Tag: God

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God’s Interaction and Prodding

God's Interaction and ProddingThis morning, I found myself thinking about how God interacts with me through the Holy Spirit, prodding me toward a life worth living. My mind slowly turned to why He puts certain people in my life—often people with problems.

People

I like problem-solving, but I am a sticks-and-bricks kind of guy, not a colors-and-hues kind of guy. Give me something tangible, something I can take apart, analyze, repair, or rebuild, and I am comfortable. People are different. The opportunities God presents are not always the people or problems I understand or feel equipped to handle. Sometimes, to be truthful, I would prefer not to deal with them at all.

Matthew 25:35–36, “For I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty, and you gave me drink; I was a stranger, and you welcomed me; I was naked, and you clothed me; I was sick, and you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to me.”

Some problems I just don’t get, they seem petty and small. Some people I don’t understand because their problem never changes; they just can’t seem to act. Most are self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Some situations are so painful I wish I didn’t know. But God sends them my way.

Proverbs 3:27, “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.”

Opportunities

I know I do not possess a vast reservoir of knowledge or a special talent for helping people. I’m more of a worker bee. I know how to show up, work, solve what I can solve, and keep going. But I have also learned that God does not put people in my life so I can show off what I know. He puts them there so He can show me what He can do. That works well for me because I’m not on stage; he is.

1 John 3:17, “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

The reality is that God places people in our lives as part of His plan for us. Through them, He shows us how He works. God provides us with answers to questions we have not yet asked. Through them, we witness amazing mini-miracles that remind us of what He is doing through and in us. By serving others, we get to go backstage to see how He performs.

Hebrews 6:10, “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them”

Solutions

God uses these moments to help us see how and when He works. When we are in the depths of our problems, it is hard to be objective, to step outside ourselves and survey the landscape before acting. We find it hard to imagine a solution bigger than our wants.  But God does.

Matthew 25:40, “And the King will answer them, Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.”

In my life, God uses me to help others and to teach me how He helps me. The scripture that feeds their soul feeds mine. The intersection of their experience with mine is not just me being part of God’s plan for them; it is them being part of His plan for me. I’m not there to be a lifesaver or a lifeboat. I am on the sinking ship with them, watching God save us both.

Philippians 2:4, “not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

 In helping others, we help ourselves. It gives me more objectivity than I would exercise if the problem were mine. He helps me see the times He intervened in my life. God may also show me when I could have leaned on Him and didn’t.

Hebrews 13:16, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.”

Benefits

When you see someone in need, see it as part of God’s plan for your life. There is a lesson to be learned and an experience to be had that will help both them and you. Helping others is not about being a good guy. It is not about the glory of advancing God’s plan for someone else. It is about becoming the person God knows you can be. It is part of the learning curve on the path to a life worth living.

James 2:14-17, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

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I Wrote a Book

Echoes Through EternityI finished writing a book this week. It took more than two years. It wasn’t a biography or a memoir. I didn’t write about my achievements. It was about how I became me, about what happened in my life that transformed me and shaped me into who I am today.

Childhood Through Adolescence

I spent most of my early life very angry. Not at other people, but at myself. You see, I had a great father. He was a humble man who achieved great things. He quit high school at fourteen and became an itinerant farmhand, moving from job to job. When World War II broke out at 17, he lied about his age to join the Navy. He served in the Philippines on a minesweeper, clearing mines for beachhead invasions. He received two Bronze Stars for valor. His high school burned down during the war, which allowed him to attend college without a high school transcript. In college, he earned a degree in civil engineering.

He went on to become the Superintendent of Highways, the Chairman of our City Council, and the Chairman of the School Board. My dad was funny and never acted as if he were somebody. He was an incredible role model; he really was a good man. Dad was married to my mother for 72 years.

