The Reality of Our Present World

I was reading an article written by an acquaintance of mine. He makes a great point. God-given creativity doesn’t rely on past formulas or man-made rules. Yet there’s something in us that wants consistent, guaranteed results. And if there’s a proven shortcut that promises to get us there even faster, all the better. Except that’s not how God designed the process to work. I find myself looking for shortcuts to results that can only come over time.…

“The tent is tired!” Those were the words of my friend Paul, who pastors a church in Nairobi, Kenya. Since 2015, the congregation has worshiped in a tentlike structure. Now, Paul writes, “Our tent is worn out and it is leaking when it rains.” My friend’s words about their tent’s structural weaknesses remind us of the apostle Paul’s words regarding the frailty of our human existence. “Outwardly we are wasting away . . . . While…

"The lion shall lay down with the lamb." Although Jesus is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God (Revelation 5), this phrase does not appear in the Bible. Isaiah 11:6 says, "And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them." Similarly, Isaiah 65:25 reads, "The wolf and the lamb will graze together and the lion will…

"Money is the root of all evil." This is a common misconception with an easy fix. 1 Timothy 6:10 actually says, "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil…" Money is not good or bad, and being wealthy is not a sin; Job was wealthy and described as a man who was "blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil" (Job 1:1). Loving money, which in the Greek is "avarice" and implies an emotional affection, is…

"In the last days, you will not be able to know the seasons except by the changing of the leaves." Even a thorough Google search will not reveal the origin of this saying, but it is not found in the Bible. Matthew 24:32-33 uses the budding of leaves heralding the coming of summer as a metaphor for the signs that Christ will return. But nowhere does the Bible mention that seasons will be so altered that only the changing leaves will identify them. "Hate the,…

As believers, we know we are to study the Bible, memorize it, and obey it. But does the Bible say what we think it says? The truth is, there are several phrases that sound like they come from the Bible, but do not. Here are a couple of them. "God helps those who help themselves." The earliest recording of this saying is actually from Aesop’s fable "Hercules and the Waggoner." A man’s wagon got stuck in a muddy road, and he prayed for Hercules…

I was listening to a podcast today by Alan Weiss who invited a guest to join him. In Steven Gaffney’s book “Just Be Honest: Authentic Communication Strategies that Get Results and Last a Lifetime,” he emphasizes the fact that honesty is still not only the best policy; it’s the easiest and most effective way to communicate.  He goes on to say that you can use honesty as a tool to get immediate and dramatic results with anyone,…

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…

A mentor of mine just released a book entitled Sentient Strategy – How to Create Market-Dominating Strategies in Turbulent Economies. In it he states that we are facing a “new reality”, and that reality is the need for agile strategic decisions and pragmatic views of the future. If you’re paying attention at all, you realize the world’s business and economies have been turned on their heads subsequent to COVID and the implications are.…