You know the feeling, don’t you? It is late at night, and you are still wide awake. You toss and turn. You just cannot get comfortable. Your body and mind are restless. You cannot turn your thoughts off and sleep. On and on it goes until the wee hours of the morning. Finally, just before the alarm goes off, you drift off only to be rudely awakened a few short minutes later by the clock radio and a disgustingly cheerful voice announcing the start of a new day…
An up-and-coming executive was about to take over as President of the company. Knowing he was relatively young and inexperienced, he asked to talk with the outgoing President to glean some wisdom that would help him. The first question the young man asked was this, “What is the secret to your success as President?”
Too many men take the position that their job is to provide financially for the family, and it is the wife’s job to raise the children. That may be a popular notion, but it is not found anywhere in Scripture! Ephesians 6:4 tells men to bring their children up “in the fear and instruction of the Lord.”
Don’t you just love meeting people who exude the humility and fragrance of Christ? I remember working at McDonald’s on St. John Street in Portland many years ago and struggling greatly with anger, sexual sin, and loneliness when a man came into the dining room with his meal and sat down. There was something about him that made me ask if he was a believer in Christ…
What, in all human experience, is more elusive than humility? As soon as you think you have it, you have lost it! Sometimes we may wonder if it is even possible to obtain, or worth pursuing humility. Some of us may even despair of ever finding a hint of humility in us…
When I was in counseling for a deep depression I experienced some years ago, my counselor had me repeat a phrase that seems so obvious, yet it is amazing how its truth was so elusive to me at the time. That phrase was this – “God is God, and I am not.”
…As often happens to me when I learn of the death of someone near my own age, my mind drifts to the uncertainty of life and the brief time I have left on this earth. I am 69. My three score and ten years is nearly up, and my own mortality is staring me in the face. Time is becoming more precious with each passing hour.
There is a place where we as men go that we consider completely private. We believe that no one can see into this inner sanctum called our mind so sometimes we play with sin there…
Quite a few years ago when I worked at a radio station in Portland, I was interviewing a well-known Christian public figure about the Gay Rights Agenda. He said that he was glad the laws against homosexuality were removed because it was none of the State’s business what people did in the privacy of their bedrooms…