The Daily Memo

James Cameron, director of the movie Titanic, describes the Titanic as a ‘metaphor’ of life: ‘We are all living on… Titanic.’ When the Titanic set sail in 1912, it was declared to be ‘unsinkable’ because it was constructed using a new technology. The ship’s hull was divided into sixteen watertight compartments. Up to four of these compartments could be damaged or even flooded, and still the ship would float. Tragically, the…

We find ourselves living in a time when the common question is not “Who are your friends?” but “How many friends do you have?” The focus is on numbers, not names. This makes sense in our social media obsessed world where it is possible to have hundreds, even thousands of friends. Or at least that’s the word we use when describing these people although many we’ve never met in person and some we could possibly pass by in a crowd and not.…

Yesterday was a gorgeous day here in the Northeast. We have another on tap today. 82, no humidity, bright sunshine, birds chirping, and our back patio set up for a little R n’ R. I love this time of year. The newness of life all around us. The only downside is cutting the grass. But, with my favorite podcast and Spotify playlist cued up, I pulled through just fine. We recently celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus. The most significant event in the history of…

Have you ever fallen asleep on a long trip? Jesus did. Luke tells us that one time Jesus and the disciples got on a boat to reach the other side of a lake, and Jesus fell asleep. The next thing the disciples knew, they were engulfed in a storm, and the one person powerful enough to protect them was blissfully unaware. The disciples panicked and woke Him. Jesus has promised to give us His peace (John 14:27)—this is the very same peace that enabled Him to sleep through…

Melchizedek appears from nowhere in Genesis and we know nothing about what happens to him afterwards. He foreshadowed Jesus: ‘Resembling the Son of God, he continues to be a priest without interruption and without successor’ (Hebrews 7:3, AMP). The writer demonstrates the superiority of Jesus (Melchizedek’s priesthood) to that of any other priest (of Levi) (verses 1 to 10). Jesus, a priest in the order of Melchizedek, is a righteous king of peace. Melchizedek&rsquo…

When I hear the word, retreat, it conjures up a negative connotation. It feels like surrendering or reversing course due to some error in judgment. Webster’s first way of defining retreat is an act or process of withdrawing especially from what is difficult, dangerous, or disagreeable. You see, doesn’t that seem a little cowardly? If you read further into Webster’s explanation of what it means to retreat, you’ll find this: a period of group…

Do you remember Top Gun: Maverick’s climactic scene? As Maverick flew away from enemy territory, his F-14 clipped the roof of a building and lost its front landing gear. With the odds stacked against him, Maverick, and his co-pilot Rooster, engaged in an epic dogfight with two enemy jets. After some heart-stopping maneuvers, Maverick and Rooster managed to take out one of the jets, but the other one seemed to be chasing him down with no escape in sight. Maverick knew…

I use WAZE, on my iPhone, to navigate the road ahead any time I leave town. With a large army of fans, it provides real-time traffic updates with fun and imaginative voice prompts. My latest prompter is Christina Aguilera. My favorite warning is, “Hazard reported ahead, life is full of obstacles it’s how we overcome them that matters”. It seems like hazards in life are an everyday occurrence. Some are physical, some are emotional, many are spiritual. It&rsquo…

"Perhaps no event in the life of Jesus more powerfully demonstrates the radical nature of his dependence on God and his obedience to God’s will than the prayer he offered up in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. Jesus, like everyone else living during the Roman Empire, knew full well the brutality that was execution by crucifixion. The drawn-out process would be utterly humiliating and excruciating. Jesus knew that he would feel, as any…