Think About It

How are your New Year’s Resolutions going? For a lot of us, we start out the year with good intentions, but then life gets in the way. Our trips to the gym become less frequent while our trips to the refrigeration come more often. We are more critical of people and less tolerant of the differences we see in them. We start to worry more and relax less. Now, the reason I bring this up is not to shame you into hanging in there another couple of weeks, rather it is to help us all understand that for changes to be effective, they must be viewed through a telescope, not a microscope. We are going fail … we are going to struggle … we are going to stand on the brink of giving in or even giving up. That’s okay because when we truly want to make a change we should be okay with progress, not stuck on perfection. Most of us realize that it has taken months (or years) for bad habits to develop and it would be absurd to believe we can make meaningful changes in a matter of days. We are goin...

Have you ever heard anyone say that God is irrelevant in today’s world? It doesn’t take much reading from modern philosophy to see someone say that even if there is a God, religion (especially Christianity) is archaic. Now, if we are using 21st Century human logic, there could be some legitimacy in that observation; however, is modern logic the basis of everlasting truth? The history of mankind is more than just the here and now. Reason is far deeper than how we have been taught just in this generation. Making a statement that mankind has plateaued in today’s knowledge and reason is arrogant at best and short-sighted at worst. I don’t think our society is the first to have to deal with this faulty logic. Two thousand years ago the Apostle Paul wrote, “Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, ‘He is the One who c...

A lot of really odd things surrounded the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. One of them was the presence of an angel at the tomb when some of Jesus’ disciples returned to prepare Him for His proper burial. Matthew states, “And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men.” (Matthew 28:2-4). Recently, when I reflected on the presence of the angel, I got to thinking about the real function of the angel. It doesn’t seem like he had been involved in the miraculous resurrection of Jesus, but he was there to protect the integrity of the event and speak the truth as to what happened. Have you ever given much thought to the role of believers in Christianity? We cannot save the lost in-and-of ourselves, but like that angel, we can protect the integrity of wh...

Have we ever done an inventory of what we talk about?  If so, how much time did we focus on what was going right with us and how many of our words described our difficulties?  I am sure that most people spend most of their time focused on positives, but some of us struggle with seeing the negatives.  Now we all go through times when we have major challenges in our lives, but some of us tend to overemphasize how tough we have it! Interestingly, the true issue isn’t what comes out of our mouths, the real struggle is how we perceive life.   The more we look for the problems, the more complaining we do.   When the Apostle Paul discussed perspective, he observed, “ Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.   For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,   while we look not at the things which are see...

What do we do when someone misstates something? If you are like me, I want to correct them so they get it right. I mean, after all, people don’t want to sound ignorant do they? Now, while that might be a rationale for correcting people, I wonder if that is really what is going on? When I correct them, is it because I want to make sure everything is correct for the record, or do I do it just to show others how smart I am? Let’s take this one step further. Why do we correct people when they are mistaken on things we have personally seen or heard? Again, is it to make sure that the true facts are known or is it to brag about how much “in the know” we are? I am sure there are times when correctness could probably be more important than kindness, but too often we speak too abruptly and pointedly. Rather than help people get things right, our desire is to show our superiority. It’s not the desire for veracity that is behind our interjection, it is arrogance. Let’s be smart enough ...

In 1974 Chaka Khan and Rufus had a hit with the song, “Tell Me Something Good”. The song had a funky vibe that was punctuated with the phrase, “Tell me something good”. Like many of the songs of my youth, I am pretty certain that the song was not an anthem for moral reform, but the older I get the more I long for someone to “tell me something good”. It is all too common to be bombarded with all the negativity in the world. Not only are we surrounded by troubles and tragedy, we also have to listen to all kinds of people make disparaging statements about others. Quite frankly, I am tired of hearing the bad, tell me something good! What could happen in our families, our churches, our work places, our schools, our communities and even our nation if we made more of an effort to tell something good? Sure, there will always be tales of heartache, but how would things change if those where the exceptions rather than rule? Interestingly, if we focused on routinely relating the good and s...

Martin Luther King was a man with a vision. Dr. King was also a man who was driven. Yet, one of his most compelling characteristics was the way he used words to convey his message. Not only was he focused, he was also very quotable. Throughout the years there have been several Kingisms that have made their way into the American consciousness, one of them came from a 1963 speech that advocated, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”. I would like to think we have advanced in our social consciousness in the past fifty years – but I believe this is one with which we continue to struggle. There is still a lot moral darkness in our world, but we will fail if we try to change it with our own brand of immorality – especially when it is wrapped up in hatred. We cannot try to become a better society by becoming meaner and nastier than those who hope to overcome! Centuries ago, when Jesus confronted the darkness of ...