Think About It

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,...

Are we under-expecting from people? Throughout the years many of us have run into a problem where we expected people to act better than they did. We became disappointed when people didn’t do what they should have done or didn’t reach the potential they could have attained. (Oh, and by the way, I am sure that many of them could have said the same thing about us.) In days gone by, there seemed to be a higher bar that people were expected to reach and, when they didn’t do it, we became disheartened. I feel like there has been a shift in our collective mindset recently and we have intentionally lowered the minimum acceptable behavior. No, the problem isn’t that godliness or truth has changed, the issue is that we have just come to expect less from each other. We are willing to tolerate less in an effort to unify more. While this movement to dummy-down our behavior may have taken off in modern society, it hasn’t changed God’s expectations for us. Interestingly, if the truth were ...

Way back in 1999 Lee Ann Womack had a country song called, “I’ll Think Of A Reason Later”. The essence of the song was one woman didn’t like another woman even though she was good person who did good things. The animosity wasn’t based on rational thought – in fact, if the truth were actually told she should have been impressed by the other woman – but because they were romantic rivals she just flat didn’t like her. She made up her mind she didn’t like the other woman and, if necessary, she’d think of a reason later. Do we find ourselves in a similar position? Sometimes the pettiness doesn’t amount to much – for example I will never like the Oakland Raiders or the Norte Dame Fighting Irish. I just don’t and if I need to come up with a reason, I can – but that’s not the point. I just don’t like them. While sports rivalries can produce silliness like this, the problem is when we apply these standards to political parties, religious groups, races, genders and other criteria. Bigo...

The other morning I was backing out of my driveway. Now, I typically look behind me as I back out as well as check by my back-up camera but I am not sure how well I scanned the area this time. As I pulled out onto the road, I happened to see a car following pretty closely behind me. I never got honked at, nor did I get the evil-eye from the driver, so I assumed that I hadn’t pulled out in front of her – but even if I had I am glad she was watching out for me. As I thought about this, I got to thinking that this is what neighbors do – it is what is called “community spirit”. We keep an eye out for each other and we are even willing to put up with what some of our neighbors do because, well, that’s what neighbors do. We act neighborly. As I got to thinking about this, I got to wondering about how this mindset could change our neighborhoods and our nation. What if, rather than looking for how we can criticize others, we actually did our best to lookout for the best interests of ea...

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...