How To Become Wise

We all need more wisdom in our life. I have a firm belief that wisdom is something God wants for us. Why? Because of just how much it will help us. So I wrote a 31 day guide for how to become more wise. Check out the introductory section below.

Buy “The Wisdom Trail Guide” on Amazon.

Welcome to the Trailhead.

I stood there just staring ahead with a big decision to make. I’m sure the importance of my pending choice was etched upon my face like a warrior choosing his weapon. This decision would set the course of my life for the foreseeable future. The weighty decision pressed down on me. I could feel my kids gathered behind me anticipating the outcome of this life-changing decision. Finally, it was time. “I’ll take three cups of chocolate with sprinkles and hot fudge please.” Whew, that was a close one.

Obviously, my choice of ice cream on an afternoon outing with my kids doesn’t carry the weight of the kingdom. But you and I make weighty decisions all the time. Sometimes they are overt decisions like whether to switch jobs, move to a new home, or make some other life altering change. Other decisions are subtle. They are the habits we carve out one choice at a time; in the way we spend our moments, consume our entertainment, or talk with friends.

Nothing we do is wasted. All of it matters—it shapes who we are. Do you know what no one has ever said to me? “Wow, I hope I am not a wise person.” I’ve never received a text that read, “I just made a really huge decision and I hope it was the wrong one.” That has never happened. 

On the flip side, it seems like someone reaches out to me every day needing help with a decision. They are facing a choice. They come in search of a friendly voice. Someone willing and able to offer counsel. Someone who will point them down the trail.

Once upon a time I was really afraid of letting people down. Now, many years later, I know letting people down kind of comes with breathing. We disappoint each other all the time. That’s not me being cynical. That’s called honesty. 

Do you know what would really let my friends down when they look for help? If I offer empty platitudes rather than earned Wisdom. So that’s precisely what I try to serve up; Wisdom.

Let me be really clear about something that won’t surprise you. It’s something my Mom, my wife, and a great many others learned a long time ago. I frequently falter where Wisdom is concerned. I don’t have Wisdom penned up in my backyard where I go to collect some whenever I have a need. That would be wonderful; But weird. Wisdom doesn’t work that way. There aren’t any tricks. There are no shortcuts to Wisdom. 

There isn’t a Wisdom Genie you can carry around in your pocket. You can’t throw a coin into the Wisdom Well. You can’t attain Wisdom wishing upon a star. No pots of Wisdom are waiting at the end of the rainbow. No Wisdom is to be had if you manage to chase down a unicorn.

Wisdom isn’t a miracle. Wisdom is earned. Wisdom is harvested one hard turn of the soil at a time. You acquire wisdom across a lifetime of trial and error. Good luck. I laughed when I wrote that because it sounds so fatalistic. Wisdom isn’t quite that hard to get. It’s not magic, but it’s not the secret prize waiting at the end of the Hunger Games either. 

There is a path to Wisdom. Sometimes it’s a clear next step on a well-trodden trail. Sometimes it’s a bushwhack through the jungle. Either way it is worth it because Wisdom is amazing. It calls to us from across human history. We can find it in poetry. We can sit at the feet of our elders and learn many lessons. Wisdom is incredible.

It’s no small wonder that God put Wisdom on the hearts of the many men who wrote what would come to be known as the Bible. In fact, right in the heart of the book many people call the “Word of God” is what is also fondly referred to as the “Wisdom Literature”. That’s no accident.

Wisdom will guard your heart from many things. But it will guard your head, your home, your wallet, and your well-being too.

Sometimes when I talk to people about Wisdom they get this look in their eyes like it’s too hard a thing to chase down. As if the pursuit of Wisdom is some grandiose quest God dangles in front of us like a carrot on a stick. Look, when it comes to God there are no carrots and there are no sticks. There’s just a really great Dad who loves his kids and wants what’s best for them.

Wisdom is not something God wants from you. Wisdom is something God wants FOR you.

In the heart of the Wisdom Literature is a small book that captures the culture of an ancient people led by wise kings. That’s not something to be balked at. This small book of thirty one short chapters holds the collective Wisdom of a kingdom that has long fascinated the world. And for good reason.

