So, one of the stories in the Bible that has struck and always stayed with me is from 1 Chronicles 21:1 (and from 2 Samuel 24:1). Basically, God had ended a three-year famine, and David’s kingdom was thriving. His nemesis Saul was dead, and he had recently crushed the Philistines, Moabites, and Ammonites, and he was pummeling any enemies that went up against him. And everything was going along quite ...
As I’ve mentioned a few years ago on this blog, beautiful girls are everywhere. EVERYWHERE. And growing up during my adolescence as a warm-blooded heterosexual male, I really liked looking at them. And I wanted to become their friend. And I wanted to become their boyfriend. And wanted to marry them and make babies with them and live happily ever after with them. Well, not “them” – just one of ...
I’ve been thinking a lot about the state of my heart recently. I feel like it’s in a good place. I feel close to God, I don’t feel like I have any unresolved conflict or tension I should address, I feel like I doing the things that make Him proud of me. But I recognize I am still living in this world, and exposed to all sorts of pressures and ...
A handful of years ago, I realized that my brain works in this very linear and sequential fashion – which sounds good and healthy and all that, but actually is a bit dysfunctional when coupled with my always-doing-something personality. Basically, the way that I am wired is that I am always onto the next thing before I’m fully finished with the first thing because my mind just automatically and mechanically ...
Every summer, I go to summer camp. And I've been doing this for years. To be honest, things are a little different now that I am an adult in that I don't go as a camper, but as a volunteer or counselor or leader or helper (depending on the camp). Back in the day, though, I loved going to camps every summer - with my church, with 4H, at the ...
I was talking with my friend Tammy the other day and she shared an insight after reflecting on a recent romantic relationship of hers - an insight which I thought was completely profound. And I asked her if I could blog about it, and she said yes. So here I go. Overall, I feel like a lot of people struggle with figuring out whether a person they like, or the ...
In my last entry, I talked about how sometimes we are just unstable, and it’s not a fun place to be because it makes everything seem so vague and confusing and even arbitrary. When we are unstable, it feels like we are slowly going blind, or slowly losing our mind. Sometimes it is just life being life, but sometimes it is really our own fault. And I guess it stems ...
I have been thinking a lot recently about being unstable. What seems to cause me to be unstable? Well, it’s going back and forth on things in my mind. So I’m not single-minded, I’m double-minded. And I am realizing I hate being double-minded and I hate being unstable, because it feels like nothing is right and I’ve completely lost focus from what matters. It’s like, I really want to be ...
Alright. What did I learn from the Storyline conference, if I consider how I've been living my life thus far, and how I want to make sure it is a great story? Well, the first thing I realized is that even though I am always asking God to come through for me with this or with that, and definitely sometimes getting bummed and frustrated with various things, I have so ...
Last weekend I attended Donald Miller's Storyline conference in San Diego. It was really, really good. All of the sessions were inspiring, and appropriately fit together to champion the theme of the weekend, and to springboard me (and the rest of the attendees) forward. Don spoke for most of the sessions, but other speakers included his friend Bob Goff (who wrote "Love Does" - which is probably the best book ...