In my column in yesterday's Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette (7/5), I wrote about a topic near and dear to my heart ... vulnerability, brokenness and accepting our limitations... Thirty years ago in the back of a coffee shop where I hung out with my coffee, Bible and journal at 6am, I developed an unexpected relationship with aContinue reading "The door to inner peace often opens when we admit our vulnerability, brokenness & limitations…"

Thanks to an old friend who got me onto this place years ago, I have camped and hiked in the Tetons 7 times with my family.  Quite a place... Indeed, quite a place.

Some days I feel like this thing called life is spinning out of control.  Have you read the Headlines in the New York Times today?  I have ... Whew!  In so many ways, there's just not a lot you can control, especially when it comes to other people. You sure can't control:* Other people's actions* OtherContinue reading "What can I control?"

Social media lit up today with the sad news of the moral failure of Pastor Tullian Tchividjian, the grandson of Billy Graham.Here is the official statement from Corral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, FL.  A good friend of mine asked me how I can continue to work with, counsel and love on pastors withContinue reading "Praying with a godly fear for pastors who fall…"

I like this 2-minute film made by Jeroen Wolf. He took to the streets of Amsterdam and asked people to look into the camera and state their age. It begins with a baby and ends with a woman in her hundredth year.My 82-year-old mom told me the other day that the years are zooming by. Continue reading "100 years in a little more than 2 minutes!"

 Here's my column that appeared today in the June 21st Sunday edition of the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.  I preached this morning at First Presbyterian Church in Champaign, where I combined some thoughts from this column with some ideas I felt the Lord gave me from the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15.  The columnContinue reading "No strikeouts on Father’s Day"

In a great sermon entitled, "God, what do you think about the taking of life?", pastor Rich Nathan from Vineyard Columbus in Columbus, OH, says:  "You are doubly owned by God.  He created you and he bought you with his own blood.  No one owns himself."  Amen!Indeed, we are not our own.  We are calledContinue reading "We are doubly owned!"

A older woman going through a hard time said to me recently, "Well, we know God never gives us more than we can handle.  Right?""Nope," I responded.  "God usually gives us much more than we can handle.  I don't know who started the phrase 'God never gives us more than we can handle,' but IContinue reading "God never gives us more than we can handle? … Really?"