Have you ever found yourself facing a decision only to wonder, “what is the wise thing here?” Most of us have. Still, plenty of decisions are made with little regard for Wisdom. In fact I often sit and scratch my head wondering at whether or not we have decided to ditch Wisdom altogether!

The stories of the Bible show us that ancient people did the same thing. They routinely walked away from Wisdom. They made other choices. And their path suffered for it.

Wisdom carries weight, and it opens opportunities. The effects of wise living shape the world before you in so many ways; Even as the effect it has on your personal well-being shapes you for your own good and the betterment of others.

It would be a shame to leave Wisdom on the table. Instead, what if we leaned in when another shot at Wisdom showed up? What if we treated Wisdom like an old friend? What if we could sit at the feet of Wisdom and catch something wonderful? We can.

While becoming wise is not an overnight event or a one-off magic moment, it is a process that you can both invite yourself into and initiate. God made it possible one statement at a time all through the Proverbs.

What is a proverb? It’s a short saying packed with significance. And the Book of Proverbs is a collection of them unlike anything else in human history.

Over the next thirty one days I hope you will lean in to see what Wisdom has to say. Remember that it’s not asking anything of you. Rather it wants something amazing for you. A life of wisdom is better than you can begin to imagine. 

Wisdom leads us toward God. It brings about a unique sense of how to live. It provides order for how to follow and direction for where to go next. Wisdom cuts off the effect of chaos and invites us into a life that bears the remarkable stamp of someone in pursuit of God’s best life for them.

This short book is not exhaustive. You won’t look up at the end and say, “I’ve arrived at Wisdom.” But hopefully you’ll look up after these next steps together and realize you’re off to a great start.

Everyday together is meant to cultivate another step forward. I’ve written short segments I hope will encourage your heart, your head, and your hands as you set off to see what Wisdom has for you.

I hope you won’t just read it. Information offers us almost nothing until we do something with it. So each daily entry comes with a challenge. Sometimes the step I’m asking you to take is one you’ll do internally. Wisdom has to have a place to reside. You’ll work that in prayer and patience as you reflect on the thought of the day. There are also moments when I challenge you to get out into your world and do something. Both are vital.

As you put it all together you will feel yourself moving. It will seem a small thing if this is all new to you. Don’t be discouraged. Just keep going. If you miss a day don’t beat yourself up. Just don’t miss two.

If you really want to squeeze the trail for everything on offer, gather in the company of some good friends and take the journey together. There are questions at the end of each week to guide a group discussion. I can’t wait to sit around a campfire someday and find out what you’ve learned.

Thanks for checking this introduction to “The Wisdom Trail Guide: 31 Steps to A Life of Wisdom”. If you want to take your next steps toward a life of Wisdom order your copy today.

Clouds and Cages

Photo by Venezuelan Tourism.

After college I had the incredible opportunity to serve a parachurch organization called Chi Alpha for a little over a decade. That time was foundational and monumental for me. It is permanently fixed in my soul as a vital season I will always treasure for the special memories made, the friendships developed, and the growing taking place within my own heart and mind.

One of my fondest memories came at the very end of my time with the organization. For months we had planned a trip to Venezuela to work at an orphanage in the remote countryside. It was an exhilarating adventure full of many special moments with dear friends.

On the last day of our adventure we took a gondola up into the mountains near Caracas. A gondola is basically a small cage for people suspended on a cable that is then carried slowly up the side of a mountain. Just think of a big aquarium dangling from a wire going up the side of a mountain and you have the right idea.

We waited at least an hour for our turn to step into a cage. As we waited I listened to a group of local girls argue about whether my friend Rob was Justin Bieber. I don’t think Rob knew he was the topic of conversation at all, but it didn’t stop the boys accompanying the young ladies from shooting him ugly looks.

I had ridden a ski lift many times, dozens of times, but I wasn’t altogether prepared for the adventure about to ensue as my friends Jake, Ellen, and Rashad stepped into the gondola ahead of me. We all settled in for what was supposed to be an almost twenty-minute ride to the top of the mountain. Rashad was clearly very nervous about the experience while the rest of us were good to go.

