Think About It

When I was a child, I lived most of my life in the South.   All but a couple years of my childhood were spent in Florida, Texas or Georgia.   You might expect that I would have been used to the heat, but the truth is that by the time I was a young adult I was ready for some coolness.   For the next few decades I enjoyed living in places that were cooler than normal – in fact, some of them were just flat cold!   While I got to where I enjoyed the cold weather, I found that the older I get, the more the warmth feels to me.   In fact, I have enjoyed the hot muggy weather of the last few days.   Sometimes, when we age, we find that our tastes change – and I have found this to be true in several aspects of life.   When I was younger; I enjoyed exploring new things, now, I tend to like the familiar.    Earlier in life; I was drawn to the parties and celebrations, now I enjoy the quietness of solitude.   Interestingly, I have even found a ch...

          When we discuss leadership one thing that often gets overlooked is the ability to lay the groundwork for future leaders.  Ironically, it is typically against human nature to develop the next level of leaders because when we do, we risk being ousted by their rise to the top.  In the past, we have given lip service to developing future leaders while doing what we can to keep them in their place.  Whether it is in not trusting them enough to provide them with our knowledge and insight or doing what we need to do to make sure we stay on top of the ladder, we are tempted to secure our place at the top.  What would happen, though, if we created an environment of mentorship (aka leadership) where we willingly shared what we had accumulated with an eye toward turning over the reigns of leadership to them.  If we were more open to developing future leaders they might be less likely to do whatever was necessary to climb the ladder of su...

The other day I did a lesson on the difference between “temptations” and “trials”.   While these words or often used interchangeably, there seems to be a distinct difference between them.   In fact, the New Testament book of James takes on the topic by noting, “ Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ” (James 1:3-4).   In essence, God provides trials to challenge us to grow; but satan tempts us in an effort to steal our soul.   To put it succinctly, trials are good – temptations are bad. At the end of the lesson a friend of mine added another “T” to the mix – “tragedies”.   As we considered tragedies we discussed that due to circumstances, sometimes things happen.   Sure, some tragedies (such as school shootings and drug-induced crashes) have a connection to evil, but I can’t believe that God is the Source of all tragedies and I am not sure that the de...

Have you noticed how easy it is to argue policies?  Whether it is immigration, health care, social injustices, or whatever else the issue of the day happens to be, it is simple to develop a philosophy and be adamant in our defense of it.  We can sit in our “ivy covered castles” and remain unyielding about what we know to be right for the rest of the world.  While it is easy to develop a uncompromising ideology when it comes to rules, the thing that creates a problem for us is people.  The less we see the “policies” and the closer we are to the “people”, the more difficult things become.  As long as I don’t know any aliens ... or poor ... or mentally challenged ... or addicted people I can remain staunch I in my principles, but when a personal element becomes involved it is more difficult to toe the hardline.  That transition is called “compassion”.  It is great to be able to exchange ideas based upon clean, clinical circumstances; but we change th...

          Just in case you need a reminder, we are exactly six months away from Christmas.  Now, if you are like me, that means that I still have about 180 days to complete my shopping – but, if you are one of those planners, you might want to start getting on the stick because we are already on the downhill slide.            I tend to think of myself as a planner, but the truth of the matter is that I am comfortable procrastinating.  I assume that I have plenty of time to get done what I need to get done.  While procrastination is not always a bad thing (you can usually get some pretty good deals on Christmas Eve), there are some times when it can have serious – and disastrous – results.  The most troubling of these times comes with our spiritual lives.  Most of us live like we believe that we have our whole life is ahead of us, but we never know how quickly or how seriously things co...

One of the things that has made America great to this point is volunteerism.   From the beginning of the history of our nation, people have been willing to invest their time, their finances – and most important of all – themselves into our communities and our country.   However, as I look around at volunteer agencies today, it seems that volunteerism is waning.   Whether it comes from a sense of feeling too busy to help, a belief that unless someone pays us for our time/expertise we aren’t going to be involved or just a flat-out refusal to help others, people don’t seem to be drawn to volunteering.   While this may be a growing trend, it is a damaging one.   First, due to decades of cost-cutting, many of the programs that used to be publicly funded are no longer receiving funds and must depend upon volunteers.   If we believe in the value of non-essential services that improve our communities, we’d better be willing to invest our own time and money.  ...

          As I was boarding a plane the other day I was reminded of the value of “orderliness”.   Can you imagine what would happen if scores of people rushed to try to be the first ones on the plane as soon as the boarding doors opened?    There would be fist-fights to determine who got the First Class seats, brawls over who got the overhead space and a general bottleneck as everyone tried to crowd onto the boarding ramp.   It would be chaos and the idea of on-time departures or arrivals would be mere fantasy!   The airlines realize the value of an orderly boarding process, so beginning with the fare structure of buying seats all the way through the ticketing process and even zone seating there is a plan that makes schedules possible and travelers manageable.           As I thought about structure and planning I got to thinking about God’s design and creation of the wo...