Almost 15 years ago, I was a young pastor in my second year of ministry serving at a local church. One day, I was chatting with one of the other pastors who had been serving God for a while. He shared with me a little bit about his struggling spiritual condition at the time. It's an…

I've had to frequently remind myself lately to "go a little slower" in life. It's not because I'm going through a crisis or a health issue. We often encourage overworked or aging family members to adopt a slower pace of life. The reason I'm hoping to go slower in life is…

I spend a lot of time engaging in contemplation. It's not unusual to see me at a coffee shop for a couple of hours with my journal in hand. Or to find me in the middle of my thoughts while sitting in my favorite chair at home. I consider these…

Do we sometimes care too much about what other people think of us? It's actually very natural for us to care about how our fellow human beings view us. We want to be accepted. We want to feel like we belong. And we also want to…

I believe that God desires to speak to each of us. This may sound a little bit crazy if you don't believe in God. But it's not such a crazy idea to anyone who actually has a friendship with Him. A natural consequence of having a friendship with God is that…

God has given us one life. And along with this one life comes one body. This life and body cannot be exchanged for another one while on earth. No matter what advancements are made in modern medicine, it will not change the fact that…

I live in a part of the world that has, relative to other countries, an abundance when it comes to material wealth and possessions. It's not uncommon here to see large homes, luxury cars, and designer-branded clothing. Some people see these material possessions as…

Will longer prayers be heard by God more than shorter ones? Not necessarily. Longer prayers aren't necessarily better at getting God's attention than shorter prayers. Some people mistakenly think that longer prayers are better. This idea isn't found in the Bible. In fact, Jesus seemingly tried to dissuade us from

Several months ago, I attended a conference with other pastors and Christian leaders. I arrived at the conference center quite early on the second day of the event when the hotel staff was still setting up. As I entered the area where the conference was being held, I spotted one of the hotel staff members singing (quite loudly, I must add) the lyrics to…

There's a story in the Old Testament of the Bible that haunts me. It's a story of two people who were supposed to be serving God as His leaders but they were doing such a poor job at it. They were actually "priests" in God's service and they were treating the sacrifices to God with such contempt by…