As our tiny cage crept up the side of the hill some things began to change. Visibility plummeted even as our altitude rose. The temperature within the small suspended glass box decreased as well. And then, as a white wall loomed ahead of us, my friend’s nervousness escalated into full-blown panic.

We passed out of visibility and into an alien world of white fog, the gondola ascending into the clouds themselves on the side of a remote Venezuelan mountain. It was eerie to be sure. Rashad was scared, but what happened next was both beautiful and hilarious. At the top of his lungs my large friend began to not just sing, but bellow in a deep baritone, the lyrics to the timeless hymnal Amazing Grace.

Remember that picture of an aquarium from earlier? Yeah. Bring that back and add a large man singing boisterously enough for cages on either side to hear. It was awesome! It didn’t take long for him to calm down after that. Which I think all of us in the car appreciated since we were maybe halfway up the mountain.

I don’t think the beauty of the moment was lost on any of us that afternoon. We had spent a week working with kids in an impoverished place. We had helped clean up a school and made playgrounds playable again. The evenings were spent serving a faraway church that shared a common faith. So, Rashad’s instincts weren’t to allow his panic and anxiety to carry him into a dangerous reaction suspended high above the mountain valley. His reaction was to lean into grace, and his demonstration was to literally voice his feelings in song.

 There have been many times when my life has found me suspended above the valleys of failure and dangling within the fog of uncertainty. Sometimes nerves get the best of me. It’s not a thing I think anyone has perfected. I am continuing to learn just how little I should fear what lies within the fog, because I have great faith in the one who makes the fog.

I’ve known about Jesus all my life. I am after all a church kid. But I started living my faith on my own—as real as I knew how, in my teenage years. I’ve lived a life wrapped in stories of my forefathers and grandparents, my uncles, and friends—many of them also followers of faith in Jesus.

Perhaps what I see the most about those who follow authentic faith is their lives are not free of hard things. They don’t get out unscarred or without having to face down fear. They don’t make it out at all. None of us really do. I know, that doesn’t sound like the most encouraging thing a guy could say when he is trying to make a point about faith. But here’s the bottom line: those of us who don’t just dabble in faith, but go all in, will consistently find ourselves in places and situations that feel like a group of friends dangling on the side of a mountain.

The thing about this life is no one gets out alive. We all have choices to make. We can fear the fog. We can let doubt keep us from stepping into the gondola when it’s our turn and forever miss the journey ahead. We can wait at the bottom and never see the beauty waiting just above. Or we can step into a journey of mystery and uncertainty.

I want to keep stepping on the gondola. I want to keep letting life carry me up and into the fog. I might not know exactly where I’m going, but I do know exactly where I’m heading.

 After several more minutes of a grinding pace that s-l-o-w-l-y carried us up the precipice we broke through the clouds. There, on the other side we were met with a festival you could not have seen or even imagined from the ground below. We stepped out of our cage into a party.

There were jugglers and vendors, markets and handmade things. There were singers, dancers, performers, and artisans. Delectable treats and sweet things hung from stalls lining the cobblestone paved walkways. Happy people walked shoulder-to-shoulder stranger with stranger and no one stopped to argue about politics, sports, or other trite things.

The sights of people in celebration were spectacular, but when you looked past the wondrous scene of joy unbridled there was something even more spectacular to behold—the view.

Stunning vistas the like of which I had never witnessed met my gaze. No small feat for nature to throw the way of a kid raised in mountains who spent most of his free time around mountains and on mountains doing mountain things. I watched what must have been kids playing on a nearby range. I saw an airplane fly by—below us. I saw miles of mountains, farms, roads, and villages. It was spectacular.

It was, to say the least, monumental in scale and beauty. I could see for miles. The horizon seems further away so far up. As if ascending to such a majestic place somehow offered a perspective not to be found elsewhere.

And really that’s the way of it. Faith does lend perspective. Before and behind. Below and beside. Faith gives you a glimpse into what you can’t see. Faith doesn’t even help you see it all the time either. It just helps you come to terms with what can’t be seen.

The trouble is we sometimes forget our own faith. We forget what happened yesterday that gave us the boldness to believe in the first place. We forget the wins we’ve seen and the losses we’ve been carried through.

