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I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful. 2 Timothy 4:7 Last night I got to see and hear Tim Tebow. As a Gator fan, he is one of my heroes. As a Christian, he is one of my heroes. His humble, sincere love for people and Jesus comes through in person. It was inspiring to listen to him. The crowd was pretty young and he was well received. His message also affected me as an older guy. He talked about growing up with parents who taught him to follow his passion. In life, we too often become satisfied with what works and let our passions fall by the way side. If we find a job that pays the bills, that’s a good thing. Setting aside what really moves and motivates us is sad. I have a passion that I haven’t really pursued. I am never happier or feel more in the will of God than when I teach or preach. I get to do so occasionally, but not enough. Tim motivated me to seek more opportunities to pursue this passion. I am committed to do so. Tim also talked about […]

I love my church. My church doesn’t seat more than a thousand. There are no giant screen televisions up front. In fact, you can see really well from every seat. We don’t have camera men running around providing close up shots for the giant screens. We don’t have speakers that can be heard a mile away. We have no coffee shop. We sometimes put a pot of coffee on before church and that pretty much takes care of everybody who needs some caffeine. I don’t know the name of every person at my church, but with a little effort I could. If I want to talk to my pastor I can get him on the phone anytime or I can invite him to coffee or lunch. It someone is in the hospital, our pastor is there. At my church there are always folks there a lot older than me. That wouldn’t be true in many churches. I love my church. I understand that folks that have giant screens, giant auditoriums, really loud music, and coffee shops also really love their churches. That’s why Jesus is so great. He doesn’t need cookie cutter churches. Churches are often vastly different, but if […]

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Cor. 5:21 Good Friday is strangely celebrated. Some observe it as a day of prayer and fasting. In some traditions, there are processions. Here in south Louisiana, more crawfish is consumed on Good Friday than on any other day. In some places it’s a holiday, but not everywhere. Considering what the day commemorates, it’s strange that it’s called “Good.” I think the problem is that almost everyone is uncomfortable with the brutal death of what nearly everyone would agree was a good man. For those who consider Him a prophet or, as we do, the Son of God, it is incomprehensible. Why would God require such a sacrifice of his Son? Why would such extreme suffering be required? Wouldn’t a simple painless death be enough? How could anyone be willing to accept such suffering and death for others? Even the strongest Christians and the most learned theologians struggle to answer these questions. The answer is usually framed in terms of love. Face it, we don’t understand that kind of love. So how do we handle […]

I had a really productive day yesterday. I had cryosurgery at 8:20 in the morning. Before you send me  flowers or plan providing meals during my recovery period, you should perhaps know that my cryosurgery consisted of freezing some “pre-cancerous” lesions on my bald head. It took about 3 minutes and was painless. I just wanted to use the word, “Cryosurgery.” I also wanted to use “pre-cancerous.” It sounds much more significant than “bumps.” I also cleared up the staircase to my office as a first step in office reorganization. I babysat the cable guy while he replaced my cable box. I had an hour-long and very satisfying conversation with an important client. I did lots of office paperwork. I helped Rosemary in the garden. I helped Tyler work on a toilet at Martha’s. This was mainly just holding the flashlight and paying for parts. I also managed to watch part of, and listen to part of, the UL softball team’s exciting one run win over McNeese. It helps that I woke up at 3 a.m. The Lord woke me with a clear direction that I should research the beginning of my blogging experience. It turns out in June […]

15 Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. 16 They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. “Teacher,” they said, “we know that you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are.17 Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” 18 But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? 19 Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, 20 and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” 22 When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away. Matthew 22 I hate April 15. I think I have justification. Each year on that date I write by far the largest check of the year, made out to people I don’t trust so they can do things I don’t believe in.  I know that the government is “necessary” and does […]

I have blogged since December 2009. The first post was a group of Christmas pictures from that year.  Sometime before that, I can’t seem to discover when, I started sending daily devotionals to my church prayer list. With my pastor’s encouragement, it grew from there. I don’t have a ton of followers. I now send my post through Facebook and Twitter as well as the website. Once you throw something into the internet you don’t know where it ends up. My original blogger site has been viewed 208,000 times. The best statistics I can get show that my most popular post was “Do All For the Love of God” posted on June 27, 2o11. It got 1465 page views. I’m not sure why. The posts have been viewed all over the world. I don’t give these facts to try to prove that the posts are all that great. I really want you to see that if you put something out there, it can really get around. So be careful what you post. You can make a difference. Someone is listening. I do it because I get a lot out of it.  For me, blogging is a Christian thing. I recognize […]

A couple of days ago I was working inside while my wife was working in the garden. I recognized her voice and then thought I heard a second voice. I wondered who was visiting but it turned out my wife was talking to herself.  I guess we do that when we think no one is listening. I was surprised that I mistook her voice for that of someone else. We have been  married for over forty years and I can pick out her voice, even her cough, in a crowded store.  It caused me to give some thought on the difficulties we have hearing the voice of God. Sometimes He must feel like He just talking to himself. Of course, we have to know the voice. As children of God know that God has something to say to us. We do need some practice to recognize that voice in the crowd of noises that fill our lives. My wife bought me a great set of ear buds for Christmas. These are clearly the nicest I have ever seen. I have seen plenty. Some folks say that I always have a pair stuck in my ears. Now “always” is a pretty strong […]

Over the past few years I’ve changed from being a news junkie to being a sports junkie. I used to have a television news channel on all day when at home. I would have a news channel on the radio while in my truck. Even while working, Fox News so I could be advised when something happened. This eventually wore me down. The news was never good. The good guys never won. After a while, it was no longer possible to tell the good guys from the bad guys. In my new sports junkie world, I am more likely to have one of the ESPN channels on the television and a sports channel on the radio.  One of the programs I listen to each day ends with this tag line: “May the good guys and the bad guys both get exactly what they deserve.” That seems right. What’s great about it is that I get to decide who the good guys and the bad guys are. There isn’t some vague morality line that separates the two. The good guys are the teams that I support. The bad guys are everyone else. I am somewhat able to keep up the fantasy […]