Somewhere along the line, I grew angry with myself. I never did enough, accomplished enough, or knew enough; I was consumed by anxiety about performance. That is the way I lived until my mid-forties. I wasn’t just driven; I was obsessed with my performance and accomplishments, never living up to my expectations. I was successful in business, but I never felt any relief. Despite all my earthly goods, I was not happy. By thirty, I was divorced and had a pacemaker. If someone tried to help me by giving advice, I felt humiliated because I didn’t already know what they were trying to teach me.

All of this was internalized. Outside, I was happy and well-adjusted. I didn’t want others to see my flaws. People saw me as intense and as someone who loved their work. I wish I could say that one day I broke and God fixed me, but that wasn’t what happened.

My Forties

One day in my forties, I picked up a Bible. Not because I felt God cared or even knew I existed, but because I was seeking answers. It helped. I read it cover to cover every year for about four years. I never once sought eternal salvation, only salvation from the life I lived. It calmed my anger and gave me perspective. It didn’t quench the drive within me.

Then, somehow, I came across a book by Lee Strobel titled “A Case for Christ.” Lee meticulously documented that every story in the New Testament is historically accurate. Christ lived, died, and rose again. He performed all the miracles described. I needed to go to Church. Who was this guy? This wasn’t a book of fables or stories; it was real life.

“If Jesus Christ was who He claimed to be, and He did die on a cross at a point of time in history, then, for all history past and all history future, it is relevant because that is the very focal point for forgiveness and redemption.” – Josh McDowell

Isaiah 44:22, “I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”

I went from church to church in search of answers. I was not, and still am not, a fan of religion. Arbitrary rules were piled onto the gospel in an attempt to segment the marketplace (Personal Bias). I ended up at a gospel-teaching church that simply preached what the Bible says. No membership rules, no membership classes, just the gospel.

For several years, I attended this church and learned about salvation. But I was still self-driven. I was perhaps calmer, friendlier, and much less angry, yet I remained focused on myself. I now wanted to be the best Tomme Stevenson God could make.

True Conversion

Then one day, a friend gave me a cassette tape of a one-man play called “The Bema.” The question was: What have you done for Christ since you met Him? My answer: Nothing. This is where my book begins. This is where true transformation began. It was when I stopped looking only at myself and started looking outward.

The book documents how an extremely logical, pragmatic person met Christ. How Christ used my life to mold me into the person I was always meant to be. How the person I am today is a light-year away from who I was. It is the tragedy of wasting almost five decades chasing meaningless things instead of living the life I was meant to live.

1 Corinthians 1:30, “It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”

It was a lot of dumpster fires and train wrecks; I’m a hard guy to get through to at times. But every one of them had purpose and meaning. Every one of them changed me for the better. I started looking at God’s plan and moving away from mine: I started judging results not by what I wanted to achieve, but by what God had planned.

I am now more relaxed, still a type “A” personality, but living by God’s standard, not mine.  These last twenty-five years have been the best. The book is my best description of how that transformation took place. It is simple lessons from an ordinary life learning to live for Christ.

Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

P.S. if you want an electronic copy drop  me an email. It was created for my family, but otherwise not completely unreadable.

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Heroes vs. Survivors

Heroes vs SurvivorsHeroes vs. survivors. We don’t grow up wanting to be just survivors. I think most of us grow up wanting to be heroes because heroes are simple.

HEROES

Heroes leap over tall buildings. They rescue people from burning buildings. They charge into battle as swelling music plays behind them. Their victories are clear and decisive. The credits roll, and everyone knows who saved the day.

Real life rarely works that way.

Romans 8:28, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Real life is getting up when you don’t want to. It is going to work after receiving bad news. Real life is burying someone you love and still finding the strength to comfort others at the funeral. It is waking the next morning after a failure and paying the bills anyway. Real life is forgiving someone who never apologized. It is choosing not to become cruel even though life has given you every excuse. Real life is learning to trust again. It is carrying grief without letting it poison your ability to love.

Real life is survival with your emotions intact.

SURVIVAL

Philippians 4:13, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

That may be one of the hardest things a person can do. Survival, by itself, isn’t rare. Human beings are remarkably resilient. We can become numb, shut down, and harden ourselves until nothing gets in or out.

