Growing up as the youngest kid in a game-playing family, I had to learn to be strategic from a very early age just to survive. I learned well. The tile-based game Carcassonne is one of […]
Tag: God and life and stuff
How to not live a stupid life
There are some people who seem to attract trouble like nails attract hammers. They simply get pounded by trouble over and over again. I love the old John Cleese TV show Fawlty Towers, but my […]
Raising #NotMe kids in a #MeToo world
I’ve been saddened over the past few weeks to read the #MeToo stories of women abused by Harvey Weinstein and others. And that sadness has deepened into grief as women I know personally have added […]
Is it possible for youths to stay pure?
Youth is the age of passion. So, when Psalm 119:9 asks the question, “How can a young person stay on the path of purity?” I’m left wondering if it’s an intentionally ironic question. Because the […]
Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein & the abuse of women
I used to love Bill Cosby, but I can hardly listen to him anymore. I memorized so many of his hilarious stories when I was in junior high, I could recite them word for word. […]
When the covenant breaks apart
Our basic relationship with God is defined not by a contract, but by a covenant. But there isn’t just one kind of covenant in the Bible though. Rather, which kind of covenant is used depends […]
17 ways to foster neighborliness
We have lost the art of being neighbors. Our cars have killed it, keeping us from walking our neighborhoods as we jump into them and speed away without talking to anyone. Our phones have killed […]
Unfashionable faith
So, maybe we should just stop trying to stay in fashion.
When the silent God speaks, what does he say?
Silence is hard to interpret. In fact, an argument from silence is considered a logical fallacy. And yet, we try to interpret the silences of others on a regular basis. We question what people think […]
On turning 50
I’ve been saying the word fairly frequently over the last few months, trying to get my mouth used to it. “Fifty.” It’s got a nice, clean sound to it. It’s not cumbersome like “forty-seven.” And […]
Love is inconvenient
Love is inconvenient. Love is getting up in the middle of the night to clean up a child who has thrown up. Love is driving out of your way to be with a friend for […]
Hugh Hefner, Playboy & the death of sex
I remember the first time I saw a Playboy magazine. I was about 11 and an older neighbor has stolen a copy from the nearby 7-11. Not yet to puberty, it didn’t have the effect […]
When the news gets too noisy, kiss the king
“I read the news today. Oh boy.” — The Beatles Sometimes, I wonder why I read the news at all. It’s just noise. And there’s already enough noise in my life without it. But I […]
The sweet life
I want to live the sweet life, a life I can wake up to each day with joy and expectation, a life that calls me further up and further in. But what makes up the […]
What are you pursuing?
If there is a motto for America, it is simply this: Pursue happiness. It’s sometimes rephrased as “follow your heart” or “follow your dreams,” but the idea is the same. Meaning and direction for life […]
No more whiny Christians!
For my entire life, I’ve heard fellow followers of Jesus complain about what they read in the newspapers and see on TV. “The world is going to hell in a hand basket!” they complain. “Our […]
Vindication!
The first time I stood before a judge, I was guilty. Fortunately, it was just traffic court and I’d only been going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit. I’ve also had my moments […]
Psalm 5 — The God who hears & the words we speak
The first worship song that lodged itself in my heart was the Maranatha version of Psalm 5:1-3 from the early 1980s. Its minor key longing echoed inside of me, stirring a yearning for God that […]
Pruned
I’m someone who likes to keep his options open. I like possibilities. When it’s time to choose, I’ll choose. But in the meantime, I don’t like to limit my options. A friend recently reminded me […]
Asking the “second question”
In every conversation, the first question is a simple connecting question. “What’s your name?” “How’s it going?” “What’s up?” “Nice day today, isn’t it?” “How about those [insert sports team name]?” There’s not a lot […]
Entering life by facing death
Death is all around us. We deal with it almost on a daily basis. All kinds of deaths. Deaths of dreams. Deaths of careers. Deaths of dignity and reputation. Deaths of the body. Deaths of […]
Back to zero
There were Alcoholics Anonymous meetings every day of the week at the church I used to pastor. On three days, there were two meetings, for a total of ten per week. They pretty much owned our […]
The importance of boredom
Something unexpected and disturbing happens quite often when people gather around a loved one who is dying: They get bored. In my work as a part-time hospital chaplain, I’ve seen it many times. In response to […]
There’s no such thing as a balanced life, but there’s something better.
I can balance my checkbook, but I can’t balance my life. It’s impossible. Things in this world just don’t like to stay in balance — just watch my attempts at yoga! Juggling a handful of balls […]
Is God silent?
