As football season comes to an end, at least on the collegiate level, it is the perfect time to look back and think of what might have been.  After years of a dumpster fire of a football program at the University of Arkansas, I was ecstatic to celebrate an eight-win season.  The victories over Texas A&M, Texas, LSU, and, (apologies to my fellow Missourians) MIZZOU were especially sweet. However, consider what might have been.  We would have had nine wins if it were not our year to play … [Read more...]

Many of you are familiar, I suppose, with “the unsinkable Molly Brown.”   A century ago, she was well known for surviving the Titanic sinking and famously threatening the crewman in charge of lifeboat #6 to return to look for other survivors.  She, of course, was born in Hannibal, Mo., as Margaret Tobin. At age 18, she moved to Colorado, where she met and married a poor man out of love.  That poor man, JJ Brown, struck it rich in mining and catapulted Mrs. Brown to a life of affluence, … [Read more...]

I often joke that I know exactly what the stock market is going to do.  I know it will go up, and I know it will go down – I just don’t know when.  Which, of course, is the real trick; knowing when certain events are going to happen. What is true of the market is true in real life.  We know we will die, or more accurately stated, we know our bodies will die, and our souls will be transported to another dimension.  (The second part of that statement is intensely debated with some believing … [Read more...]

I was sitting in church the other Sunday.  I do not typically do that, as I often either preach at a church or stream a service online from my own living room as I have done for the last year or so. Nevertheless, this Sunday, I was listening as the preacher was speaking from Hebrews chapter 2.  He was talking about the dangers of drifting away from the Gospel. I know he said more than that, but I started drifting away in my own mind as I began to create a sermon of my own (Sorry … [Read more...]

One thing remains… I have mentioned before that this summer is a big one for my family.  My oldest son graduated from college, my youngest son graduated from high school, and my wife is finishing her PhD.  In the financial world we would call that a lot of “volatility” in the markets.  In the family world we call that a lot of stress. We suspect a lot is going to change.  My wife and I will be empty nesters, something which we have not experienced for the last 22 years of our 27 years of … [Read more...]

In 1792, William Carey, in a sermon to a gathering of Baptist ministers, supposedly said, “Expect Great things from God, attempt great things for God.” Unfortunately, history has no record of the rest of the content of that message. No one hit record on the camera. But there must have been a third point to his sermon. Every sermon has three points, you know. Unfortunately, the third line did not catch on, like the first two did, and has been lost. Until I discovered it, yes, through … [Read more...]

I really like Silver Dollar City. It is a regional amusement park just outside of Branson. For many years, it was my privilege to serve a great church in the area, and thus, I found myself at the park quite often.  As you know, the word “amusement” is based on the word “muse” or to think. Often times an “a” in front of a word reverses its meaning. So, an amusement park is a place where you go “not to think.” As a pastor, sometimes we need to go to places where we don’t think—just to visit, … [Read more...]

Uncertainty – “Epistemic situations involving imperfect or unknown information. It applies to predictions of future events, to physical measurements that are already made, or to the unknown.” In other words, uncertainty is not knowing what will happen or not being sure what you think you do is really so. It sounds a whole lot like 2020, doesn’t it? I always thought there was going to be toilet paper at Wal-Mart, for instance. (One meme I saw had a grandpa telling his grandchildren that … [Read more...]

I have had lots of dreams.  I bet you have too.  A few of them have come true, like marrying that beautiful girl I saw from a distance on my first day of college; or pastoring a great church and seeing the Lord bless it. Some dreams, well I have matured past, like that “Unanswered Prayers” song. Others have crashed and burned despite my best efforts. But, this past Saturday, one of my long lost dreams, one I had abandoned a long, long time ago, came true. At least kind of. On September 26, … [Read more...]

It was hot. Now not any hotter than normal for late July in Missouri.  It was only 97 degrees, well within expected ranges.  But it felt unusually hot because as we drove across Missouri the vehicle in which I was driving no longer “conditioned” air.  You see the day before, I harvested my first deer.  I was on vacation in Colorado, and while I had planned on fly fishing (caught six my first time out, not bad I thought) I had not planned on going deer hunting.  A 2017 Toyota Highlander is … [Read more...]