We are all searching for some kind of treasure. Something that suddenly propels us to the next level of living. Most of us are looking for money, playing the lottery or the stock market. Some are looking for fame/recognition, hoping their video goes viral or their big break comes knocking on the door. We seek treasures in all shapes and sizes. In fact, the kind of treasure we seek helps orient the kind of life we live. The Greatest... Read more
The Biblical story of Job is well known. It centers around Job’s suffering at the hands of an unseen enemy. Pretty typical in terms of how we all feel about our daily existence. There seem to be forces at work behind the scenes, beyond our control. Character and Crisis The opening dialogue between God and Satan begins in a surprising manner. It starts with God asking Satan: “Have you considered my servant Job?” What is important in this opening... Read more
In the 1970’s, the popular perspective around human reason was that we are generally very reasonable creatures. When we act unreasonably, it is a product of our emotions getting in the way. This is why our culture today talks so much about “controlling our emotions”. It is the offspring of that philosophy, that our reason will shine through if our emotions don’t get in the way. But research in the last fifty years has started to suggest that humans, emotional... Read more
One of the things that can quickly derail our ability to make decisions is the difficult, but necessary question: is this really our decision to make? Often, when life is throwing difficult choices at us, full of unforeseen consequences and hard lines in the sand, we turn away from those decisions and try to make others that are less threatening to us. And one of the popular ways we do this creative displacement is by adopting the offenses of others.... Read more
We all love the concept of truth. Nobody likes being deceived or lied to. We don’t want to be foolish and we certainly don’t want to be bamboozled. We like the idea of naming things as they are. Except when we don’t. And when we don’t is when the truth hurts, when it is something we don’t like or don’t want to hear. So, let’s be honest: no one is better at lying to me than myself. Said another way:... Read more
In a lot of ways, the Christian tradition has neutered the power of prayer. We have done our best to turn it into a trite exercise, a half-baked commitment, an obligatory doldrum. There is a strong reason for this. As human technology and society has developed, progressed, and expanded, we have become more and more intoxicated with our own achievements. We love action. We love power, in big and small ways. In short, we like to take control and get... Read more
We are heading into the season of graduations and it is one of my favorite times of the year. As a long-time youth pastor and a current college minister, graduation is a wonderful time of celebration. The graduates look at it with a certain amount of trepidation. What’s next? The whole point of graduation is to celebrate the ending of one season and the beginning of the next. We often think about graduation as the finish line, but the word... Read more
When faced with an overwhelming amount of choices (or a set of choices we don’t particularly like), we often try to escape the difficulty by refusing to make a choice. We opt for inactivity. Making any choice is a risk. It is a gamble. It establishes a path, a specific way forward. And that way has consequences. Not only that, choosing a way necessarily closes you off from some other ways. When you choose a choice, you deny certain others.... Read more
We went on vacation recently and it was wonderful. Work has been pretty busy and pretty intense lately. We love what we get to do, but it sometimes feels overwhelming. The pressure gets weighty, even though it is mostly a pressure we put on ourselves. The expectations and deadlines loom and swirl. It is so nice to get to take a break, to relax and breathe a little slower. There is a reason tourism is one of the highest sources... Read more
There are few things as hotly contested in today’s world than the idea of personal safety. You are certainly thinking about your own safety all the time. And, not unrelated, much of our political and cultural discourse centers around individual safety. Makes sense. Safety is important. Without it, you literally can’t do anything else. Safety is the lowest of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a foundation of human life. We cannot engage in higher pursuits until our safety is established. So... Read more
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