Becoming a Navy Seal is considered the most challenging training of any military unit in the U.S. military. And as difficult as most of their training is, nothing can compare to BUDS, which stands for...
I grew up playing sports, and basketball in particular has always been a favorite. Though I turned fifty-one last year, I often remind my younger friends that I “still have game.” I keep insisting tha...
A friend often told me about the problems he had getting his son to clean his room. The son would always agree to tidy up, but then wouldn’t follow through. After high school the young man joined the ...
At three years old, Kyle had never put on his own shoes. He always had help—shoes can be tricky. At four, he had never put together a puzzle all by himself—he’d get frustrated, so Mom or Dad or the ba...
If the Prof is 10 min late... I was in my freshman year in college, and Statistics was the final class before Thanksgiving break. When the professor was ten minutes late, I and several others got up ...
Psalm 25:4-5, Matthew 1:23, James 5:14-15, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Luke 2:10-11, Isaiah 9:6, Jeremiah 29:11, Matthew 25:35-36, Proverbs 21:1, Matthew 5:14-16, Matthew 28:19-20, John 14:13, Luke 2:1-20, Mark 5:25-34, John 11:17-44
Gracious and faithful God–our Creator, Redeemer and Comforter: When we don’t know the way–You show us the way; and when we can’t find a way–You make a way. Thank you! Thank you for Your gift of a Sav...
Sometimes God takes our greatest failures and turns them into our greatest successes. Charles “Chuck” Colson had risen the ladder of national political success at breakneck speed. After a tour in the ...
Psalm 147:3, Jeremiah 30:17, Matthew 11:28-30, James 5:16, Psalm 34:18, Psalm 51:10, Jeremiah 33:6
One of the challenges, at least in the western church, is an inability to deal with our wounds in a healthy way. Our training as Christians has been focused on Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday ...
We often get into ruts, on treadmills, caught up in patterns and habits that aren't useful. We don't stop to ask, what can I learn from this week that will keep next week from essentially bein...
The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’
Let no Christian parents fall into the delusion that Sunday School is intended to ease them of their personal duties. The first and most natural condition of things is for Christian parents to train u...
I became interested in the subject of transition outer changes around 1970 when I was going through some difficult inner and outer changes. Although I gave up my teaching career because of those chang...
The primary factor that determines the pattern a child will land on is trust. Trust is born and nurtured in the infant through the consistent and reliable care of the primary caregivers. Trust is the ...
Transition is one of the givens in our lives, and we only live well, we only manage our lives well, when we manage these transitions well. Our world changes; the circumstances of our lives change. The...
We do not develop habits of genuine love automatically. We learn by watching effective role models – most specifically by observing how our parents express love for each other day in and day out.
In times of struggle and failure, we need to do more than pronounce judgment on what's wrong and enforce punishment. We need to talk, discuss, question, evaluate, engage, and interact with our tee...
The ultimate test for a leader is not whether he or she makes smart decisions and takes decisive action, but whether he or she teaches others to be leaders and builds an organization that can sustain ...
Exodus 14:13-14, Isaiah 30:15, 1 Kings 19:11-13, Psalm 46:10, Matthew 11:28-30, Luke 10:38-42
Another reason we are so tired is that we are always working hard to figure things out rather than learning how to cease striving, how to be with what is true in God’s presence and let God be God in t...
When you lead people through difficult change, you take them on an emotional roller coaster because you are asking them to relinquish something—a belief, a value, a behavior—that they hold dear. Peopl...
Gracious God, we admit that though You have sent each of us out with the task of raising disciples, we often neglect that task. We remain content, stagnant, in our Christian calling, while we regularl...
The five stages ̶denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance ̶ are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identi...
At least as important as the things we wait for is the work God wants to do in us as we wait… Picture a blazing hot forge and a piece of gold thrust into it to be heated until all that is impure and ...
Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.