Recently and on behalf of Mission Resource, I joined a business networking group that meets weekly here in Columbus. It is a chapter of Business Networking International. It’s a pretty serious commitment: A 7:00 am meeting every Tuesday (you are only allowed to miss 3 every 6 months) and, every week, a goal of one hour of continuing business education and a personal meeting with another member.  Plus, at every meeting I have to get up and give a 30 second commercial for Mission Resource and report on whether or not I have kept the education and 1-to-1 meeting commitments.…

A much-too-early alarm. Last minute packing and loading the minivan. Later start than expected. Too many traffic slow downs. Getting rerouted by GPS. A longer-than-necessary lunch stop. Rain and more traffic. A 9-and-a-half-hour trip in theory becomes a 12-hour trip in reality. But 3 of our 4 kids are under the same roof with us tonight in a cozy little Airbnb in Columbus, Georgia, and all is well with the world.

We tend to assume the worst about people who sin against us.  “I know exactly why he did what he did.”  “She knew how much she would hurt me when she plunged the knife in, and then she turned it … on purpose.” “They did  that just to make me mad!”  But are we mind readers? And did the one who sinned against us think through and plan every aspect of their words and actions for maximum harm against us?  If we step back and look at the situation objectively, wouldn’t it be closer to say that person wasn’t thinking…

When you experience conviction from the Holy Spirit, it might come out of the blue as you are walking down the street, but more often than not it will manifest during one of two activities: reading the Bible or listening to a sermon.  Of the two, I would rather experience that conviction while reading the Bible on my own. For one thing, reading the Bible can happen at any hour, giving the Spirit a wider time frame for action, not limiting him to a 25 minute period on Sunday mornings. Secondly, if God hits you upside the head while you…

I have been praying the Lord’s Prayer daily for over 3 months now. Not just reciting it, but meditating on each line as a framework for that day’s spontaneous prayer. There is so much to consider in regard to each line, but I go with the flow and see which line floats to the top on any particular day.   Honestly, it is one of the most powerful prayer habits that I have ever developed. 

I bought a secular book the other day about the science behind habit formation, thinking it would be useful for my dissertation. I had never heard of the author but his website said the book had sold 500,000 copies since it was first published in 2013. In the publishing world, that is a phenomenal number. It can be hard to interpret the book market statistics because there are lots of moving parts, but it seems safe to say the majority of books published each year sell less than 1,000 copies each.  Only 2% sell more than 50,000. So, half a…