Another major take away from 2023: Author David Allen says, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”  After nearly three years of daily writing, I can attest to this truth.  Like you, I often have profound insights concerning life, work, faith, or relationships while in the shower.  How often do they remain past stepping onto the rug to grab a towel? Holding ideas requires writing them down. Now that I am daily on the lookout for writing material, I do a better job of capturing my thoughts and ideas – so I can get some use out of them.…

Another significant lesson from 2023: It has become clear to me this past year (and I have written about it several times here) that we as Christians are deeply confused about what is involved in “believing in Jesus”.  Mere mental assent to propositional truths – “God is three persons in one”, “Jesus was like us in every way but was without sin”, “Regeneration precedes faith”*, etc. – is not what Scripture means by “believe”.  We can argue doctrine all day long, but orthodox doctrinal statements do not save anyone. Belief IN JESUS is at the core of salvation and it…

“Be willing to scrape away those old assumptions, to embrace new beliefs, to feel new ideas, and to lean into being wrong about things.” – Sahil Bloom One of the ideas I have latched onto this past year has been “The Beginner’s Mind”. To learn anything new as an adult, it is not only useful – it is essential.  It involves embracing uncertainty. (And that might be the hardest part.)  We like certainty and we like being sure of our own understandings of reality. If I find myself debating someone about a topic, it is quite obvious that “I am right…

Over the last several years, I have grown ever fonder of the day after Christmas. All the stress of Christmas preparation has passed, everyone is content with their new stuff, and it’s a good excuse to sleep in and be lazy. But the best part of December 26th is that I can now officially shift my attention to preparing for the new year. If I were a cooler guy, you might think I am referring to planning a spectacular New Year’s Eve party.  But not me – I am talking about reviewing the past year and then setting goals and…

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I am excited – I get to preach in the morning and then lead an evening candlelight service. While I tend to be a bit Grinchy about Christmas itself (I am working on this!), I somehow always forget how much I love Christmas Eve.  Especially the evening church service.  By then – God willing – most of the hustle and stress are finished. Or at least the end is in sight.  And there is an hour of quiet reflection. Carols are sung, candles are lit, and the most familiar sacred texts are heard once again. …

The Gospel of Luke opens with three visitations from angels – first to Zechariah, the second to Mary, and the third to the shepherds. These visitations have at least three things in common with each other: 1. The human reaction is fear.      -Zechariah was “startled and gripped with fear”. (1:12)     -Mary was “greatly troubled”. (1:29)     -The shepherds “were terrified”. (2:9) 2. The angel leads with “Do not be afraid”.  3. The gist of the angel’s message each time is: “You have found favor with God.” This is Luke’s record of the first individuals to…

Maybe it’s a combination of end-of-year musings with the reality of now being in my mid-50s, but today I was thinking about how short history is. When I was younger, I thought 2,000 years was a super long time – in fact, a suspiciously long time – to pass without seeing Jesus’ Second Coming. Nowadays, two thousand years seems quite a bit shorter. Just as a thought experiment this morning I did some math and realized it would be possible to have only 2 handshakes separating me from George Washington.  Say Washington shook the hand of a 3-year-old boy even…