But surviving with your humanity intact is different. That is the difference between merely enduring and truly surviving.

Surviving is enduring suffering while remaining compassionate. It is knowing betrayal and still trusting. It means facing bitterness and still choosing hope. Survivors experience injustice and still believe in people’s worth.

That isn’t flashy. No action figures are made for that. No child dresses up for Halloween as “The Person Who Kept Showing Up Despite Their Grief.”

SCARS

Isaiah 55:8-9, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

And yet, those are the people who quietly hold the world together. They don’t say, “I lost.” They say, “It left scars.”

Scars are evidence of healing. They are not proof that nothing happened. They are proof that something happened and that you endured.

The ancient warrior people we admired were covered in scars. The difference is that we romanticize the scars we can see and overlook those carried in silence.

REAL HEROES

Isaiah 40:29, “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.”

I have traveled thousands of miles to sit with struggling entrepreneurs. I’ve taught students who may never remember my name. I’ve written about pain not to display it but to help others navigate their own. I’ve continued to exercise, learn, serve, and hope, even while carrying losses I rarely describe in detail. That is life.

I know we resist the word “hero,” and I understand why. We associate it with exceptional people who do what ordinary people cannot.

But perhaps there is another definition. Maybe a hero isn’t someone who avoids fear. Maybe a hero is simply someone who refuses to surrender their humanity.

Someone who keeps showing up, absorbing hardship without passing it on.

Someone who says, “This pain stops with me.”

It is the person who can still laugh, still teach, still encourage, and still notice the person sitting alone in the corner after life has taken its swings.

You may never feel like an action figure. Most survivors don’t. They know too much about their failures, doubts, anger, exhaustion, and limitations to believe in the mythology.

But if I had to choose between following the invincible hero who has never bled and the scarred survivor who says, “I’ve been knocked down more than once. I don’t have all the answers, but I know you can take one more step because I’ve taken it myself,”

I CHOOSE

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

I would choose the survivor every time.

Because survivors don’t offer fantasy, they offer hope. Not the hope that life won’t wound us, but the hope that wounds don’t have the final word.

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Another Year

Another year, another birthdayAnother year, another Birthday has arrived.

Preparation for old age should begin no later than one’s teens. A life that is empty of purpose until 65 will not suddenly become filled upon retirement. – Dwight L. Moody

At 76, I have gained something many people never do: perspective. Not because life has been easy, but because I have stayed engaged with it. I have seen success and disappointment, opportunity and poverty, faith and doubt, and love and loss across cultures and continents.

Job 12:12, “Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life…. bring understanding?”

When I was younger, I measured life by milestones. Today, I measure it by opportunities. Opportunities to learn, to help, to encourage, and to leave something behind that matters. The milestones fade. The opportunities shape us.

When I was young, birthdays seemed to be about getting older. Somewhere along the way, I realized they are really about getting another chance to live.

Life rarely unfolds as we imagine. We begin with plans, dreams, and expectations. Then reality arrives. We encounter obstacles we never anticipated, losses we never wanted, and lessons we never volunteered to learn.

The road is rarely smooth.

Proverbs 4:7, “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it costs all you have, get understanding.”

There are victories worth celebrating, yet they often arrive disguised as struggles. The promotion follows years of sacrifice. Wisdom follows mistakes. Strength follows hardship. Compassion is often born of pain.

Looking back, I can see that some of the greatest blessings in my life arrived disguised as disappointment.

Isaiah 46:4, “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you.”

The challenges were not interruptions in life; they were life itself.

The failures taught me humility. The setbacks taught me perseverance. The heartbreak taught me empathy. The uncertainty taught me faith.

I would not have chosen many of those experiences, yet I would not be who I am without them.

Psalms 37:25, “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken.”

As the years pass, I find myself less impressed by achievement and more by endurance.