Forgetfulness can do a real number on faith. It can make the fog seem thicker and the cage seem smaller. No one forgets on purpose. We just displace the memories of all the spectacular things we’ve seen with new stuff. Often boring stuff. We fill our minds with spreadsheets and P&L statements, with PTO meetings, soccer practices, and deadlines. We jam it full of Facebook, Snapchat, and cable news. We keep on cramming until we don’t even remember we have forgotten something sacred to us. In our scramble to fill our lives with meaning we move some of our most meaningful moments toward the fringe—losing them to the fog of forgetfulness in the process.

All of this leaves us with the appearance of meaning, and belonging, and purpose—but at the cost of our souls. We raise up a wondrous facade. Like a shrine built to our own importance and interests. But that can never last.

When the fog looms and the cage squeezes I am the last guy I can depend on. I’m probably too busy freaking out. Especially if I am too busy being important to remember what’s important. The cure or fix or just plain better way of doing life is to remember. Remember what amazing thing God has done in your life and remember how it changed you forever.

The Boy on the Bike

“Daddy, I don’t like bicycles,” Ethan declared. 

Photo by Rebecca Chalmers

“Why?” I asked.

“Because bicycles are hard,” he fumed, laying in the grass from another failed attempt.

“That’s true. Bicycles are hard.” I had to admit.

Everything is hard when we have never done it. We don’t learn by getting it right. We learn by getting it wrong. We fall a lot. Sometimes we fall in the grass. Sometimes we fall on the hard hot asphalt. Falling is never fun. Falling is almost always worse when you fall alone.

“But you’re not doing it by yourself, Buddy.” He didn’t like what I had to say. Not from where he lay plopped in the grass. We rarely do. But he had to admit I was right. Dad is always right. Right? No of course not. If I get anything right, it’s most likely because I’ve screwed it up enough to lose count.

As he sat in the grass frustrated I could tell we were on the verge of something. My son was close to quitting. He was close to letting himself forever be the boy in the grass instead of the boy on the bike. Sure, this was after a few failed attempts, but who hasn’t crashed and burned trying to learn to ride?

You didn’t learn anything by nailing it on your first attempt either. Who does? I’m sure there are exceptions; but that’s not the point.

I had to try something. I knelt down in the grass next to him, bad knees screaming.

“Hey buddy, do you see where you are?” I asked.

He gave me one of those exasperated kid looks. You know—the kind dripping with equal parts concern for my sanity and confusion. “We—are—in the YARD!” He yelled. 

“Of course we are,” I said, “but that’s not what I meant. Do you see how far you’ve come?”

He looked up for the first time at the tracks he’d made through the short grass. It was a clear trail. The first ten yards toward a lifetime of riding a bike on his own.

“Do you see it?” I prodded. He looked for a moment and then nodded, but I could tell he wasn’t convinced. “You’re not where you started. You did it. You rode a bike on your own.”

I didn’t give him a trophy and declare him a world champion. I didn’t scold him for not going all the way. I praised his success. And it was a success. One he would never have realized without a sudden fall in the grass.

He got back up. He got back on the bike. It wasn’t the only time he fell. But it was the last time he almost quit. And he rode further with every attempt. 

Plenty of people spend their lives in the bleachers celebrating when someone falls. Don’t stay in the stands. Get down in the grass with someone who needs you. Be the one telling them how far they’ve come.

Maybe your friend needs a reminder. Tell him he isn’t his struggling business. Call your brother and let him know how great you think it was he tried something incredible. Show him how far he has come. Hold your wife’s hand for an hour and talk about a brave thing she did. Aim the ones you love at the tracks they’ve made rather than the place they might have landed. Your words like a firm grip will help them get back up.

Don’t act like you have it all together either. Instead of posting your highlight reel snap a pic of your glaring failure. Put that on Instagram.

It’s easy to be loud about someone else’s failure. The louder we are the harder it is to remember what it was like laying in the grass. But when we’re all loud, we’re all just lying in the grass.

Stand up. Brush yourself off. And offer words that pick up a friend. Tell someone how far they’ve come.

You Didn't Say Yes AND THEN It Happened Anyway

There you were. Going about your normal everyday life. Sure it was boring, amazing, or terrible sometimes, but it was yours. AND THEN.

