You Don’t Know What You’re Missing
Five years ago, a student of mine designed an ad campaign encouraging college freshman to stop drinking on weekends. He created a picture of a passed out college student on the front of a t-shirt. He wrote above it, “You don’t know what you’re missing.” Beneath the image, he began a list of all the […]
How Would You Define It?
I read Psalm 119:164: “Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.” A heart at peace? How does one define it and know it? It goes deeper than emotion, like a fixed anchor for the soul even as turbulent waters crash about. It’s a steadiness. It’s an assurance. It’s […]
A High Alert Situation
Every morning when I open wide the back doors to let the fresh morning air come through the screens, the chipmunks come and taunt our cats. The little chipmunks pop their heads up through the deck and stare at the cats. The cats stare back. It’s a high alert situation. The cats stand like statues […]
What I Learned This Week
In the spirit of quizzing, I decide to ask myself what I really learned this week. I’m picking raspberries, and I reflect on all I’ve learned this week about unity and what destroys it. As I think about living in unity within families, neighborhoods, classrooms, and larger communities, I’m learning that our default state tends […]
“Comfort in Everything”
I read this morning a quote from Hannah Whitall Smith. She argues that “the soul who gives thanks can find comfort in everything; the soul who complains can find comfort in nothing.” I realize the truth of it, especially when she later writes this bold statement: “There can be nothing in our lives that lacks […]
They Don’t Have to Like You
Students hate my reading quizzes. But after all this time and all these years of learning how to really serve students, I stand behind the benefit of reading quizzes. They increase student attentiveness and encourage great class discussion because folks come prepared. But students don’t like them, and, by extension, students aren’t too thrilled with […]
From Worry to Watching
This morning, I read some beautiful words in Paul Miller’s A Praying Life. He says that when you “stop trying to control your life and instead allow your anxieties and problems to bring you to God in prayer, you shift from worry to watching.” I love it. I love that when I go to God, […]
You Don’t Know Until It’s Gone
My kitchen computer (a tiny little netbook that’s falling apart) loses her backspace button today. It just stops working. If I want to delete a letter, I have to stop and figure out a way to press in the residual little bump that’s part of the old backspace button. It takes forever. I find myself […]
Are You Truly Content?
This morning in church, it occurs to me that much of my thinking involves wanting some aspect of my life to change. I pray in this direction. I hope in the direction of just make this all different. Wait. Stop! I remember that contentment in our circumstances represents one of the greatest gifts given by […]
Ask for Wisdom. It Comes.
Today I remember the simplest truth that we can ask God for wisdom. In James 1:5, I read that “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God who gives generously without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” My natural inclination is to sort it all out myself. I implement strategies. […]