In 1928, English economist John Maynard Keynes delivered a lecture titled “The Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” in which he argued that by 2028 would we be so prosperous that most people would only have to work fifteen hours a week. As he looked at the coming century, his concern was what people would do with all of their free time. Many of us read Keynes’ thesis and let out a hardy laugh, but he was half right. Both the... Read more
I take college football too seriously. I try not to, but it happens every year. I have rooted for the Auburn Tigers since I for as long as I can remember and one year I watched the opening game of the season with some friends at Buffalo Wild Wings. Over half the restaurant was filled with Alabama fans who were there to watch their opening game as well. Auburn started an hour earlier than Alabama, so the Alabama fans were... Read more
The next time you are sitting around watching a football game with friends or in a group of people in a social situation, get everyone’s attention and say, “You know, we’re all going to die one day.” Then, just watch everyone’s reactions as the fun gets sucked out of the room in an instant. We don’t like thinking about death even though it’s something we’re all going to face. In his book, Remember Death: The Surprising Path to Living Hope,... Read more
Yesterday, many of us were struck by the news of a young pastor’s suicide. It is heartbreaking to think about what might have led him to make this tragic decision. In my younger years, I would have looked upon this man’s pain with immense condescension, but I have been doing this for over 15 years now, so while I would never say that I know what he was going through, I know what it is like to walk through dark... Read more
Last year I heard someone refer to R.J. Snell’s book Acedia and Its Discontents in a sermon on slothfulness. I love books related to any of the major themes in Proverbs, so I picked it up and discovered one of the best books I have read in the past year. Acedia refers to slothfulness, which is more than just laziness. Slothfulness despises our reason for being and rejects God’s good plan for creating us. Slothfulness shirks off responsibilities, caves in... Read more
For the last few months, I have been using an app called Moment to track the amount of time I spend on my phone. It has been tremendously helpful to see how many hours I can fritter away staring at things I won’t remember in five minutes. One interesting thing the app does is that it tells you how long you “slept.” Of course, it has no way to track when you drifted off to sleep and when you woke... Read more
Some days, discouragement sneaks in out of nowhere and overtakes us when we are already tired, overwhelmed, or hurting. It sticks around like a dark cloud, dampening our enjoyment of life and causing us to see the negative side of everything in our lives. The easiest thing to do is to let discouragement have its way with us. We give up the fight against it and allow the cloud to continue hanging over us. It doesn’t have to be this... Read more
A few weeks ago, someone in my timeline posted a link to a Business Insider article from last summer. In it, Benny Lewis wrote about the time he spent traveling throughout the United States. He listed 17 things that surprised him about day to day life in the United States. He described the piece as a “rant” and pointed out some legitimate concerns about trends in the United States that we often miss. Our cities are not walkable, the portions... Read more
This week I read through Tim Keller’s Counterfeit Gods for the first time in several years. Keller shows how ordinary things, even good things when blown out of their proper proportions, can become an idol in our hearts. We were made to worship and our hearts flock to many things thinking they will bringing us happiness, contentment, and purpose. Counterfeit Gods reminds us that nothing other than Jesus can truly satisfy and that our idols die when we look to him for what... Read more
Many eager Bible readers plunged into the beginning chapters of Genesis only to bog down after the first couple of genealogies. They have argued about the days of creation, know about the ark, and used Sodom and Gomorrah to warn people about the dangers of immorality, but know precious little about the contents, characters, and message of the Bible’s first book. Every follower of Jesus needs to read and understand the opening book of the Bible. We need to develop... Read more
One Degree to Another
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