I admire those who keep going:

    • The people who get back up after life knocks them down.
    • The people who continue loving after loss.
    • The people who continue to hope even when circumstances offer little reason to do so.
    • The people who quietly do what is right when no one is watching.

The world often celebrates the extraordinary moment. I have come to appreciate the extraordinary life built on ordinary faithfulness.

    • One day at a time.
    • One decision at a time.
    • One act of kindness at a time.
    • One step forward at a time.

Psalms 92:14, “They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green.”

Birthdays have also taught me something about gratitude.

    • I am grateful for the people who walked beside me, even if only for a season.
    • I am grateful for those who encouraged me when I doubted myself.
    • I am grateful to those who challenged me because they helped shape me.
    • I am grateful for the opportunities God placed before me and for the strength He provided when the path became difficult.

Most of all, I am grateful that God is not finished with me yet.

    • Every sunrise is evidence of purpose.
    • Every breath is a gift.
    • Every day is another chance to learn, to serve, to encourage, and to leave the world a little better than we found it.

I do not know how many birthdays remain ahead of me. None of us does.

But I know this: Life is not measured by the number of years we are given. It is measured by how we live them.

So today I celebrate—not because I am another year older, but because I have been given another year to run the race.

    • Another year to learn.
    • Another year to serve.
    • Another year to love.
    • Another year to grow.

And until I run out of time or money, whichever comes first, I intend to keep running.

Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

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What Was There Before?

BeforeThe basic question one asks when seeking God is: what was there before? As humans with limited knowledge and finite experience, we struggle to grasp something that has no beginning or end. Our minds are wired for sequence—before and after, cause and effect, start and finish. Everything we have ever known fits within that framework.

So when we turn our attention to the universe, we instinctively ask:

What was there before it began?

No matter how we theorize about its origin, we feel there had to be something prior—something that set things in motion. That instinct is deeply human. It reflects how we understand everything else in life. Every event has a cause. Every effect has a source. Nothing appears without explanation.

Or so it seems.

Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.”

Following the Chain

Science has taken us remarkably far in answering the “how” of existence.

We can trace the universe backward through expanding galaxies to an early, dense state described by the Big Bang theory. We can move deeper still, beyond matter into energy, and further into the quantum fields that govern particle behavior. At that level, what appears to be space is anything but empty. It fluctuates. It moves. It produces temporary bursts of energy, governed in part by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

But this only pushes the question back.

If particles come from fields, where do the fields come from?
If fluctuations arise from laws, where do the laws come from?

We move from one explanation to the next, but the chain never completes. It simply ends—somewhere.

Ecclesiastes 3:11, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

Where Explanation Stops

At some point, every explanation reaches a boundary.

Philosophers such as Aristotle recognized this long before modern science. If every cause requires a prior cause, you are left with two options: either the chain goes back infinitely, or there is something that does not require a cause.

Later thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, argued that an infinite regress does not truly explain anything. Instead, there must be something that is—something that does not come from anything else and exists by necessity rather than by chance.

Modern thinkers have challenged that idea. Bertrand Russell famously dismissed the need for a deeper explanation, saying the universe is “there, and that’s all.”

Three different conclusions. Three different stopping points. None of them is fully satisfying.

John 1:3, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

The Problem with “Before”

Part of the difficulty stems from the question itself.

When we ask what came “before” the universe, we assume time existed before the universe. But according to modern physics, time is not outside the universe—it is part of it. It began with the universe.

2 Peter 3:8, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

If that is true, asking what came before the universe may be like asking what lies north of the North Pole. The question assumes a framework that no longer holds.

And yet, even if we remove time from the equation, the deeper question remains:

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Colossians 1:16, “For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.”

Four Ways to End the Question

When we strip everything down, there are only a few ways to answer that question.

      1. Something has always existed.
        Reality, in some form, is eternal. There is no beginning to explain.
      2. Something exists necessarily.
        There is a foundational reality that must exist. Everything else depends on it.
      3. Reality explains itself.
        The universe is a closed system with no need for an external cause.
      4. There is no explanation.
        Existence is a brute fact. It simply is.

