Think About It

While I can’t speak for you, one thing I will admit about myself is that I don’t feel as intelligent as I did about eighteen months ago. Over the past year and a half, I have spent more time on emotional aspects of life than I have on intellectual things and I believe I have atrophied mentally. With all the emphasis on a new virus, old social issues and who would become the next president I haven’t spent as much time gaining knowledge as I have on dealing with emotional conflicts. This has not been an issue just in my secular life, I believe that my spiritual academics have failed as well. As I look back on the last several months the term “getting by” leaps to the forefront. Concepts such as “if we can just hold things together” and “we just need to get through this” have overshadowed my commitment to learn more and study deeper. Again, I can’t speak for you, but it would surprise me if I am the only one in this boat. The cares of the world have stolen more than joy, they have ...

Do we get the feeling that our world is at odds with God? Maybe we could take it one step further – and make it more personal – and ask if our nation and the policymakers are trying to overthrow God? I hear people criticizing our nation and lamenting that modern secular leadership is destroying godliness. I don’t have time to fully debate this in the space allotted for this blog, but one thing that I will say is that if anyone wants to challenge God, He is big enough to hold His own. Powerful leaders have confronted God throughout history and He has always come out on top. David addressed this issue by observing, “Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!’” (Psalm 2:1-3), then issued a pointed warning, “Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning,...

The other day I was going through my online banking activity and realized something rather startling – instead of deducting my remaining tax bill once, the IRS had withdrawn the amount twice. I never got an email alerting me to the second withdrawal, it just happened. You can imagine my surprise at this level of double-dipping. Had this happened at other times in our lives, this would have been a devastating blow because we would have not only been overdrawn, we would have been WAY overdrawn, but we were financially in a position to be able to withstand the mistake. Now, the point to my story is not how awful the IRS treated me, rather it is to say that I had to make a choice. I could either be upset at what had happened or I could be thankful that we had been blessed to be able to absorb the financial loss. I could either call the IRS (and be put on hold for a half hour), then rant and rave about the incompetence that led to this mistake or could calmly wait my turn to call atte...

Can you be “right” and “wrong” at the same time? I believe we can have an accurate set of facts, but still be in the wrong. It is tempting to feel that being accurate gives us the freedom to act in whatever way we want to act. In essence, being correct gives us ability (and maybe even the responsibility) to bowl people over. Having an accurate fact base is more important than conveying it in an understandable way. Yet, the truth is that we can be “correct” and still be wrong. When we mistreat others, when we are insensitive to those around us, we are bound to lose no matter how “right” we are! Maya Angelou is credited with saying, “I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”. I believe this observation is needed as much now as it is in any other time. We have a lot of people claiming to be right, but doing so at the expense of others. It’s almost like they are hoping to beat peop...

What guides our lives? That is a pretty broad question, isn’t it? Let me see if I can narrow it down a bit. As we approach life, what dictates how we view things? Will we be derailed by emotion, overwhelmed by circumstances and side-tracked by folly or will we rely on wisdom to guide us through life? Wisdom is one of those interesting words: we think we’ll know it when we see it, but can we define it? I believe that wisdom is the ability to take all the knowledge we have accrued through the years and apply it to the situations that present themselves to us. It is properly combining book-learning, experiences and spiritual maturity to address the issues we face. Life is going to be difficult, and people are going to be harsh. None of us have been promised an easy existence, so to be successful we are going to have to develop wisdom because if we don’t things are going to tough. I remember a pretty insightful quote, “Life is hard … it is even harder if you are foolish!”. The ...

I was a wrestling fan when I was younger. (Maybe I should say I was a fan of ‘Rasslin’ – you know the stuff that was done by people like Dusty Rhodes, Andre the Giant and the Funk Brothers). I would get wound up over who beat who in the spotlight matches on Saturday afternoons. In fact, my friends and I would argue over our favorites to the point that we might get in a scrap that chipped away at our relationship. Come to find out years later, these guys who seemed to hate each other on T.V. were eating dinners together and riding the same bus or plane to the next venue. I wonder how many childhood friendships were destroyed (or at least damaged) by cosmetic rivalries. The reason I bring up old-time wrestling is that I see something akin to it in modern times. I wonder if modern debaters have done us as much good as the heartache they have caused? There are a lot of politicians, pundits and community leaders that are driving wedges between people. They stand up on their platfor...

When we think about idols, most of us conjure up a vision of an icon made of wood or stone that sits at the door of some religious place. While this can be an idol, I believe that idols can be more than physical images of pagan gods. An idol can be a political system that we revere more than godliness. Idols can be movements that make more social sense than adhering to the spiritual principles. Idols can be people we listen to more than we heed the word of God. Idols can be a principle of natural or social science that claims to explain humanity more completely than the Creator. An idol can be the monetary currency we put our faith in rather than trusting that the All-powerful God will take care of our every need. Simply put, an idol is anything that usurps our reliance on and worship for God. The interesting thing about idols is that their power is limited because they were created by humans. Several years ago, one of God’s prophets considered the futility of idolatry by obs...