Category: 2017 Column

One of my favorite passages of Scripture to read at baby dedications is Psalm 128. “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.” Maybe there’s a woman reading right now who bristles at the thought of being compared to vegetation, but believe … Continue reading Grandchildren are the crown of the aged

I remember those early Saturday mornings in the summertime when the kids were little and we were all loaded up in the car and headed to Holden for a week of vacation. You couldn’t do much more to increase my joy at that moment. But if the kids wanted to just send me over the … Continue reading Go ahead and move to Humility

“I want to hear that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the sake of the gospel.” This encouragement from Paul is a great word picture of the church of Jesus Christ. We stand firm, and we stand together in one spirit. There are no people more unified … Continue reading You’re not in this alone

Paul stated a colossal truth when he wrote, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Most Christians who have been around the Bible for even a short time have heard it or seen it. I remember as a teenager, when God got hold of me and several other young people … Continue reading To live is Christ; to die is gain

Do you know what happened after Jim Elliott and four other missionaries were speared to death in Ecuador in 1956? Thousands of young people were emboldened to take the Gospel to the mission field. The suffering and the sacrifice of Christians around the world today should give us courage to put the Gospel first. It’s … Continue reading Put the gospel first

There’s a great story in Greg McKeown’s book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Nora Ephron, the late screenwriter known best for her works that included the movies “Sleepless in Seattle” and “When Harry Met Sally,” said that what helped her the most in learning to capture the essence of a story was her high … Continue reading See what really matters