I Despise Emotions

I despise emotion…Phony as a three dollar bill. We cling, crave, identify…

Foundation Four: Joy

Joy is a feeling of great happiness or pleasure, especially of an elevated or spiritual kind. It is the ability to live and act positively even in the face of contradiction. It is the effrontery to say there is a lifting up when others say there is a casting down.

Psalm 70 – Help Me Now, O LORD

Lambasting language dominates this psalm. The foe is in sight and the LORD is beseeched for the help only God can provide. Deliverance from the situation is sought, such that the psalmist can again say – because of it – “God is great!” (Verse 4d) We can know that God is great, but here we need God to be ‘great’ in our circumstance.

Restoration of Glory By Appreciation

Glory is from the Greek word ‘DOXA’ which means all that God is and all that God has Glory is the presence of God making provision for power, prosperity and personality (character). It is the missing link: the problem of mankind is the absence of glory.

An Insight About Christmas That Will Change Your Life Forever

Jesus evoked in people a sense of the reality of God. Not just God all around them, the Presence of God in creation, which he called “the kingdom.” But God as that infinite being in which our human beingness participates.Which is why St. Paul said that “in God we live, and move and have our being.” And also why he called us divine offspring, daughters and sons of our divine Source.So the Little Prince, on this first stop of his journey, is getting a clear sense of what humans are not. We are not individuals in our own right, independent like the Marlboro Man. We are not the ego inflated and writ large in the sky as if we were the source of everything.

Fallibilism: Every Belief Is a Bet But Some Bets Are Better Than Others

The other day I had a very interesting conversation with a truly engaged and engaging Christian. We were talking about the Bible. He’s a literalist.

Virtue Verbiage: Thou Shalt Always Throw

Yesterday I found myself at a business consultant’s birthday party where I met a warm fellow who was eager to tell me about a book he has just written about caring. Like all consultants, he was able to describe how dysfunctional large organizations can be and quick also to identify the one thing that would cure them of their dysfunction. The problem, he said, is that people have forgotten how to care.

Preacher Practices: Four Iffy Ways to Square Lofty Standards With Lowly Behaviors

I’ve been writing a lot lately about the trouble with commitments to being nice or caring (Virtue Verbiage; Conventional Wisdom) and have gotten interesting feedback on these columns. A few said these were especially useful. One particularly liked that I said people should be nice, which wasn’t my point.

The First Real Dawn Treaders

This article tells the real story of how the first humans and animals emerged on a newly formed Earth. In this article I try to dispel the myths and superstitions of past unreal and sometimes laughable children’s stories of creation that no one really believes.

The Unsung Hero of The Christmas Story

During the Christmas season, we hear a lot about Mary. The Virgin Birth, The Shepherds, and The Wise Men, but there’s one unsung hero who gets lost in the Christmas souffle, find out who it is…

Restoration of Glory In Prosperity

Your Prosperity began when the owner of silver and gold died in poverty and penury as a sacrifice for your prosperity. Your bursting forth in prosperity is thus, dependent on how well you understand this truth and appreciate God for it.

Gratitude For What Is, Rather Than Frustration for What Could Be

As a child growing up in poverty, I kept telling myself, “Don’t be afraid-don’t be daunted. Just do your job. Continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be.” No matter how difficult things got for me, I kept showing up every day to do my part-grateful for the opportunity to have a job.