My friend Alan and I were leaving the Lubbock Breakfast House after a late morning business meeting. Our “thanks for your time, see you next week” was interrupted by yelling.
We looked up to see a man screaming at his kid.
The dad was a barrel chest with a flat top haircut. Movie casting would have made him […]

Ever see something that makes you wonder, “What’s the point?”
It’s really windy here in Lubbock. Which is to say the Pope is Catholic, water is wet, the Grand Canyon is deep, and the Minnesota Vikings still haven’t won a Super Bowl.
If Rodgers and Hammerstein weren’t able to obtain the financing for “Oklahoma!” they could have staged the musical “Lubbock” because […]

Recently I read a compilation of actual prayers offered up to God by children. They were funny and refreshingly candid. Like Angela, age 8, who said, “Dear God, could you give my brother some brains? So far he doesn’t have any.” Or “Dear God, thanks for the nice day today. You even fooled the TV weather man.”
One […]

Years ago my good friend Fred told me about a delightful conversation he had with his then 3-year old grandson, Nathan. Nathan was just about to have another birthday.
“Grandpa, I don’t want to be 4. I want to stay 3.”
“Why is that?”
“Because after you turn 4, then you turn 5.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Because when you turn […]

Before there was a beginning, there was God.
Before there was a universe with galaxies and black holes and white hot stars, there was God.
God filled this nothingness and there was no void, because God is all God needs. He is complete in and of Himself. He is in the best sense of the word completely […]

Ever watch the “Antiques Roadshow”? It’s a TV program that goes from city to city with a group of expert appraisers who evaluate the treasures people bring in. The show is eclectic in that you learn about the history of diverse items. Everything from vases and furniture to jewlery and sports memorabilia.
For those individuals selected to be on […]

Heading for the check out lane at Fry’s Food and Drug tonight I glanced at a display rack of DVD’s.
“All Movies $9.99″.
On the top row in the middle was “The Greatest Story Ever Told”, an epic film from 1965 about the life of Jesus Christ. From His miraculous virgin birth to His sacrificial death on the cross, and […]

Hope Covenant, my home church, is in Chandler, Arizona. Like the other towns in the Phoenix valley, it began as a small farming town that over the decades morphed into an urban area. About 3 million people live in the metro area known as the “Valley of the Sun”. Vestiges of the former agricultural existence […]

Years ago in the church I attended back in Iowa I had my first experience with nursery duty. While I am now a pro and can handle anything and everything related to kids, back then I was only comfortable as long as they were happy. It was that crying thing that I was afraid of. After raising […]

It was fall of 1993. We had lived here only a couple months and were still finding our way around the valley. One late afternoon we discovered a Chinese restaurant somewhere in Mesa and had dinner there.
When we were finished I went up to the counter to pay the check. After the cashier handed me […]

We all get lost from time to time. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes we wander off. Like a sheep that’s had his head down seeing nothing but the grass in front of his nose, when he pulls up to look around realizes nothing is familiar.
Maybe you’re lost right now. Maybe you’re far away from home. The questions […]

Each of us have been shaped by our backgrounds. Some of us grew up in church. Some of us didn’t. Some of us went for awhile but stopped because we had a bad experience or because we didn’t like what we heard. Some of us grew up in a home where God was shoved down […]

Spring 1998. A 2:30 Friday afternoon flight from Phoenix to Los Angeles, the flight taken by many business people trying to get home for the weekend.
 
I’m headed to California to visit Charlie, an old college friend. As you probably know, there are no reserved seats on Southwest Airlines. You show up for the cattle call […]

Annie and Emma unbuckled their seat belts and tried to be the first to sit next to me. It was time for our “pre-preschool” parking lot conversation. We had been talking about Christmas on the drive over and they were offering some final thoughts. Annie squeezed her tush between the seats, sat down and said, […]

We are loaded down with the weight of living in a fallen world. Even our best days are sprinkled with sadness, disappointments and tears. And on our worst days we feel like it will never end.
The good news is that Jesus died that we might have life after this fallen world. The day is coming […]

We live in a performance based society. GPA. ERA. SAT scores. Sales figures. MPG. Batting averages. Won/Loss columns. S&P 500. P&L statements. We measure everything.
It’s easy to carry that performance mentality into our relationship with God. But what if our best efforts could never be enough?
The essential, invaluable lesson of “imputed worth”.
(Presented to Hope Covenant Church - […]

I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “The more time I spend with the so-called “good people”, the more I understand why Jesus preferred to spend His time with sinners.”
The setting was a facility owned by a large church in the Phoenix valley. The scene was a music concert. A local band was celebrating […]

Have you ever been to a carnival and seen a “guess how many are in the jar and win a prize” contest? The jar could have anything in it. Maybe pennies, or marbles, or if you’re at a county fair in the Midwest it might be a jar of shelled corn or soybeans. Everyone writes […]

The Fox News headline says that two 2nd grade girls were found murdered in Zion, Illinois today.
These best friends went out to ride their bikes together and never came back. Some despicable, evil bastard stabbed them multiple times and left them for dead.
In an unrelated Fox News story, a stray dog in Nairobi, Kenya found […]

For the past few years I’ve worked a part-time job at the Team Shop in America West Arena. It’s where the NBA’s Phoenix Suns and the Arena Football League’s Arizona Rattlers play. Like airports, it’s a venue that allows one to observe all sorts of human behavior and interaction. Anytime there are 10,000 plus people […]

“Daddy, I haffa tell you somthin’.”
“What is it, Emma?”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Emma. More than you know.”
“Daddy, you my best fwend!”
“You’re my best friend, too, Emma.”
“But you my best fwend first.”
I started to disagree, but left her with a big hug and a kiss on the head instead. It’s tough to debate a […]

Once upon a time in a place not so far away lived the Mud People. They lived under a big blue sky like you and me. They worked and ate and drank and slept and lived their lives in ordinary ways.
At the top of the High Hill, with a view of the entire valley below […]

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” According to the Gospel of Luke, these are the first words spoken by Jesus while on the cross.
For the Roman soldiers walking the perimeter, it’s all in a day’s work. Some people push pencils and keep records for a living. Others sell groceries in the […]

It was the kind of Saturday Iowa kids look forward to from January on. A sunny, windy, “Mom said wear a jacket but I’m pretending I didn’t hear that” Saturday. After months of being parka-wrapped like a polar mummy, 60 degrees is the glorious after-life. A thawing, muddy nirvana whose only recollections of the former […]

“Excuse me…could I get a drink of water?”
She must have asked the question at least three times but I didn’t hear her over the spray of the garden hose. It was a Saturday afternoon during my last year of seminary. I was washing my truck in the driveway and a couple of stubborn tar spots […]