Author: Nick

My Thanksgiving was perfect. I realized that this morning after carefully reviewing the Black Friday ads and concluding there was no deal great enough for me to go out there and face the teeming mob. I am truly blessed.  It really was a great Thanksgiving. My immediate family were all present. We thanked God for each other. Ate too much great food. Laughed and hugged.  We kicked off our Christmas season by pulling names and deciding we would play dirty Santa this year with each of us tasked to purchase a “as seen on TV” gag gift as well.   There was an appropriate amount of emotion as Kaydence left to meet her dad and spend time with him. If the truth be known, there were tear drops in my corn bread dressing.   It was a bit disturbing to see how many spent this day for thanks waiting in line for Black Friday sales. I realize that the day after Thanksgiving has been the traditional kick off for Christmas shopping. It always seemed too early for me. I like shopping on Christmas Eve.  But the demons of commercialism have gone too far. Thanksgiving Day is under assault. Now stores are […]

Thanksgiving is an action word. Thankfulness and gratitude are attitudes; but Thanksgiving requires doing something. The Pilgrims didn’t just feel gratitude to the helpful Indians. They had them over for lunch.  You, however, correctly remind me that Thanksgiving is about thanking God. Consider that God is the one creature who doesn’t need us to take action in thanksgiving. He, like no other, knows our thoughts and appreciates our thankfulness unspoken.  So why all the Thanksgiving? Because we need it. We need to express our thankfulness, because we forget the many reasons we have to be thankful. Like a child at Christmas, we need to make a list and check it twice. Yesterday I published just a partial list of reasons to be thankful. A list that was so well said that I borrowed it from the folks at Vision Forum Ministries.  With just a little effort you can come up with many more. I believe there is even a greater reason for the action of Thanksgiving. We are surrounded by people that need to know that we are thankful for them. We stupidly persist in our belief that the ones we love and appreciate know all about our love […]

Stop and Thank God from the Bottom of Your Heart and the Depths of Your Soul O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the deep places of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. The sea is his, and he made it: and his hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. —Psalm 95:1-6 If you were to spend every waking moment of every day for the rest of your life noting God’s goodness, you would never begin to chronicle all the things for which you should thank the Lord. His blessings are innumerable. But on this day, take time to chronicle much. Get very specific. Thank the Lord for all things. Thank him for your provision, and the protection He has given to you all year. Thank Him for the pains and sorrows that […]

Do you find yourself doubting your faith? Come on. Admit it. Even the most famous Christians had  moments, even long periods of doubt. It’s common, but it can be minimized.  Doubt is a weapon of the enemy. Sharing is our counter-weapon. I remember as a new Christian shuddering at the mere use of the word, sharing. My wife and her closest Christian friend used it often. They would “share.” Sounded awful. It reeked of vulnerability and deep secrets and girly stuff. Yet now, years later, it’s the reason I love Kairos and prayer and share groups. What Satan had made sound awful has become precious. Christians are called to live in community. Not just in close physical contact, but in intimate relationship. We know, intellectually, that in our weakness, Christ is strong. But if we remain isolated we fear weakness. We believe that we are alone in our weakness, so we deny it. “Sharing” is the honest admission of our weaknesses. In that sharing comes the realization, that we are all weak and that our only strength is in Him. Our common weakness in self and strength in Him bind us together.  Imagine yourself in prison, where no one […]

Having Shod Your Feet With the Preparation of the Gospel of Peace. Ephesians 6:15 I don’t know why some Christians think they are fit for battle when there is no peace in their hearts. How can you tell others “good news” when you haven’t really accepted how good the news really is? We have to have a firm grasp of the gospel before we can share it with anyone else. If Satan can plant doubt about the gospel, then our effectiveness in sharing it is shattered. It’s the Gospel of Peace. The Good News is that God has made Peace possible between Himself and Man. Jesus is that Peace. Yet so many, who called themselves Christian, don’t live in Peace. There minds are full of questions, not peace. They have fallen prey to the “different gospel” that Paul addressed in Galatians: 6 I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to […]

Anyone who has seen Casey this week knows something is up. He’s got this silly smile on his face. He keeps singing this praise song. He’s getting “Amens” from the guys at work. If you ask him, he’ll tell you. He spent last weekend at Kairos. Lots of guys have done that. All are touched, but only a handful are moved in a life-changing way, a way that changes many lives. That’s Casey. His life will never be the same and some others will also be better.  I know. Been there done that. I have a mixture of exhilaration, envy, and anxiety. Casey now faces a huge task. People want to know what happened but that’s not easy to convey. Somethings have to be experienced. Today at church Casey will be asked to testify about his weekend. I’ll be sitting in the back like a nervous manager with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. I will know what he’s saying. The names will conjure up real faces. The stories will remind of revealed hurts and of lonely years behind bars. It will be great to recall smiles from frowns and peace from fear. I will have to […]

The irony has not escaped me that a man who writes a blog with the word “Walk” in it, has only been able to walk with the assistance of a cane for over eight months. I don’t understand this period in my life any more than I understood the time, a few years ago, when my knee was cured while others I love and admire required surgery. I was listening to Joyce Myers last night before falling a sleep. I love that gal. I guess because we both have a mouth on us. She was lecturing people like me about moving on in your circumstances. Control your circumstances. Don’t let them control you. My wise pastor summed it up when my injured back piled on a bad knee, “You’re under attack.” I hope I’m under attack because I’m a threat to the enemy and not because the attack has effectively killed my witness. Good topic for another day. For today, just remember that a man under attack is dangerous so prepare to duck. Today I am compelled to discuss the things people say to a man with a cane? Now when someone first has a cane, it’s appropriate to […]

This morning I am riding to Angola for a day long seminar with the residents who completed the Kairos weekend. Of the 40 something team members, about 10 of us have decided to go back. It’s not part of the original commitment. To go or not is a decision. There are lots of important things for me to do here and to decide to stay in town today would not necessarily have been a bad choice, just a different one. Because of the choice I made, my life will be different. Maybe just a tiny bit, but different. Life is a series of choices. Nothing very deep there, but we need to think about that occasionally. If we could look back on our lives we would see a complex of connecting forks in the road. At any place we could have gone left, instead of right, and our lives would have been different. When we consider, and fervently believe, that God has a plan for our lives, we must acknowledge that He is a wonderfully complex God. He certainly has a lot of options to consider. The blessing is that no matter how many lefts, that should have been rights, God […]