What if trusting God leaves you with tears in your eyes and questions you cannot answer? Several friends are walking through difficult seasons right now. As I think about what they are facing, I find myself remembering my own painful days. I know how quickly faith becomes personal when the hardship we once prayed about [...]
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” —John 3:16 It is possible to sing about trusting God while quietly holding your breath over tomorrow. We know He is faithful. We have heard the testimonies, read the [...]
It’s a question that comes up more often than we admit. What does God want to do with my life? It can feel hard to live with purpose when you are unsure what that purpose is. We want to move forward, but we also don’t want to move in the wrong direction. So we hesitate. [...]
I’ll be honest. Prayer doesn’t come easy for me. It’s not that I don’t know I should pray. It’s that, deep down, I don’t always believe it works the way God says it does. Because if I truly believed prayer made a real difference, I wouldn’t treat it like an afterthought. I’d bring everything to [...]
As the father of two young boys, I hear the same words almost everywhere we go. At a restaurant. In the church lobby. Walking through a store. Someone smiles at my boys doing something funny or sweet, then looks at my wife and me and says, “Enjoy them while you can. They grow up so [...]
One evening last week, I stood in our driveway watching a beautiful white sports car start up and slowly disappear down the street. As our friends drove away, I couldn’t help but smile at the way God had provided for our family in such an unexpected and personal way. Our doctor had just made a [...]
We live in a culture where everything seems instant. This is especially true with communication. Email, texting, Facebook, and Twitter have trained us to speak spontaneously without much thought. Perhaps what is most interesting in this age of social media is that nearly everyone has a platform for sharing their thoughts in which dozens of [...]
What do you do when life doesn't turn out the way you had planned? What happens when death chokes the dreams of seeing your child grow up and have his first day of school or play in his first baseball game? How do you deal with the crippling reality of losing the person you have [...]
We talk a lot on this blog about living for eternity. That's because we firmly believe the most important things we can ever do on this earth are the things that will reverberate long after this mortal life is over. When everything around us in this life seems to encourage short-term fixes and instant gratification, [...]
For those of you who read this blog regularly, you have heard me mention that I grew up in the Bible belt. I was reminded recently of a phrase I heard from church folks as I was growing up: "Love the sinner, hate the sin." I don't know if this phrase is mainly a southern [...]