The Bible is a record of God speaking. God speaks. He speaks creation into being. And through the words he speaks to us through others, our faith comes into being. As Paul writes in Romans […]
Psalm 149 — a song in bed & a sword in the hand
Prayer easily becomes rote and formulaic, even when we try to be spontaneous. I hate that about myself. I quickly and easily fall into ruts where I’m pretty much praying about the same things in […]
The Romans Road revised
When I was a teenager, I was taught what is called the Romans Road as a way to explain to others why and how we enter into a relationship with God through Jesus. At the […]
Psalm 150 — uncontainable praise!
A can of soda was a rarity in the super healthy home I grew up in. But occasionally, my friends and I would get ahold of some pop cans. And after we’d each guzzled one, […]
The Empire is always recruiting
Mine is a Star Wars family. I was in the last days of 4th grade when what is now called Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope came out. I was mesmerized and saw it in […]
Wonder Woman & the problem of violence
We need strong women in movies and fiction. The helpless, screamy women of far too many movies offer little to the imaginations of girls and boys who see them on their screens — girls who […]
The Journey — 9 things a canoe trip teaches us about following Jesus
When each of my boys turns 13, I take them on a week-long canoe trip on the Bowron Lakes — a chain of about a dozen lakes way up in the interior of British Columbia. […]
The Journey — 17 things a hiking trip teaches us about following Jesus
A while back, I joined a few other helpers to take about a dozen middle schoolers on a camping trip for two nights and days. And we survived! We spent a lot of one day […]
Worship that reorders our imaginations
There’s a lot more to worship than singing some songs and hearing a sermon, with prayers and an offering interspersed between them. There are also a number of purposes for worship, but I want to […]
Why we should do our good deeds publicly
There are a lot of things Jesus said that rarely get repeated and a handful that get repeated often. Among the often-repeated is this: Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others […]
Seven reasons why I’m a conservationist
When I was growing up, environmentalists were the enemy. They loved the earth and hated God. At least, that’s what I was told. It wasn’t totally untrue, because somehow there had come to be a […]
October in June
I have been a U2 fan since War was released in 1983, during my sophomore year in high school. I wish I could say I’ve followed them since their first album Boy, but I think my third […]
Let’s talk about death
I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies this year. Some of them were elderly and should have known their days were limited. Others were fairly young and assumed they had years to go before even […]
Practice freedom
Slavery is easy. I don’t mean that life as a slave is easy. I mean it’s easy to live as a slave. We do it all the time. Lots of us. Freedom requires practice. It […]
The awkward wonder of Mother’s Day
As a kid in kindergarten, I used to pick flowers for my mom from front yards on my several block walk home. She loved the sentiment but gently stopped me from destroying our neighbors’ gardens. […]
Prepare to be offended — cussing, political correctness & the word “like”
At a party we hosted, we set down one ground rule for the evening: No using the word “like.” That’s it. Malefactors would be required to put a sticker on their face for every use […]
God’s tattoos
I don’t have any tattoos (yet). But I’ve thought about it. The cost and the pain have held me back. But even more than that is the permanence of tattoos. They become a part of […]
Worship is a dance
Worship is a dance. And so too is theology. From our perspective, both of them have Jesus in the middle. But the reality, if we could step back a bit further, is surprising. I like […]
Still my hero at 91
Yesterday was my Dad’s 91st birthday. He was 42 when I was born, so I’ve only seen the second half of his life, but I’m so grateful for what I have seen. He has shown […]
Set your mind on these things
Our minds are marvelous things. How we think shapes who we are and how we live. I’ve come across so many posts and articles by people who’ve had personal Renaissances during a season of Lent […]
Happy “Love One Another” Day (also known as Maundy Thursday)
“What the heck is Monday Thursday? And how can it be Monday when it’s Thursday? I don’t get it.” For most of my life, the churches I attended ignored the Christian calendar. But when in […]
Faith works — how faith values work & keeps it from becoming slavery
I find it ironic when someone claims others are #badbible readers while doing bad Bible reading themselves. The Facebook post below is a case in point. The writer is obviously quoting Jesus from Matt. 11:28 […]
Putting on Christ
My body loves to gain weight. I know I’m not alone in this. But if I don’t exercise, I’m in trouble. And when I do exercise, I generate vast quantities of sweat. Buckets of sweat. […]
The cure for bad Bible reading
The sermon was excellent. It shared timeless biblical wisdom but in a fresh way. People were moved. But I was ticked off. Although I agreed with the preacher’s comments, the way the preacher handled the […]
Live love. Love life.
