? And you, assuming that was your handle, would reply something like, “Ten-four, good buddy.”
No, children, I’m not making this up.
CBs, for the most part, have gone the way of the 55-mph speed limit, though our trucker friends still use them. But you still have a handle – a unique identity by which you can be “grabbed.” [click to continue…]
Imagine for a minute that you’re five years old. You have taken your crayons and, on your own initiative, made a card for your grandparents. No special occasion… just an “I love you” message of your own design. 
