I love words and adopt a favorite almost monthly. My latest word is crave. I almost always crave food. My top choice lately is pretzels with peanut butter stuck in the middle. Yesterday, I craved my youngest grandbaby’s very kissable chubby cheek. I miss him so much. King David talks about his craving for one thing in today’s passage. “Only one thing?” Did you read the passage today? In this psalm, David craves living in the Lord’s home his whole life—thinking about His goodness and studying and learning with Him.  Do you crave Jesus? I remember being on the fast treadmill of waking up at ..read more

I remember when I learned to “spy the hand of God” in my life. I had learned four ways to become aware of God’s presence while teaching an adult Sunday School videotape series, which I also sold for a Christian publisher.  The first way to see God was in any obvious answer to prayer. I remember in a small group we prayed and fasted for a bone marrow transplant for a teenager with leukemia. The donor was 2,000 miles away. The sooner the transplant took place, the better. The airplane transporting the stem cells needed to stay at low altitudes to preserve them. Glory to God, He answered our ..read more

I love teenagers! I spend a lot of time around them. I have mentored many girls over the years and I truly believe they are the best age group for many different reasons: they are real and not afraid to tell you the truth about yourself; they can smell a facade a mile away; and they appreciate authenticity so much so that they gravitate towards it. I feel like God has given me a certain wisdom and insight to understand them.  As I’ve spent time with them over the years, I’ve learned so much from them. The one thing I can say about most teenagers is that they are slow to judge, especially ..read more

It follows us wherever we go, like a shadow. It’s there when we wake up first thing in the morning and there again when we lay our head on the pillow at night to fall asleep. It is so deeply ingrained that we cannot separate ourselves from it. What is it? Our sin nature..  In her poem, “Small Kindnesses,” Danusha Laméris has a beautiful line that reads, “Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.” I believe that. God intended the world to be without harm. But sin came in and changed all that. Detrimentally curious, we chose to believe the enemy’s lies that something was missing. In our sel ..read more

In a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, respondents who think Christianity’s influence is declining were asked to assess whether each of a variety of factors has been a major cause, minor cause, or not a cause of the decline. Shockingly, the results did not show that Christians are associated with how loving we are. Quite the opposite. Almost six in ten people (58%) blame misconduct by ministers, priests, or other Christian leaders as a major cause for Christianity’s decreasing influence. Another 34% of respondents identified it as a minor cause, which means, presumably, about 90% of resp ..read more

When I was a child, we would clasp each other’s pinky fingers together and then yank them away to guarantee we would do what we had said. Sometimes, we would affirm our promise to a parent, grandparent or other significant adult while gesturing over our heart, “Cross my heart.” It was our way of holding one another accountable and affirming our promise. As an adult, I’m often admonished by the Holy Spirit to “Remember your words.” Getting my devotional done by the due date is tough for me, especially when I’d rather watch birds eating sunflower seed hearts or snap the broom against the deck to ..read more

If you’ve attended a wedding before, odds are you’ve heard the famous love passage from 1 Corinthians 13. It starts like this, “Love is patient, love is kind…” and then goes on for several beautiful verses about what love is and is not. If you study how this passage defines love, you’ll discover that it is a shocking, countercultural way to go about showing others we care for them. But what fascinates me most about 1 Corinthians 13 are the verses that come right before the famous love passage.  A little context. This passage isn’t actually talking about romantic love; it’s talking about t ..read more

Every teacher knows May brings challenges to the classroom with warmer temperatures and the promise of summer drawing near. My students’ end-of-year behavior started early this year, and I knew our classroom couldn’t continue in its current state. We had a class meeting to discuss issues in our classroom, the next steps to take, and behavior expectations we could all agree upon. The next day, the first student came into the classroom, sat in his seat, and did what he was supposed to do. Then, another one followed. And another. And another. By the time we were ready to start the day, every stud ..read more

It has been almost 30 years, and I just found out that my wife doesn’t like mushrooms, especially on pizza. I also realized that day that I hadn’t ordered mushrooms on pizza for about three decades. Fascinating. But what does this have to do with Jesus’ prayer for His closest followers and future disciples in John 17? I’m glad you asked. If you are serious about building authentic community, I highly recommend what I call “The Pizza Test.” The task is simple: ask a mixed group of people to order a pizza they all 100 percent agree on. It’s a great team-building discussion because it forces peop ..read more

You’ve probably heard about groups in our services; maybe you’ve known folks who casually refer to their ‘small group,’ but it feels mysterious, kind of undefined, and even risky. As a 30-something who was proudly agnostic and changing the tuner in my brain whenever God tried to break through the noise and communicate with me, I was invited into a group of women through whose influence my life was radically changed. The traditionally-formatted Bible study group made space for skeptical (and nearly silent) me, and listened when I took a chance and spoke, and served me with encouragement and saf ..read more