If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...
Leadership is solving problems. The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not c...
The problem is not recognizing the importance of the individual. The problem is the glorification of the individual. When the individual self is glorified over the greater good of the community, right...
Robert C. McFarlane was a well-known businessman in the Los Angeles area. He had moved to California from Oklahoma in 1970, and within just a few days of his arrival—due to a disastrous misunderstandi...
Self-deception . . . blinds us to the true causes of problems, and once we’re blind, all the “solutions” we can think of will actually make matters worse. Whether at work or at home, self-deception ob...
Everydayness is my problem. It’s easy to think about what you would do in wartime, or if a hurricane blows through, or if you spent a month in Paris, or if your guy wins the election, or if you won th...
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 key is this: Meet today's problems with today's strength. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enou...
A Story from the Philokalia A story is told in The Philokalia about a young monk who went to an older monk to confess a struggle. The older monk was appalled, telling the young monk that his strugg...
Notes on the Passage Besieged from All Angles: The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Ja...
We tend to be preoccupied by our problems when we have a heightened sense of vulnerability and a diminished sense of power. Today, see each problem as an invitation to prayer.”
Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...
Often, though, people carry around the belief that the majority of their problems are circumstantial or situational—which is to say, external. And if the problems are caused by everyone and everything...
Exodus 14:15-16, 2 Kings 5:9-14, Deuteronomy 30:19-20, John 5:1-9, Mark 10:46-52, Psalm 107:19-20
I am struck by all the things Jesus didn’t say or do in response to the litanies of pain and defensiveness he heard from people. Jesus didn’t say to the man, “You sound like a victim to me; what are y...
I love golf. If only it loved me in return. Alas, it is a one-sided romance. My golf swing is the stuff that keeps an instructor awake at night. One kindly compared it to an octopus falling from a tre...
James 1:22, Matthew 7:24-27, 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, Isaiah 55:2
You might have heard the story about the dog food company. They launched a new line of dog food, stocking it on shelves nationwide, but it didn’t sell well at all. Sales plummeted and the leadership d...
Psalm 121:, Jeremiah 16:14-15, Matthew 6:25-34, Matthew 6:30, Psalm 91:11-12
Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Historical Background In our modern world we know so much about our universe that it is easy to forget that in the Bible there is a connection between ...
Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d...
James 1:2-4, Romans 5:3-5, John 16:33, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Psalm 34:17-19
While serving as British Prime Minister, Lloyd George had to deal with World War I, an economic depression, and the Sinn Fein movement attempting to effect Irish liberation, as well as many other smal...
I long to put the experience of fifty years at once into your young lives, to give you at once the key to that treasure chamber every gem of which has cost me tears and struggles and prayers, but you ...
Psalm 34:14, Luke 15:20, Hebrews 4:14, Romans 6:4, Acts 1:8, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Psalm 25:4-5, Matthew 11:28-30, Isaiah 41:10, John 14:13, James 1:5, 2 Corinthians 9:8, Habakkuk 3:2, Isaiah 6:8, Matthew 28:19-20
Father: Thank You for always being ready to welcome us and listen to us. Thank You for sending Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Savior: born like us, experiencing all that we experience yet sinless, who d...
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back i...
Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 10:38-42, Psalm 139:23-24, Proverbs 12:15, Genesis 4:6-7
Lucy says to Charlie Brown: ‘You know what the whole trouble with you is, Charlie Brown?’ ‘No; and I don’t want to know! Leave me alone!’ ‘The whole trouble with you is you won’t listen to w...