These are not scientific conclusions. They are philosophical endpoints. Every line of reasoning eventually lands in one of them.

What We Are Really Asking

When we ask what came before the universe, we are not really asking about time. We are asking about dependence.

      • What does everything else depend on?
      • What is the foundation beneath the foundation?
      • What is the one thing that does not require an explanation?

We can move backward from matter to energy, from energy to fields, and from fields to laws—but eventually we encounter something that does not point to anything else.

At that point, explanation gives way to acceptance.

Hebrews 11:3, “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.”

The Quiet Conclusion

There is a point in this line of thinking where progress stops—not because the question is flawed, but because we have reached the limits of what explanation can do.

Something must exist that does not come from anything else.

It just is.

1 Corinthians 8:6, “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”

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Overworked and Underpaid

Work Hard“We are overworked and underpaid.” Every generation says it. My grandfather said it, my father said it, I’ve said it, and now my daughter says it too.

The language changes, the economy shifts, and jobs look different—but the feeling remains the same. Life often feels like a constant effort just to keep up. There is always more to do, more expected, and rarely enough reward to match the effort.

So, what do we do with that feeling?

You Are Exactly Where God Wants You

This is the part most people resist. If we truly believe in God’s sovereignty, we must also believe this: You are where God wants you and when God wants you there.

God does not waste time, nor does He waste effort, and He certainly does not misplace people.

That means even in seasons when you feel overlooked, underpaid, or taken advantage of—God is not absent. He is intentional.

That doesn’t mean every employer is fair. Scripture doesn’t pretend they are. In fact, Jesus directly addresses this tension in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16), where workers receive what appears to be unequal pay. The lesson isn’t about fairness—it’s about trust in the Master. Each worker agreed to the compensation when the job was offered. It seemed fair then and met a need. But when compared with others, it later seemed unfair. The lesson is to accept your decisions and not complain when others make a better one.

To complain about being in the middle of God’s plan is, at its core, to question the plan itself.

That’s a hard truth—but it’s also a freeing one.

Work Is Worship

We often think of worship as something we do in a church setting. But Scripture paints a much broader picture. Work is worship.

Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”

If that is true, then your job is no longer just a job. Your boss is no longer your ultimate authority, and effort is no longer tied to your paycheck.

You are working for God. That changes everything.

1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

And Proverbs reinforces it:

Proverbs 14:23, “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”

The opportunity to work—to build, to contribute, to grow—is not a burden. It is a gift. The question is not whether the work is fair. It is whether you are faithful in it.

Do the Work Without Complaining

This is where it becomes difficult.

Philippians 2:14–15, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing… so that you may become blameless and pure.”

Why?

How you work is a testimony. Anyone can work hard when they feel valued. Few people can work faithfully when they feel overlooked. That difference is what sets you apart—not just professionally, but spiritually.

You are not just an employee; you are an ambassador.

The Question Is Not “Why?” but “What?”

When life feels unfair, our instinct is to ask: “Why is this happening to me?” But Scripture quietly redirects that question. A better question is: “What am I meant to learn here?”

If God has placed you in this moment, then there is something in it for you—something to refine you, strengthen you, or prepare you.

Colossians 4:5, “Be wise in the way you act… make the most of every opportunity.”

And in the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14–30), the servants are not judged by what they were given—but by what they did with it. Your current situation may not be ideal. But it is still an opportunity.

A Hard but Necessary Question

There is also a moment for honest reflection. How did you get here? Did you follow God’s direction—or your own desire? Or did you step into this role out of calling—or convenience?

If the situation is the result of your own choices, then the response is not frustration—it is correction.

Proverbs 12:11, “Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.”

God does not waste time—but we sometimes do. The good news is this: even when we make missteps, God can still use the situation to shape us.

The Perspective That Changes Everything

Being overworked and underpaid may not be a punishment. It may be preparation. Preparation for discipline, responsibility, and something greater that requires more than you currently have.

