Most of us live from the pain of our past. We try to medicate it with addictions. We try to bury it by being busy doing good things. We try to drown it with a constant buzz of media, entertainment, and self-gratification. But none of it works because God, in his great love and mercy […]
Are you stuck in your life? Is there something you just can’t seem to get past? So often we get swept up into the whirlwind of life that we forget ourselves. Braving the grueling commute. Playing kid-taxi all over town. Spending our energy in a job we don’t like but pays the bills. Coming home […]
As Christians, we all want to be helpful. We’ve experienced the blessing of sacrificing for another person. Unlike the world, most Christians I know really aren’t in it for themselves. We genuinely care about the communities we’re a part of, and we’re willing to sacrifice if it will contribute to the greater good. We long […]
Too often we listen to self-condemning lies because we don’t understand how God sees us. We put ourselves under pressure to be perfect. But God never designed us to bear such pressure. We can understand how God really sees us by looking at how we, as good parents, interact with our children. Let’s look at […]
It’s Not “Just the Way You Are” Do you have a behavior you just can’t stop? Maybe an addiction? Maybe just a bad habit that you keep finding yourself doing? Maybe you’ve given up and told yourself, “That’s just the way I am.” Hogwash. It doesn’t have to be the way we are. That’s a […]
Let’s start with a fun story today. Bob had a business meeting in Boston, and decided to drive instead of fly from his home in Washington, DC. His wife, Barb, called him to see how the road trip was going. Barb: How’s the road trip going, Honey? Where are you? Bob: I’m in Raleigh, North […]
Does that title seem strange? That’s because so often we really don’t know who our real enemy is. Let’s discover that first. Not Other People We often confuse people who hurt us with the enemy. But they are not our real enemy, even if they think they are. When people hurt us, they are acting […]
None of us want them, but we all have them. Extreme positions, points-of-view, opinions, even behaviors that harm us and everyone around us. Often we grew up with them, so they are all we know. We think they’re normal, and so we don’t even question them. But they aren’t healthy. The problem is, since we […]
Janet and I were recently at a writer’s conference in Franklin, TN, put on by our mentor Jeff Goins. In his final keynote, Jeff talked about how to move forward in your writing. But the 3 steps he gave apply to much more than just writing. They are fundamental to any change we want in […]
America is in the middle of a cold civil war. It’s not a hot civil war like the 1860s, where we were physically shooting at each other, thank God. But just like the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, it’s equally real. And this cold civil war is fueled, on both […]