If God had a hobby, what would it be? Painting by number? Going to as many Dave Matthews Band concerts as possible? Racing monster trucks? We have a sense from the Bible that God is […]
Tell all the truth, but …
One of my favorite Emily Dickinson poems goes as such: Tell all the truth but tell it slant — Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth’s superb surprise As Lightning […]
Start with Jesus
In the churches I grew up in, the apostle Paul was king. On most Sundays, we heard sermons from Paul’s letters. And theology derived almost solely from Paul’s writings were our basic belief system. Because […]
Prayerless worship & worship that leads to praying
As I’ve spent time with different churches, I’ve become aware of how prayerless evangelical worship has become. By stripping away liturgical elements, many of our gatherings have ended up without much depth in prayer at […]
How Lenten fasts help develop different appetites
Lent is one of the least appreciated seasons in the Christian calendar. Being a penitential season, it’s a time of fasting — of saying an emphatic NO! to one particular area of our lives — […]
Bodies — why we struggle with them and what God is doing about it
When my Mom had a massive stroke 27 years ago that left her body significantly handicapped, I was left with a question that was new to me but had been asked for thousands of years […]
Immigrants & refugees in the Bible
The Bible is filled with immigrants. In fact, most of its major characters spent time as foreigners in other lands. Here’s a quick look at them. Adam and Eve had to leave their initial home. […]
A sliver of glass in our hearts
In Hans Christian Andersen’s tale The Snow Queen, he tells a series of seven stories. The first of these is about a demon-made mirror which shatters into tiny pieces which are scattered around the world. The pieces fall […]
Sermon or Scripture: which is more important?
The question of which is more important, sermon or Scripture, seems like a no-brainer. But the way Scripture is handled before and during sermons tells the truth of the matter. Are the Scriptures read first? […]
What are you anxious about? Jesus is praying
There are a lot of things I pray about. And a lot more than I never pray about. In fact, there are plenty of things that are major concerns for me that I never petition […]
3 reasons why “going to church” is still important
Going to church is becoming less and less of a basic Christian practice, making our discipleship anemic. For years, I have heard people say, “We don’t go to church; we are the church.” In one way, that’s […]
A different citizenship. A different hope.
We live in a world of beliefs. We are told that if we just invest ourselves fully in certain human endeavors, we can save ourselves and we can solve the problems of the world. Politics, […]
Two kinds of knowing — one informs me, the other transforms me
“The boy was frightened, and tried to say a prayer, but he could remember nothing but the multiplication table.” — Hans Christian Andersen, The Snow Queen I am a child of the information age. I have […]
A bruised reed
Reed had it all together. At least, he tried to. And boy, did he try. Reed had a 4.0 in school and felt all kinds of pressure to keep it perfect. And it was killing […]
A return to neighborliness
I didn’t vote for Donald Trump and I didn’t participate in the Women’s Day marches, but it’s essential to me that I am in neighborly relationships with both sets of people who did. Neighborliness requires […]
Learning to listen
The family was in crisis. A young mother in critical condition. Two small children. Family gathered around her bed, praying for her. Life on the line. Hearts on the line. As I watched this unfold […]
Comprayning
Uh oh. I think I just might be a comprayner.
Why don’t I pray about some things?
We were sitting at the table following dinner and the conversation turned to why we don’t pray about some things, including some of our significant and life-changing decisions. And as we talked, I was struck […]
Watching stories or making stories
I am most alive when watching TV (said no one ever). Sitting passively on the sofa while all kinds of action, adventure, creativity, and relational drama unfolds on the screen gives the feeling of living […]
The Gospel according to Elf
Each December, we engage in retelling our favorite stories. The all-time favorite at this time of year is of the birth of Jesus. But we’ve got other favorites that get repeated each December. And one […]
Thanksgiving & its opposite
Sometimes, we understand something best by taking a look at its opposite. And when it comes to living the grateful life, a quick examination of our complaining is revealing. In their classic Saturday Night Live sketches, […]
Men & grief
When my sister was killed by a drunk driver, I came face to face with grief for the first substantial time in my life. I’d been touched by death before, but never this closely. Never […]
How to live. How to die.
