Psalm 119:105, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 30:21, James 1:5, John 14:6
In 1914, not long after the sinking of the Titanic, Congress convened a hearing to discern what happened in another nautical tragedy. In January of that year, in thick fog off the Virginia Coast, the ...
Ambiguity may keep people up nights, but anyone seeking exquisite simplicity in his or her career ought to look for a non-leadership position. Leaders, by definition, have followers. Followers need di...
Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 34:18, Ephesians 4:26-27, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 1:2-4
Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress are all ways of describing natural human responses to adversity and the experiences of life. And we all face adversity in many different ways: challengin...
Luke 10:38-42, Matthew 14:28-31, Philippians 3:13-14, Proverbs 4:25-27, James 1:6-8, Hebrews 12:1-2, Matthew 24:13
As we travel through the New Testament, it becomes clear that Jesus’ disciples often get distracted, almost like they have a case of spiritual attention deficit disorder. They quickly lose focus and w...
Change invariably leads to loss, loss to grief, grief to anxiety and, finally, anxiety to hostility. We need therefore, to acknowledge grief. We need to understand and choose to walk with the grieving...
It isn't the changes that do you in, it's the transitions. Change is not the same as transition. Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transiti...
Joshua 4:6-7, 2 Peter 1:12-13, James 1:23-25, John 14:26, Revelation 2:5
In the film Memento , we meet Leonard, who is searching for the man who killed his wife. He appears to be the typical Hollywood hero of the early 2000s. The hair is right; the jaw line, the atmospher...
Psalm 143:10, James 1:5, Isaiah 42:16, Proverbs 2:6, Psalm 32:8
It doesn’t matter what the specific decision is. Unmade decisions hold power. They pull, they push, they interrupt where they aren’t wanted and poke us awake at night. They can turn us into strange ve...
1 Peter 4:12-13, Matthew 5:10-12, Isaiah 40:31, 2 Timothy 1:7, Proverbs 29:25, James 1:2-4, Galatians 1:10
Character is always lost when a high ideal is sacrificed on the altar of conformity and popularity. Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual.
Proverbs 4:5-7, Ecclesiastes 12:11-13, Isaiah 28:9-10, Matthew 7:24-27, James 1:22-25, Psalm 119:11
Gathering information without processing and applying it is counter to how the mind works and how the brain is structured and has a deleterious effect on our mental and physical well-being, creating a...
One helpful, practical tool to understand our blind spot is what’s called the Johari Window, an image developed as a counseling tool in the 1950s. Subjects were given a list of fifty-six adjectives, a...
Brock Schroeder used to teach astronomy at Olivet Nazarene University in Illinois, and he prided himself on being open to exploring a wide range of perspectives in his life and work. In the natural sc...
All day long, all of us are framing and reframing our lives. We talk about the memory of our adorable but sexist grandpa. We label ourselves as movie critics or introverts or justice-lovers. We say th...
James 4:7-8, 1 John 1:9, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Psalm 51:10, Romans 8:1-2, Galatians 5:16-17
"At the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most dreadful shuddering…I looked down…I was once more Edward Hyde."
Professional football players often get heated on the field, sometimes letting their emotions get the best of them when penalized by an official. Art Holst, a longtime NFL referee, recalls a Sunday ga...
James 1:19, Proverbs 3:5-6, John 7:24, Proverbs 18:17, Proverbs 14:12, Luke 6:37, 1 Corinthians 4:5
Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake — if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible ...
[These thoughts come from a journal entry of about 10 years ago when I was experiencing a deep and dark night of faith] I have found insight and wisdom for my journey with Christ in the writings of J...
There's a humorous, apocryphal story about a man standing by a river. On the opposite bank, a woman calls out, "How do I get to the other side of the river?" The man replies, "YOU A...
Galatians 1:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:1-12, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, James 4:1-10, 1 Peter 5:1-11
All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ comand to seek first the ki...
Adversity is always unexpected and unwelcome. It is an intruder and a thief, and yet in the hands of God, adversity becomes the means through which His supernatural power is demonstrated.
Psalm 90:17, 1 Peter 3:3-4, James 1:10-11, Ecclesiastes 3:11, 2 Corinthians 4:18, Isaiah 40:7-8, 1 Samuel 16:7
Though beauty gives you a weird sense of entitlement, it's rather frightening and threatening to have others ascribe such importance to something you know you're just renting for a while.
I am told that when SAS soldiers parachute into unknown territory they are trained to pause before moving. They must first get their bearings and only then set out for their destination. That is wise ...
Proverbs 18:21, Numbers 13:31-33, Deuteronomy 1:28, James 3:5-6, Exodus 14:12
Learned Helplessness can be easily seen in a research study when participants are given a math test. In this study, some participants are told, “men don’t tend to do well on this test,” or “Millennia...
Habakkuk 2:5, James 3:16, Mark 8:36, Luke 12:15, Isaiah 57:20, 1 Timothy 6:9, 1 John 2:16
Restlessness keeps the pedal to the metal. To offer a suggestive analogy in this vein: several years ago there was a recall on some Toyota vehicles. Evidently the cars would be given to sudden and unc...