Nick’s Walk

Beginning on Sunday I will be participating in a Kairos weekend at Angola. You can learn about the ministry here.  We could use some prayer partners. We try to have someone praying for the ministry in ten-minute increments throughout the retreat. You can learn about that here.  If you would like to sign up to pray in one or more time slots, you can do that here. Your support is greatly appreciated. Nick

I recently saw a post on Facebook in which the writer identified himself as Christian and Gay. I was saddened by the brutal comments which in essence claimed inconsistency in those labels. Some folks could use a refresher course on identifying as His by our love and being without sin before casting stones. They are minimizing grace. Lots of sins are identified in scripture. Jesus summarized it positively: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. Anything else is sin. Loving is a full-time job leaving us little time for sin or judgment.  Sin is failing to mirror the perfection of Jesus.  As I’ve aged, I discovered things I never considered sin, really are. My sadness with the post arises from my experience of grace. Others may have come to this point in their spiritual lives by different paths. This is mine. Grace convicts. At some point, I became convicted that I was a sinner in need of salvation. My first contact with grace. The encounter with the reality of my depravity is fundamental to what comes next. […]

Be It Resolved Hard to believe that 2017 is nearly over. It’s about time to refocus and renew with resolutions. I don’t have a great history with resolutions, but I have learned what it makes a great resolution. Revolutionary.  There is no use making a resolution if it’s not going to change life for the better. Even better if it is of eternal significance. Specific. In the past, I have erred by being too general with my resolutions. Losing weight, getting more exercise, spending more time with family are all great ideas. They are just too general to guide us to life changes. Doable.  It’s hard enough to stick to resolutions. We set ourselves up for failure if we are unrealistic. Here are three simple resolutions I am considering for 2018. Kiss or hug each day.  A kid once pointed out to me that the unique thing about shrimp is that they “got no lips.” Lips have only one function, to allow us to kiss. They may serve some small function in speech or eating, but they are the reason we can kiss. Same thing with arms. They are as long as they are so that we can effectively […]

It’s a Blue Christmas this year. My wife was disabled for a while from hip pain. That made Christmas prep tough. We decided not to have Christmas at our house this year, so the tree and trimmings stayed in storage. I never seemed to find the time or spirit to do Christmas cards. I passed on our yearly family reunion on the weakest of excuses. We used to enjoy shopping trips for presents, now we just park ourselves in front of our laptops and explore Amazon. That doesn’t stir up a lot of nostalgia.  Pretty blue. Not as blue as years in which we lost family members. The first Christmas after a death in the family is deeply blue. Some churches have Blue Christmas services aimed at those mourning and suffering during the holidays.  It’s not that our lives haven’t been good there’s just something about Christmas this year. The red, green and gold and snowy white doesn’t seem right. It’s a Blue Christmas. Upon further thought, perhaps Blue is the proper color of Christmas. Red and green are colors of celebration and partying. You celebrate the completion of a thing. That’s not Christmas. Christmas is more a promise and […]

 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Acts 4 Seems to me that the church spends lots of time “waiting on the Lord.” What are we waiting for? We are waiting for a healing, improvement in our finances, retirement, blessings. In the early church, the disciples were thrown in jail for speaking the word. They didn’t retreat to the upper room to “wait.” Instead, they prayed for enablement to “speak your word with great boldness.” They had been bold enough to end up in jail, yet they sought more boldness. They couldn’t shut up about their experience with Jesus.  We complain about the marginalization of Christians, “persecution,” the commercialization of Christmas, the secularizing of society. We are impatient with God for not doing something, when we are failing to do what we were commanded to: speak the word with boldness. The problems we are experiencing in this world are a direct result of our failure to carry out the great commission. As Christians, we are “marginalized” because we fail to speak and act with conviction. We don’t live lives of love, that will make it clear to the world that […]

Scripture has much to say about darkness and light. Darkness is bad and light is good. There seems to be a sense that darkness in on the increase and the light is not to be found. Surely this is more a function of our lack of focus.  I think it is grounded on our inability to stay focused in the present. The past is full of hurts and sins, inflicted on others, on us by others,  and self-inflicted. The future seems like a dark room full of monsters hiding in the shadows. We have learned to fear the darkness, where the unknown lurks, whether it be in dark rooms or in an uncertain future.  We have no control over past or future. We can only take action in the present.  Jesus showed us the way when he said, “Follow me.” To follow him, we have to turn our back on the past and go step-by-step into the future, looking no further than the next step. To the past, we need to apply forgiveness and forgetfulness. The future requires our trust and hope. These are only possible for the born-again, following Jesus.  Only through the new birth are we able […]

“People will deliver you up to tribulation and will kill you, and you will be objects of hatred by all the nations on account of my name.”—MATTHEW 24:9. I don’t feel the hate. That may be a problem. If the consequence of being a follower of Jesus is to be an “object of hate.” I want to be hated. Don’t get me wrong. I can feel the growing “hate” of Christians in general. I don’t think that’s enough. I think the hate has to be personal. It has to be based on me, what I believe, and more importantly what I do. What did Jesus do to be hated?  If I can identify what Jesus did to be hated, maybe I can adjust my behavior to earn some hate. He Called Out Empty Religion It seems that Pharisees really got steamed when Jesus called out their empty religion. These guys were really good at religion. They carried the law out to ridiculous extremes. They loved their religion. They relished ceremony. They were comfortable hanging out in the temple. They could quote the law.  They remind me of some folks today. I know people who are at church every time […]

LSU fans were hoping for a miracle on Saturday against Alabama. It didn’t happen. It’s important, however, to believe in miracles. It’s why I think sport is so great. It’s possible for a 21 point underdog to win a game. Teams that have never won Superbowls or World Series, do sometimes make it. Although LSU didn’t pull the miracle Saturday. Others did. For example, unranked Iowa trounced number 6 Ohio State 55 to 24. “Miracles” happen in sports. We need to hold on to the hope of the miraculous in our daily lives. It’s sad if we live with no vision or possibility beyond the very likely and practical. Our day-to-day routine may seem endless and certain, but wonderful changes and new directions are always possible. Bleak health or financial outlooks don’t have to be the only certain possibilities.  A few years ago a study of 95-year-olds found their biggest regrets were lack of: Reflection. Risk Permanent impact. I think all three are related to our view of the miraculous.  As to reflection, if we believe in the miraculous, we see that what we can touch and feel, that which seems real isn’t all. Possibilities extend beyond what we perceive. […]