Reflect–What Do You See?
As many normal things take a break for Christmas and end of the year busyness, most of us also reflect back on the year and plan for the next. If you take several hours or a day and seriously reflect back on the year, what do you see? What would you re-do? What moves you to thankfulness? What generates hope? Most important, have you experienced personal growth in 2021? Getting past what’s going on in the world and past the hardships and hassles you’ve had, how have you grown in •Your faith?•Your identity and character?•Your personal maturity?•Your relationships?•Your career?•Your contribution to the world or…
God Redeems, Restores, Reconstructs
The beautiful work of God in your life never has to cease. Last month I wrote about how my dog ripped up my Bible, and the experience offered a fresh expression of the gospel. The dog pictured is my little messenger, Angel. For about a week and a couple hours a day, with lots of tape, contact cement, pieces of paper spliced into pages, and lots of painstaking, patient work, I repaired and reconstructed the damaged Bible. The once-destroyed pages are now strongerthan they originally were. This is precisely what God does in our lives when we say, “Yes, Lord.” Whatever we…
The Gospel from a Dog
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and my dog ripped it apart all the way to Enoch and Noah. The photo is of what my dog did to my holy Bible in the back seat floor of my car while I was driving down the road with the windows open and wind blowing, so I couldn’t hear her tearing it apart. Why did she do it?Because it was fun.I should kill her.But I don’t.Because I love her too much.I don’t even spank her. She’s usually the perfect dog. So why did she do it? Because she loves pawing at…
We Never Replace Something with Nothing
We never replace something with nothing. We always replace it with something else. After a week that left me physically and mentally tired, I took it easy in my morning prayer routine. I read my Bible and prayed each day, but I took a break from the spiritual disciplines I normally go through on most mornings. For most of the week I thought I was resting from all that, but at week’s end I realized I had only replaced it. I found myself unintentionally replacing those spiritual disciplines with other things: email, news, weather, to-do lists, bank balance, and social media posts. I was…
What Will You Hear?
The Bible encourages us to live our lives in ways such that when we physically die and get upgraded to heaven, Jesus will tell us something like, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21, 23). I often wonder where I’ll fit on that spectrum. What about you? We are wise to be brutally honest with ourselves. With the Kingdom of God in focus, consider each word of the sentence: WELL — Live with an attitude and commitment to do things with excellence, particularly important things that matter, that represent who you are and what you do, and that make an eternal difference. No one…