And then everything changed without your permission. Your loved one was diagnosed with cancer. Your best friend took his own life. The love of your life shattered your trust.

On the other side of “AND THEN” nothing seems the same. There was a you before and a you after. They couldn’t seem more different.

You were happy before. You were whole before. You were loving, kind, hard working, engaged, dedicated, and faithful. AND THEN.

AND THEN can be a hard place to live.

I’ve had a few AND THEN’s. I’m sure you have too. We are all experiencing a monumental world-changing AND THEN, right now.

In five, ten, twenty, or even fifty years from now you will talk about 2020 and say things like, “I was working hard on this,” “my son was getting ready to graduate high school,” “we were getting ready for our wedding,” AND THEN.

AND THEN COVID19 swept across the world like a bad dream. AND THEN thousands of people died. AND THEN my business foundered. AND THEN I was trapped in my house with all of my painful memories. AND THEN hope seemed to flicker the world over.

AND THEN can be a hard place to live.

You didn’t give it permission to happen. AND THEN it happened anyways. What now? What happens next shapes everything.

Yes, you experienced irrevocable change. It happened on a scale terrible and exhausting. The fallout from your catastrophe can’t be overstated or overlooked. It shaped your everyday circumstances. Your job changed. Your marriage changed. Your bank account faltered.

AND THEN makes us struggle not only with what’s going on around us, but also what’s inside. We ask big questions and the weight of their missing answers feels too big for us. It’s terrible. It’s unfair. How can this be the way the world is supposed to work? How?

What did your life look like after your AND THEN? The most tragic thing is what would happen if we decided to let life after AND THEN remain the same. Think about it.

Right now I’m trying to help people navigate their AND THEN while wading through my own. One friend was supposed to get married two days ago. She didn’t decide her love stopped after AND THEN. Did she put on her pretty dress and walk down to meet her man in front of dozens of her family and friends? No. Will she. You bet. Her love didn’t die with AND THEN.

So, yeah—your life changed big time. You never told it that was alright with you. But it was never going to be alright with you.

As a man of faith I don’t believe for a moment God wished any of us to experience the kind of wreck AND THEN often makes of our lives. He didn’t orchestrate your bankruptcy, illness, unfaithfulness, or even death on a global scale. He loves you too much. He is too good. Also, he is too able to bring a better AND THEN than the one you’re living through right now. What if you let him?

You didn’t’ say “Yes” to the big thing that changed everything, but what if you said “Yes” to the BIGGER God who also wanted the best for you? Do know what would happen? AND THEN God.

You were bankrupt AND THEN God opened a door for a new opportunity. You were sick AND THEN God helped you find the right doctor. You were sad AND THEN God sent a friend. You were without hope AND. THEN. GOD.

Life is more or less a constant series of changes. Big and small, hard and easy, long and short. We look back and see the old through a lens of the new.

When you give grace a shot at your right now AND THEN is just a turning point. So give the best love in the universe a crack at it.

The old things will still be there. Don’t despair. But you won’t have to wake up and shake hands with them anymore. They won’t follow you around through the house like some nasty stray you never invited in. In fact, you’ll only catch glimpses of them from time to time. They’ll try to sneak back in. But they only get to change it all once without your permission. AND THEN is a one time thing. That’s why it’s such a hard place to live. You were never meant to live there.

Let God give you the better part of life. The one that turns the page on your bad AND THEN and shows you joy, peace, and love on the other side. That’s a great place to live. I’m so glad it found me.

What Are You Known For?

I’ve had a big question on my mind this week thanks to Jeff Henderson’s excellent book “For”. What do I want to be known for?

My answer to this question has changed so many times. As a I teenager I wanted to be known as a great basketball player. Too bad I was always a little too slow, a lot too skinny, and the youngest guy on the team. In college I wanted to be known as a great musician, and to an extent I was. For most of my life these three words describe what I’ve been known for, “the smart guy”.

None of those describe what I want to be known for. I don’t want to be known for basketball, or music, my intellect, or my writing. And, even though at momentary intervals I may have looked for validation from others in these things, I don’t anymore. Those days are all long behind me.

But what am I known for? I can’t answer that. Mostly because I don’t possess Professor X level telepathic mind reading powers. Wouldn’t that be cool? I wouldn’t mind being known for that, but I digress. I don’t know what I’m known for.

