Christmas is complicated. It’s busy. And especially if you’ve had an unexpected experience this past year that brought pain in your life, it can be really difficult to understand how it’s even possible to experience joy this time of year. This past Sunday, we kicked off our Christmas teaching series at First Christian Church. We…
I don’t know if you’re like me, but whenever I read the Bible I look for the hidden truths. I’m always looking for the part I might have missed at first glance. I was reading a story Jesus told in Luke chapter 15 last week and had one of those moments. “If a man has a hundred…
Everybody feels inadequate sometimes, right? Yesterday was one of the worst days I can remember. I just couldn’t shake this feeling of not being good enough. This morning, I woke up still in that rut. I wasn’t reading my Bible or doing anything spiritual…I was brushing my teeth when a thought came to mind. I…
Maybe I’m not supposed to say this because I’m a pastor, but I’ve never questioned my faith more than I have in the past 18 months. I’ve never doubted God. Not His existence, not His love, not His presence. But I have done a lot of asking, searching, and chasing after answers to some tough questions…
Last weekend I had the privilege of speaking at First Christian Church. It was the third installment in a series called “Pursued,” all about realizing that God doesn’t give up on us, and He doesn’t chase us to punish us, but He pursues us because He loves us. A few of my favorite quotes/thoughts: “Sin…
The first time I dreamed that I was drowning, I was actually surprised to wake up. It was so real and so vivid that I actually believed that I was dying. I don’t know if you’ve ever dreamt you were drowning, but it’s terrifying. I was even more surprised because I don’t normally dream, or if…
I came across this prayer recently. Something about the simplicity of it resonated with me. It’s ironic and profound that the things we would consider to be a burden, the writer considers to be blessings from God. I’ve been praying through this every morning and I hope it will be helpful to you.
If I asked you what your calling in life is, could you answer me clearly? Most people can’t, but the fact that more people than ever are openly searching for their calling is no secret. This search is materializing in a generational increase in “job hopping.” In fact, in a recent article Forbes Magazine called job…
Thousands of years ago, merchants and gypsies would travel from one marketplace to another carrying goods that they would sell for a living. The roads in those days, where there were roads, were rough. Long before the Roman road system that revolutionized long-distance travel, it was a difficult journey from one city to the next….
In case you missed this, here’s a video that was released by the three women who had been held captive in Cleveland for almost 10 years. Watch this, especially starting at the 1:55 mark: I heard this clip on the radio on my way to Canton this morning. At the time, I was frustrated because…
