Anytime I find myself with no electricity—no working AC or hairdryer or microwave or fridge—I call that a catastrophic event. Some other people call that “camping.” Same thing, right? My friends—many of you—know that I’m an extremely indoorsy kind of gal. My spirit animal is a Snuggie. Someone once told me that enjoying the outdoors is really about having the right tools. Like maybe a Swiss Army knife. I should make it clear here that if a Swiss Army knife would ever be wasted on … [Read more...]
How Much Brain Should I Use?
What? It’s a myth? I’m sad to hear that. Because I sort of liked the idea that we humans only use 10% of our brains. I thought I could volunteer to be a case study for the research even. Because I think most of the time I use much less than that. On the other hand, it was a bit frustrating to think about 90% of brain function remaining virtually untapped. What a waste. All those brain cells. Just sitting there with nothing to do. I still get a little nervous about learning new things. … [Read more...]
John Yeats: Back to our knees
Recurring medical developments with my precious wife, Sharon, have motivated me to rediscover a pattern of finding my knees in prayer. When you face those challenges in life that touch the deep places in your heart, you know that all of your personal creativity, intelligence and ability are completely inadequate to fix whatever you are facing. You fall to your knees with arms raised in helpless submission and with many tears you cry out to the Lord. Desperation is when you have exhausted … [Read more...]
This could be the year
In a most passionate way, Dr. Ronnie Floyd is convening Southern Baptists to seek the Lord for revival and spiritual awakening. The urgency of the hour is evident to anyone who cares about life and liberty. The entire agenda of the SBC Annual Meeting is new. We cannot do business as usual. While there is business to do, the need of the hour is what happens starting Tuesday evening when Dr. Floyd and several other key leaders call God’s people to repentance and prayer. Authentic revival … [Read more...]
Perspective Lenses
I was born with a special condition shared by many men (like 1 out of 100). It is technically called green-red dichromatic vision or color blindness. My parents were somewhat familiar with the condition because of my mom's brothers. However, very early in my preschool days, I would bring home from church my own Crayon landscape pictures that celebrated God's creation. I was so proud of my artistic abilities and mom would affirm my accomplishments by displaying them in the kitchen. Only … [Read more...]
What goes around, comes around
All a man’s ways seem right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the motives. Proverbs 16:2 HCSV On more than one occasion, I have participated in a purge of my library. There are just some books I can’t afford to keep around anymore. From my perspective, they aren’t classics and the information is attainable online. In that process, I came across several books that were published over 40 years ago by Broadman Press, the publishing arm of the Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay). … [Read more...]
Let’s love like the best spray-on orbit
I can always tell when we’re at the beginning of a new season. Not by a wanky knee or Granny’s weather beetle. Nothing like that. No, I can tell by the sudden need to refigure the frizz to hair-product ratio. Time to check out the atmos-hair-ic condition. Percent relative humidity times the circumference of your head, divided by the barometric pressure, times the wind velocity, then multiplied again by how important it is for you to look good for a meeting. Most days when I’m breaking in a … [Read more...]
Where’s the Remote?
Oh, the things we do to keep from having to get up off the sofa. “Do you have the remote?” “No. You had it last.” “You sure you don’t have it? Get up.” I’m not sure why there are places in the deepest recesses of the couch where the remote becomes completely invisible. There must be an entrance into some kind of parallel TV universe in there. Incidentally, the first time I heard they were making a “universal remote,” I thought we finally had something that would help with the … [Read more...]
8 elements leading to community-wide revival
“Jesus Freak” is a label that suits me well. I was part of the Jesus Movement in the 1970s. Our Baptist church’s youth group conducted a weekly prayer meeting that attracted many lost kids and youth groups from several other churches. Keep in mind the setting: small town, rampant drugs and alcohol, over half of the freshman classes never graduated high school, unchurched families moved in with a new manufacturing plant, stagnant churches, perfunctory Bible teaching, and few if any teens … [Read more...]
Living life in the fast-food lane
I’d like to squelch the rumor circulating the St. Louis area that if my husband wants to hide something from me, he puts it in the oven. Totally untrue. Because my husband would never hide anything from me. Maybe I mentioned before that a friend once told me I should stop the pretense and just get rid of the stove altogether. Of course, I told her that would be deranged. “De-ranged”? Get it? I know it’s not right, but I still so often relish life in the fast food lane. Relish it, mustard … [Read more...]
Cultivating financial faithfulness
As a preparation for a meeting in Nashville next week with the SBC Executive Committee, I was reminded about the need to train generations with faithful giving patterns. The sustainability of Southern Baptist ministries throughout this nation and the world depend significantly on our passion to make fully devoted followers of Christ who understand the importance of Jesus being Lord of all, including our finances. A couple of years ago, I wrote the following article to accentuate the … [Read more...]
Seven keys to keeping clean
Health departments are serious about people washing their hands. It is not uncommon for Sharon and I to be away from home speaking at churches and sharing with Missouri Baptists. Every place we go, the facilities are marked with signs that encourage washing hands. Washing our hands is good hygiene. As followers of Christ, we also need to experience the washing of our hearts. Life is filled with plenty of moral distractions and intellectual traps that lure us away from a pure heart. Even … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- …
- 29
- Next Page »