If you cannot be faithful in a difficult season, you will not be ready for a better one. So instead of asking: “Why is this happening to me?”

Ask: “God, what are You teaching me here—and how do I use it?”

Because the same situation that frustrates one person can build another.

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Part Two: Seize Opportunities

seize opportunitiesWe often overlook how important it is to seize opportunities when they arise. Sometimes we assume that people who push through life’s hardships are underestimating their situation. It’s not that they are unaware of the difficulty; they refuse to let the difficulty define what they can achieve.

In psychology and behavioral science, researchers examine the value-action gap (or intention-action gap). Many people plan to do something meaningful—start a project, pursue an idea, help someone in need—but far fewer actually follow through. Why does this occur?

Hurdles to Achievement

Several barriers stand in the way.

Ambiguity happens when an idea isn’t fully developed to move forward. You might know your final goal, but haven’t figured out how to start yet. Uncertainty leads to hesitation.

Loss aversion is another challenge. When people fear losing what they already possess, they hold onto the familiar. The risk of moving forward seems larger than the chance of success.

Perfectionism sets another trap. The urge to understand everything before starting often leads to analysis paralysis. Instead of making progress imperfectly, we stay safely still.

A fourth obstacle is the absence of immediate reward. When results aren’t visible quickly, people start to doubt if their effort will make a difference.

Finally, the lack of accountability causes intentions to fade away quietly. When ideas stay private, no one expects results, making it easier to give up on them.

Overcoming these obstacles matters for two important reasons.

First, our lives serve as an example to others. Scripture teaches that if we are to influence others for Christ, we must live above reproach. Faithfulness in small things shows that we are trustworthy stewards of what God has entrusted to us.

Second, someone’s eternal life might depend on our obedience. Opportunities to act are often chances to serve God’s purpose in someone else’s life.

Endurance Under Pressure

The world will constantly push against God’s impulses in your life.

Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object at rest tends to stay at rest. In many ways, human behavior follows the same principle. Comfort prefers stillness. Faith requires movement.

To fulfill what God has planned for us, we must overcome the inertia around us.

There will always be voices discouraging you. Some will question your judgment. Others will suggest you lack the resources, time, or ability to succeed. Some will even tell you that trying and failing would be worse than not trying at all.

But someone’s soul might rely on your action.

You are surrounded by people who need help. Most of what they need can’t be fixed with money or stuff. What they often need most is time, attention, and real care. Many aren’t looking for quick fixes; they want to be seen and heard. They need to know their lives matter.

The Hard Part

That’s the hardest part.

Entering someone else’s chaotic life demands patience and endurance. It is much easier to give someone something and walk away than it is to stay and walk with them through their struggle.

Listening without rushing to offer solutions takes discipline. True compassion requires being present. It involves sitting quietly while someone shares pain, confusion, or fear.

That type of investment requires time, emotional effort, and persistence.

But that is precisely how Christ loved others.

Jesus rarely hurried past those in need. He paused for the blind, the broken, the rejected, and the forgotten. He noticed individuals whom others overlooked, and He offered them something more valuable than quick answers—His presence.

Opportunities to help others often seem small at first. A simple conversation. A kind word. A willingness to listen when someone is hurting.

Yet these moments are rarely insignificant in God’s hands.

When we follow the impulses God puts in our hearts, we become vessels of His grace. What starts as a small act of obedience can spread outward in ways we might never fully understand.

The tragedy isn’t that opportunities are scarce.

The tragedy is how frequently we hesitate when they show up.

God puts people in our path every day. Some need encouragement. Others need wisdom. Some …..need someone who cares.

Opportunities pass fast. Once they move on, they might never come back the same way.

So when God prompts you to act—speak the word, make the call, offer help, or give your time.

Seize the opportunity.

Someone might be waiting for the courage God has given you.

Romans 10:14, “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?”

