-
Releasing Expectations
Snowflakes fall silently from the sky as bright-eyed little faces peer out frost-covered windows. Best friends gather around a candlelit table, dishes clanking, laughter wafting in the air. Family members from far away places knock at your door, excitement erupting into hugs and hellos the moment you welcome them inside. An ideal Christmas is easy to imagine. But it’s hard to live out. Despite what commercials portray and Facebook depicts, life’s celebrations are often far from perfect. Our children misbehave at the worst possible moment. Our plans get altered at the last minute. Our family’s disfunction erupts at the table. If there’s anything I’m learning this Christmas season, it’s to…
-
April Fool’s Day
April 1st is commonly known in the United States as April Fool’s Day and is a day of practical jokes. The joke player typically reveals his or her joke by saying “April Fools!”[1] Pranks are played on peers, family, co-workers, and the public (for instance the Spaghetti Harvest in Switzerland[2]).[3] Pranks can involve an errand for an absurd item like a left handed screw driver, snipes, snarks, or frog whiskers.[4] Nancy McEntire, a folklorist, observes that the victim needs to be laughing, too, for the prank to have worked.[5] Other countries celebrate this day with jokes and pranks as well such as France where a paper fish may be taped…
-
Clown Dog! The Gift of Laughter
Serendipity is the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. I think back to some of the best times in our family or with friends and they were and always will be, shared times of laughter. When my youngest son was about eight years old, he curled up in my daughter’s chair, before she went to bed. He took her stuffed animals that she had arranged in her chair and stacked them back on top of himself. He was stealth, like a little ninja. He did it so quickly before she went to bed that no one knew. Before I walked in to…
-
Offering the Gospel to This Generation
Are high school students interested in the Gospel? They may not think they are, but underneath the outward façade when compelled to consider, the answer is YES! After spending a week, as an adult guests, in the highly charged atmosphere of a Young Life camp in the mountains of Colorado – we saw firsthand the hard fought ground leaders had plowed for a year before bringing their group of kids to camp yield a positive response to the claims of Christ. Arriving on 7 different busses 450 high school students from 4 different states were saturated for a week in an atmosphere of fun, acceptance, laughter, being lead, music, lively…
-
The “Ice Bucket Challenge” and the Bible
I love it when popular culture validates the truth of God’s own word. Right now the world around us is on fire; from riots in Ferguson to beheadings in Iraq to war between Israel and Palestine, and throw in a 6.0 Earthquake in Northern California. If you want a guaranteed headache, spend too much time watching the nightly news. Then sweeping the social media scene along comes the “ice bucket challenge.” Perhaps you’ve already soaked your head for the cause of research for ALS. Folks from every walk of life have joined the fun including our just past President, George W. Bush. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJaDBzaAPAc He concludes his challenge by inviting someone…
