A few years ago, Philip and I toured the ancient catacombs of Rome where thousands of early Christians are buried. As an expression of faith, when a believer died, a Christian symbol was carved into the marble tombstone. Hundreds of different symbols line the walls: a fish, a shepherd, an…
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When I'm caught in heavy traffic, I get excited when I remember a shortcut. It's such a great feeling to jump off the interstate, hit a few side roads, and pass all those cars stalled in the rush-hour standstill. But many times my brilliant idea is thwarted by highway engineers.…
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Christmas can be difficult for many people. Loss, loneliness, financial pressure, family division, and other stresses seem to magnify at a time when we are supposed to be celebrating a season of hope, joy, and peace. When the holidays start to feel like bad news, that’s exactly when we need…
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While walking through the halls at our church after a New Year's service, I passed a guy I knew and asked him a typical New Year's question: "What do you think this year's going to be like?" He called back, "Oh, it is going to be the best year ever!" …
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In the summer of 1896, twenty-five-year-old Orville Wright contracted typhoid fever. For several days he was in a near-death delirium. It would be an entire month before he could sit up in bed and several more weeks before he could get out of bed. And it may be the best…
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In his famous Harvard commencement address, Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, "A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West in our days." We as Christians must turn that criticism on its head. It is imperative that fear of rejection, criticism, or loss…
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In times of despair, we forget that we are heirs. In times of favor, we forget why we are heirs. When life gets hard, or we're not performing like the Christian we feel we should be, we see ourselves at the beggar's table, hoping for a few scraps, thinking we…
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I was having coffee by the beach one afternoon with a girlfriend who is an avid surfer. We were chatting about what it takes to confront our feelings and how the only way to is through. She got excited by the idea of dealing with emotions this way because she…
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It's after dinner that I catch the replays on the news: footage of a tropical storm hitting hard in Haiti. Rain sheeting across a little, lithe Haitian boy running the wide-eyed and terrified, desperate for refuge from a storm bearing down. In the news clip, the shirtless kid grabs a…
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