I don’t talk about death a whole lot. None of us do. And yet it’s always with us. My wife and I started watching a new TV show recently and more than 1,000 people die […]
True fans & true disciples
A friend of mine went to Washington State University and has been a fan of their historically terrible football team ever since. This year, they’re having a remarkably successful season, but that hasn’t been the […]
Electing & being elected
The word “election” is both political and theological. Interestingly, though they both are about the process of making a choice, the political and the theological are done in exactly the opposite way. During political elections […]
God believes in you
Like most people, I’m pretty self-critical. I see all of my failures and liabilities. I am painfully aware of my short-comings and flaws. Sometimes I have an over-inflated ego, but more often than not I […]
Fruitless — the empty feel of a bare-branch life
“The image I have of you is of a tree with no fruit on its branches,” she said, words that echoed what I had been feeling for months. I was in the middle of a […]
Leap first
“The intellect is there to instruct us after the act.” — Ray Bradbury A few years ago, I took a flying leap off of a rock high above a river. But I jumped too far out, […]
Telling the truth
I was reading excerpts from a Ryan Adams interview about his upcoming album and came across this gem: “How do I make a real distinct record where anybody listens to it and says, ‘That’s the […]
Unowned
I used to be a Coke guy. I refused to drink Pepsi because Coke was my brand. But then one day, I realized that I had let a soft drink manufacturer own me. I was […]
Sin kills
We had finished dinner and were sitting at the table talking about a passage I had read from the Bible. It was a fairly bloody passage about the different kinds of sacrifices God had commanded […]
Entertaining angels
This life is full of the oddest surprises. Some leave you in stunned silence. Others make you laugh. Or cry. You never know who will walk through your door and you’re not always sure you […]
Unorphaned
Sometimes, a single word changes everything. Sometimes, just one word will make me sit up straight and wake up. Bon Ives’s new album 22, A Million is a oddly wonderful blend of sounds and modified vocals […]
Pressing the “do over” button (or, Bring on the Jubilee!)
I turn 49 today. Born 4 October 1967, I’ve been gathering baggage for a long time now. Most of it is good baggage that I gratefully carry around with me. Wonderful life experiences of traveling to […]
Regaining a taste for subtle God flavors in a too-sweet world
Eugene Peterson told me a story about when he was in college. Somehow, he’d landed a job as the personal driver for a wealthy, cantankerous old man who blasted through his days with little appreciation for […]
Where suffering & glory meet
We all know people who tend toward the pessimistic. These gloomy Eeyores are realistic about the hardships of life, but seem to see only obstacles and no opportunities. We also know people who tend toward […]
God is not your teddy bear
As a kid, I had a pile of stuffed animals. In fact, I think my Mom let me keep them a bit too long. But I guess some of us take a bit longer to […]
Got silence?
The fruit of silence is prayer; The fruit of prayer is faith; The fruit of faith is love; The fruit of love is service; The fruit of service is peace. These are the words that […]
Captain America & the problem of power
When the first Avengers movie hit the theaters, some pointed out that the devastation depicted in it to New York City was worse than that of 9/11. The good guys did more damage than terrorists. It was […]
If the church isn’t a community, it’s nothing
The church exists to be a sign of the breaking in of the kingdom of God into a world of torn apart relationships. The church does not exist to sing songs; to listen to sermons; to […]
Technology & the death of culture
As J.R.R. Tolkien lay in bed, convalescing from trench fever during World War I, he fleshed out much of his conception of Middle Earth, the backbone of his mythos behind The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The […]
A back-to-school prayer
Jesus, as you sat in synagogues and walked Galilean roads, you were called “good teacher.” As our Teacher, watch over and inspire school teachers this year. May their words be true yet humble. May their guidance […]
Honoring politicians we don’t like
“Honor the emperor.” Those three words hang by themselves in 1 Peter 2:17. The verse makes four imperative statements, the first three being pretty run of the mill for the Scriptures, until we get to […]
Big “buts” in the Bible
But. It can be one of the most frustrating words, pulling the carpet from beneath our feet. “You would be a great addition to our team, but the position has already been filled.” At the same time, […]
From checklists to nuanced living
I was recently a part of a large conversation in which a woman talked about her daughter who had recently accomplished the amazing feat of hiking all 53 fourteeners — mountains topping 14,000 feet of elevation […]
Sitting down for the national anthem & other prophetic actions
During these slow days before the NFL and college football regular seasons get rolling, sports news has been filled with Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback. It’s not because he’s been putting up stellar preseason […]
Coaching sports & life
In preparation for the upcoming volleyball season, I spent some time jotting down some core values and practices I want my players and their parents to know so that they understand my expectations of them. […]
Truth & feelings
In a culture where feelings are king, we have little tolerance for truth. I’ve watched someone be shunned for the past two years by those my friend spoke a simple but powerful truth to. It was an […]
Psalm 131 — from ambition to contentment
I am an ambitious person, with hopes and dreams for myself. I am a true American, pursuing my own happiness. My heart isn’t quiet. It’s in turmoil, boiling with my ambitions. Unsettled by my striving, […]
Regaining our humor in an overly serious political climate
A few months ago, I was with a group of teenagers, waiting to be let into a county fair. That may or may not sound like fun to you, but the group was in good […]
The Lord’s Prayer — insistently passive praying
The Lord’s Prayer offers us an absolutely radical approach to God that even 2,000 years of having it as our most basic prayer still subverts and reorients the lives of those who pray it. Sadly, the […]
Prepare to share (or, one practice for an uncontainable faith)
When I was growing up, the churches I was a part of had two services each Sunday morning that weren’t identical like most multi-service churches now. The first service was shorter, about half an hour, […]