“Self-praise,” says an ancient adage, “smells bad.” In other words, it stinks up the works. Regardless of how we prepare it, garnish it with little extras, slice and serve it up on our finest silver piece, the odor remains. No amount of seasoning can eliminate the offensive smell. Unlike a good wife, age only makes it worse. It is much like the poisoned rat in the wall—if it isn’t removed the stench becomes increasingly unbearable.
Read MoreCategory Archives: Christian Living
The Final Priority
Somebody copied the following paraphrase from a well-worn carbon in the billfold of a thirty-year veteran missionary. With her husband, she was on her way to another tour of duty at Khartoum, Sudan. No one seems to know who authored it, but whoever it was captured the essence of the greatest essay on love ever written.
Read MoreDoing vs. Being
My high school graduating class had its thirtieth anniversary reunion a number of summers ago. I’m sure they had a ball. A blast would better describe it, knowing that crowd. You gotta understand the east side of Houston back in the 1950s to have some idea of that explosive student body . . . a couple of thousand strong and a lot of ’em mean as a junkyard dog with a nail in his paw.
Read MoreTaking Time
If you planned to ride with Snake Stabler, you had to be ready for one sustained roar during the trip. Somehow there was this itch inside him that wasn’t scratched, apart from the scream of an engine and the blur of salt water waves rushing beneath to the tune of 80+ miles per hour. Once you got in and sat down, you had the distinct feeling that shutting up and hanging on would come naturally. Once you’ve committed yourself to such an accelerated velocity, nothing short of survival really matters.
Read MoreThe Case against Vanilla
I cannot imagine anything more boring and less desirable than being poured into the mold of predictability as I grow older. Few things interest me less than the routine, the norm, the expected, the status quo. Call it the rebel in me, but I simply cannot bear plain vanilla when life offers so many other colorful and stimulating flavors. A fresh run at life by an untried route will get my vote every time—in spite of the risk. Stay open-minded for a moment and I’ll try to show you why.
Read MoreStaying Alert
Your mind is a muscle. It needs to be stretched to stay sharp. It needs to be prodded and pushed to perform. Let it get idle and lazy on you, and that muscle will become a pitiful mass of flab in an incredibly brief period of time. How can you stretch your mind? What are some good mental exercises that will keep the cobwebs away? I offer three suggestions . . .
Read MoreComparison
Odious . . . disgusting, detestable. If you want to be a miserable mortal, then compare. You compare when you place someone beside someone else for the purpose of emphasizing the differences or showing the likenesses. This applies to places and things as well as people. We can become so proficient at this activity that we sustain our addiction through an unconscious force of habit. Inadvertently, the wheels of our thinking slide over into the ruts of this odious mindset. Comparison appears in at least two patterns.
Read MoreModeling God’s Message
Hosea started a scandal in the parsonage. Why? Hold onto your hat—he married a prostitute. Talk about gossip! His name became a byword for “fool.” Respect for him dropped to zero. His reputation was suddenly null and void. “Small wonder he is listed first among the minor prophets,” some sneer . . . “He must have been some kind of a nut.”
Read MoreGod’s Control
The bitter news of Dawson Trotman’s drowning swept like cold wind across Schroon Lake to the shoreline. Eyewitnesses tell of the profound anxiety, the tears, the helpless disbelief in the faces of those who now looked out across the deep blue water. Everyone’s face except one—Lila Trotman. Dawson’s widow.
Read MoreDirty Water, Prohibition, and the Bible
Water is life. It is also death. For much of human history, whether because of humanity’s ignorance or inability to dispose of and treat sewage, or because of animal dung and rotting corpses in rivers and streams, water-borne pathogens such as cholera, dysentery, and malaria resulted in epidemics and mass deaths. The city of Ephesus, […]
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