I only know what I would like to be known for. It’s not my intellect, my musicianship, or my step-back-three. I want to be known for the way I love. That’s it. That’s all.

I want to love my family exceptionally well. I want to love my friends, our church, my neighbors, and my students—I want to be known for the way I love. But loving those people should be pretty easy. What kind of person doesn’t love their friends and family?

I want to be known for loving others. It’s that simple. It’s that hard. Have you met some of you? Some of you are hard to love. Some of you don’t make it easy. But I don’t want to be known for doing what’s easy. 

It’s so easy to love people who are educated middle class conservative evangelicals—most of the time. Those are all things that describe me. It’s easy to love people who share common interests. You like Captain America? Me too. We can be pals. But what about everyone else. I better be known for loving the easy ones. But I hope I’m known for loving the “everyone else’s” too.

What do you want to be known for? What are you known for? Is there a discrepancy?

Here’s my challenge to you. Ask someone around you to tell you what you are known for. 

Be Help

When my phone rang a few hours ago I was in the middle of making dinner for my family. It’s Friday—steak night—and the cast iron skillet was warming up. But then Amy was on the other end of the line and she was stuck with her four daughters on the side of the interstate. She needed help. I turned off the stove. Put my boots back on. And got in my car to go help. It’s what friends do.

We’ll all been on the receiving end of help. Also, we have each needed help when there was none to be had—and had the sundering effect of its lack come crashing down around us. Because help is sometimes hard to find.

Maybe you’ve heard or even said, “good help is hard to find.” But it doesn’t have to be. Not wherever you are. You can be the good help someone needs.

How do you know who you are supposed to help? That’s easy. Who is asking? Who is within your reach? Can you get there?

Several years ago I heard this challenge and it has stuck with me. “Do for one what you wish you could do for many.” That’s a powerful affidavit when it comes to helping. You can’t help everyone, but maybe you can help the friend standing in front of you right now.

So welcome the interruption. Shelf your agenda. And get busy helping. The world will be a lot different—and you’ll help make sure it’s different everywhere you are.

How Are You Doing?

​“How are you doing?”

“How’s it going?”

“How’s life?”

I don’t know how I’m doing. I should probably have a better answer for this because I feel like I get asked this question at least a dozen times a day.

The default answer is “good”, but am I? Like Gandalf in the Hobbit, there’s a bit of confusion for me about whether the intended query is speculating as to the nature of my health, my moral disposition, or something else entirely.

Recently one of my favorite speakers/authors defined this in a very illuminating way. How I am doing may best be defined by how those around me are doing? Want to find out how I’m really doing? Ask my wife. Ask my kids. Ask the team of people I lead in our church.

Maybe I’m getting it right. Maybe I’m acing it. Maybe not. I’ve learned who I need to ask—and I’ve tried to grow the habit of actually asking.

But here’s a picture of how good I hope I’m doing....

I want my life to be uplifting. I want to help everyone in the room get better by my having been there. I want to hold the collective gathering of those in connection to me to a higher regard and somehow help them stretch for a higher goal.

They may not make it. They may not even let go of the ball. But let us greatly enjoy the rise to the occasion and camaraderie built along the way. We aren’t just good with that. We are better for it.

Loving People On a Not-So-Lonely Mountain

 I hear crickets. Dogs call to each other across the ridges. A turkey gobbles off in the distance. The huge leaves of the banana tree my hammock is perched in on the side of this mountain rustle with the never ending breeze. After a scorching week in the sun the coolness of the continuous flow of wind borders on miraculous. It has been a week of weeks. Our team has been outstanding. They work and play with an energetic tenacity on par with their vivacious faith. Grace drips from these people like the sweat they have shed for seven days.

We have been to school after school playing with kids, performing skits, praying, speaking, loving. We have visited small churches, in the remote places of the Guatemalan Mountains where our people have preached the love of Jesus. We have given away food. We have built a wall. We have built a road. We've been busy. It's been good.

Busy and good are not always words I like to put together—but accomplishing the work, sharing the good news, and serving my friend Greg's ministry are both. Because busy can be good when it is purpose driven.

