The Reality of Our Present World

Listen During a recent business trip we took by train to New York, a friend and I found ourselves meandering through the maze of humanity in Penn Station looking for a connection to our final destination on Long Island. It was a long day. The alarm went off at 3:30 in the morning to catch an Amtrak train at 5:20 that would eventually get us to Huntington around 11:00. Brilliant, right? While dodging more people in one place than imaginable, we simultaneously had the same.…

Listen If you haven’t heard yet I’d suggest tuning in to what God is doing at Asbury University in Kentucky. Here’s the way Jake Taylor put it on NBC News, “A Christian service at a college chapel in Kentucky has ballooned into a nonstop prayer and worship session that some are calling a "revival" — and people are traveling thousands of miles to take part in it after seeing viral videos on TikTok.” “The first day we had a…

Listen A recent Gallup poll measured public perceptions of the honesty and ethics of various professions. I was a bit taken aback, not by the profession at the top of the list (Nurses), but one that showed up 6th on the list - Clergy. 34% of those surveyed rated clergy as very high or high in honesty and ethics. 58% ranked clergy as average to very low in the trust category. That’s discouraging but telling. The good news is their ranking is not nearly as low as,…

Listen Political polarization has been a national reality for decades. But during 2020, the messy but often productive middle ground all but disappeared. As a result, Americans were pressured to move further right or further left or be left behind. Lines were drawn where lines were deemed unnecessary in the past. Everything became a point of contention. School closings. School openings. Masks. Protests. With the collapse of the middle, nuance left the building. Without,…

Listen I saw a photo recently where a banana was standing in front of a mirror. From the cameras perspective the real banana was beautifully ripe and perfectly yellow, just the way you want it to look before peeling. The banana reflected in the mirror was brown, bruised and battered. The image reflected back to my banana friend looked a whole lot different than the reality of what this inanimate object looked like from mine or anyone else’s perspective. In the…

Listen We’re living in a post-truth era. It’s unsettling. When it comes to news, I’m skeptical. Social media, which is anything but media, is the largest culprit of spreading untruth. Perhaps social opinions would be a better way of describing it. But…. If it’s on the internet, it must be true. Unfortunately, when human beings get involved in anything, the truth gets skewed. Certainly, we all remember “whisper down the lane”. Line…

Listen As an Executive Coach the question I’d often ask clients was, “What’s gone wrong or what’s not working? After all, I’m supposed to help people improve in their business, personal, and spiritual life. Right? I’d go on to say, “pick one thing” and fix it. The steps to a final solution may include a dozen things that need done but pick the one thing that will lead you to the next step and do it. Then pick the next thing.…

Listen One of the most remarkable things about human beings is how resilient we can be. The Primal Drive for Life can accomplish impressive things. Saint John took his suffering and brought forth beauty; Nelson Mandela survived twenty-seven years of imprisonment and brought forth forgiveness. Yet one of the most surprising things about human beings is how all that resilience can evaporate in a moment. One day the resources we have to sustain the Primal Drive for Life simply…

Against the flesh, the traitor within, a warrior uses discipline. We have a two-dimensional version of this now, which we call a "quiet time." But most men have a hard time sustaining any sort of devotional life because it has no vital connection to recovering and protecting their strength; it feels about as important as flossing. But if you saw your life as a great battle and you knew you needed time with God for your very survival, you would do it. Maybe not perfectly&mdash…