Live Long and Prosper

This weekend is Father’s Day, which makes it time for memories about Dad.

Growing up, I thought all dads drank SunDrop and read Discover magazine when they came home from work. I was surprised to learn other families didn’t have observatories with telescopes in their backyard…a fact that was less amusing when I was a teenager and found out that some of my friends thought it was an outhouse.

Things I remember about my dad when I was young? He could bounce a ball on his nose like a sea otter.  When I was small, he let me sit on his shoulders …calmly removing my hands when I accidentally placed them over his eyes.

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How to Love

Dear children, let us not love in word or speech, but with actions and in truth. This verse was laid on my heart his past week . And I’m not sure why, but I do know nothing more clearly sums up the gospel than this direct mandate to love with action…not intention, promises, text messages or speeches.

My sister was born when I was four, and we have a home movie where my mom is filming me sitting on my Dad’s knee right before her birth, asking me what I am planning to teach the new baby. Ride a bike, have a tea party, braid hair…there was no wrong answer to this question, really.

I think for a minute – you can see the little wheels turning in my mind. After all, it had to be something good. Continue reading…

Book Review: START

Ladies and gentlemen, back for his second best-selling debut since Quitter, it’s Jon Acuff with his brilliant new book START.

While Quitter wisely counseled us not to quit our day jobs to early in pursuit of our dreams (use it to fund/fuel your dream), START urges us to find that dream – chart a path out of the land of average starting…now.

Do work that matters.

Punch fear in the face.

See, you don’t even have to leave the cover to be inspired. Continue reading…

Lies Your Mother Told You

We all love our mother, but over the years, collectively, moms have told their share of fibs.

For example, “Don’t eat that food on the floor..You’ll get sick!”

So not true…haven’t they heard of the five-second rule?

I was well in my 20s before I realized you could wash dark clothes with light clothes and your washer and dryer wouldn’t explode. And while washing your hands is always a good idea, you won’t drop dead if you don’t. Continue reading…

Long and Boring

Quote of the Day, from Mark Batterson, The Circle Maker:

“Drawing prayer circles often feels like a long and boring process, and it can be frustrating when you feel like you’ve been circling forever. You start to wonder if God really hears, if God really cares. Sometimes his silence is deafening. We circle the cancer. We circle our children. We circle the dream. But it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. What do you do? My advice: stop, drop and pray. Keep circling. Circle for seventy years if you have to! What else are you going to do?

We live in a culture that overvalues fifteen minutes of fame and undervalues lifelong faithfulness. Maybe we have it backward. Continue reading…

A Jolly Holiday

I’m in the mood for a holiday. And I don’t think I can make it till June.

Memorial Day is coming up. But there have to be things to celebrate today. So I went online and found a list of American holidays that seem to get overshadowed by patriotism and that bossy Cinco de Mayo.

You can thank me  later.

Drumroll, please!

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That’s Not What I Meant

I have a love-hate relationship with my autocorrect. Mostly hate.

Nothing is more irritating than trying to text your friends and having your phone insert what it thought you meant.

Some are mildly annoying:

Has anyone seen the great stapler? (gray)

I’m picking up your horse! (hose)

I’m getting in the cat now. (car)

Burp!  (BRB…be right back)

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When All of God’s Singers Get Home

As someone who has attended a contemporary church for many years now, I recently came across an old hymnal, Songs of the Church, that must have been stolen (Did I say stolen? I mean borrowed) from one of the churches of my childhood.

I remember being particularly fascinated by this hymnal as a child because it had its own Ten Commandments on the front pages:

Thou shalt not bend my backs together…
Thou shalt not use me as a fan…
Thou shalt not mark on me…
Thou shalt no use me to hit the babies. (Good one!..How about we not use it to hit anyone?) Continue reading…

Spring is in the Air

Well, sort of. After a confused groundhog predicted it would be an early spring, March came in like lion and out…like a lion. The first few weeks of April weren’t much better.

If you live in a state like Tennessee or Alabama, you know summer starts creeping in around March, making the next three months a meteorological wrestling match in which warm weather usually triumphs. Continue reading…

He is Risen

As we enter into Holy Week, it’s time to focus on the three most powerful words in the entire Bible:

He is risen.

You see, “He is risen,” is quite frankly the answer to just about every important question you can ask.

What happens after we die?
He is risen.
Will I overcome cancer?
He is risen.
Will I see my child again?
Will I beat this addiction?
Is there hope for those in darkness?

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