As I lay in my hammock staring out across the expanse of darkness at the closest ridge I can see the humble twinkle of distant village homes. The places that house the beautiful people of Guatemala.

I can rest full of faith in the one who sent us. I can sleep soundly satisfied in our pursuit of purpose. I never enjoy leaving my family behind—and under different circumstances would probably bring them—but even in my homesickness I can rest in the peace of God.

In Matthew 5:14-16 Jesus declares his followers to be as a shining city on a far dark night. That's our job. To take hope with us. We partner with powerful people of God in needed places. We are Gondor in the midst of Mordor. We are beacons among burdens—and bonfires among chilling darkness.

I have burned in my heart the desire to go to far places and far people because, as A.W. Tozer penned, "if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame."

The 3rd Lament: New Every Morning

When I think of Lamentations it's not usually a go-to source for encouraging scripture. But Lamentations 3:19-24 paints an incredible word picture of the beauty of God's love for us. I want to visit this wonderful passage over the next few days in hopes that it will encourage you as much as it has encouraged me.

... there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: GOD ’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with GOD (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left. (‭Lamentations‬ ‭3‬:‭19-24‬ MSG Emphasis Added)

Every morning. That's how often the prophet Jeremiah realized that God's mercy rolls back around. God's willingness to extend his love and kindness is in step with the dawn; and its always dawn somewhere.

Every morning the mercy of God is hand crafted. The creator of the periodic table preempts every element of grace you find yourself needing with the passing of each day. It's custom. For you. For everyone. For every situation.

In the face of such terribly compassionate love and mercy, how can anyone think themselves unworthy of God's affection. Forgiven much. Love much. (See Luke 7:36-50) That is the opportunity. That is the reality.

Custom grace. A love tailored for all humanity. That fits every individual. It's not a bandaid for your burdens. His is a lifeline for your soul. A legendary leg up.

Maybe that's exactly what you are needing right now? Failure has gotten old. The same tired patterns of behavior may have left you feeling a little more than broken. Well, the sun is always sweetest at dawn. Move out from the darkness of our own designs and embrace the caring nature of the Father.

Every day is a new day. A new dawn. A new chance to walk the path God has for you.

Countdown Zacapa - 14 Days

Am I good enough?

This is a question people ask themselves all the time. Maybe not precisely those words, but some form of self-doubt and/or creeping insecurity nags at us from time to time. It's nearly inevitable.

The short answer is "yes." The shorter answer is "no."

No, you are not good enough, at least not on your own. The horrible reality is that so many are out there trying to make it on their own. It's tragic. And a lot of heart break and bad decisions play out as a result.

But yes, you are also good enough. Wait a sec here........ DIDN'T YOU JUST CONTRADICT YOURSELF?

It's true that on our own we are not good enough. But the whole point is that we don't have to be on our own. We weren't meant to be on our own. Life isn't supposed to be a lonely affair full of solo sunsets and one-sided conversations.

GOD made you for himself, and for others. With him you are more than enough, not because you are good enough but because he is above and beyond good enough.

When you are living your life with God in it, whether you're loading into an airplane and flying to another country, or walking next door to help a neighbor—God goes with you. He goes before you. He helps.

So go help somebody. Say something encouraging. Do something meaningful. Stop worrying about being good enough, and start doing something good.

July 17 - What She Could

Mark 14:3-9 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. (Mark 14:8 ESV)

As Mary anointed Jesus with the costly perfume people grumbled at the apparent waste of such an action. Jesus chastised them, declaring her sacrifice to be a beautiful and selfless act of worship. She had done what she could with what she had. It was her way of offering all that she had to God.

What does God ask from us? Better yet, what has God already done for you, or given to you, that He might be asking for you to use for His Kingdom? Mary did what she could, whatever she was able to do she did for Jesus. Furthermore, her faithful act of worship had a part to play in God's work of salvation.

What can you do? I think it's high time that we in the American Church stop showing up to sponge off of the insight and experiences of the few. God still speaks to us, He still reveals Himself to our hearts, He still challenges us to take up His cause. What are we going to do about it? When will we cross the line and stop merely being consumers?

Mary did what she could. I don't know what we can do, but I think it's time we found out.