This summer, my wife Hannah and I will celebrate our wedding anniversary. Fifteen years has taught me something important: you can love someone deeply and still slowly drift apart. It rarely happens all at once. It happens in little ways. A busy week turns into a busy month. One evening you are too tired to [...]
Psalm 84:10 says, “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.” When I first read that verse, I understood it to mean that I would rather do something small for God, like [...]
On August 15, 1945, Emperor Hirohito of Japan officially surrendered. World War II had finally come to an end and people around the globe celebrated a return to more peaceful times. However, on a small island in the Philippines, four Japanese soldiers continued to fight. They spent their days hiding in the mountains and conducting [...]
Have you ever fallen into the trap of thinking you are doing God a favor when you give to Him? It can be easy to believe that what we possess is ours because we worked hard to earn it. Whenever that mindset begins to creep in, I am reminded of the powerful words found in [...]
Jim Rohn once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” I like this quote because it makes me think about the important people in my life and how much time I spend with them. Encouraged by Rohn's statement, I took an inventory today of who I spend the [...]
Several of my friends adopted children last year. Some had children of their own and added a child through adoption. Others started their family through adoption. Some adopted locally; still others adopted from other countries. Regardless of how they adopted, it has been amazing to watch these families welcome these beautiful children into their lives. It's incredible to [...]
There have been seasons of my life when I have been very disciplined about physical training. In high school I competed in three sports: cross country, wrestling, and soccer. So, I was in the habit of training year round. In college I lived near the beach and rose early each morning to surf for a [...]
Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” Many friendships are born during good times, but adversity reveals true friendship. Difficult times often take relationships to a new level. There have been a few tough times I’ve experienced that I can’t imagine enduring without [...]
In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis imagines a bus ride from hell to heaven. Lewis uses this trip to explore how our understanding of the connection between the eternal and the temporal is often incomplete. “Son,” he said, “ye cannot in your present state understand eternity. . . That is what mortals misunderstand. They say [...]
I was a member of my church youth choir for many years. I don’t remember much about the music we rehearsed, but I do remember our choir director ended every rehearsal with a life lesson. One day our director said he had a very special gift for our group. He pulled out a bag and [...]