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A Life Well-Lived

A Life Well LivedIn my three-quarters of a century, I have noticed three signs of a life well-lived. The first is a strong sense of identity, the second is the resolve to keep moving forward even when the road ahead is unclear, and the third is finishing faithfully. I will cover the three in a three part post. This is part one.

Before we talk about these two qualities, however, we need to clarify what we mean by success.

SUCCESS

Francis Chan once wrote:

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” — Francis Chan, Crazy Love

That statement immediately exposes the real problem. Success is not only about achieving goals; it is about achieving the right goals.

The dictionary defines success as “the achieving of the results wanted or hoped for.” But that definition raises an important question: wanted by whom, and hoped for according to what standard?

Our culture judges success by visible things — titles, income, recognition, and influence. These markers are simple to count and compare. But they are not reliable signs of a life well lived. Many people achieve them and still feel an uneasy restlessness. Applause quickly fades when it is disconnected from purpose.

True success is more subtle and lasting. It arises from alignment — the confidence that your life is heading in the direction God intended when He created you.

Success is not about becoming impressive; it is about becoming faithful.

Throughout Scripture, God never rewards people for having the most. He rewards them for being faithful with what was entrusted to them. That distinction changes how we evaluate our lives.

Identity and Purpose

Jim Collins famously wrote:

“Good is the enemy of great.” — Jim Collins, Good to Great

In business, greatness often comes from disciplined focus. In life, greatness comes from disciplined alignment with the One who created you.

A person who lives well eventually understands a simple truth: before you discover what you are called to do, you must understand who you were created to be.

The Bible consistently reminds us that humans are not accidents. We are intentionally created by God, formed for purposes beyond our personal ambitions.

Psalm 139:14,“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Isaiah describes the relationship this way:

Isaiah 64:8, “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

Paul reinforces the same idea in Ephesians:

Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Even the prophet Jeremiah was reminded that God’s purposes precede our awareness of them:

Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.”

Uniqueness

No two people are created the same, and no two lives are meant to follow the same path. When we measure ourselves against others to determine who we should become, we abandon the uniqueness of God’s design. You cannot become someone else, and they cannot become you.

Discovering God’s purpose for your life rarely happens in a dramatic moment. More often, it unfolds gradually through obedience in small things. As faithfulness accumulates, clarity grows.

When purpose and identity align with God’s design, something shifts. Life becomes focused. Energy previously used for comparison or doubt is now directed toward faithful action.

Jesus illustrated this in the parable of the talents. The servants were given different amounts, but the reward was not based on how much they received. The servant with two talents received the same praise as the servant with five. The difference was not the size of their resources but how faithfully they managed what they had.

The Lesson is Simple and Profound.

God does not judge our lives by comparing them with others. Instead, He evaluates them based on our faithfulness to what He has entrusted to us.

Until your life begins to align with God’s purpose, you may achieve many things that the world considers success. However, those accomplishments will never fully satisfy you. Titles, possessions, and recognition can’t replace the quiet confidence that comes from knowing you are living the life you were meant to live.

True success isn’t about being admired.

It is found in hearing the words every faithful servant longs to hear.

“Well done, good and faithful servant.”

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Time is a Thief

,time is a thiefMy daughter, an incredible human being who has had an indelible impact on thousands, mentioned the other day that time is a thief. She was talking about my granddaughter’s upcoming high school graduation. She was reflecting on how quickly time had passed from her birth to her graduation. With that brief statement, ‘time is a thief,’ she captured something essential about the human condition.

“The best use of life is love, the best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now. ” – Rick Warren

Time acts like a thief. When those meaningful memories arrive—the ones that truly matter—time keeps moving forward. It takes those moments away and replaces them with new ones that rarely feel as significant. The rhythm doesn’t pause to recognize the importance of the moment; to it, they are all the same.

No moment has no soul or heart. It treats each moment with equal indifference, never looking back to reflect or add context to the present. Moments simply moves forward relentlessly.

James 4:14, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

Why Time?

What is the reason for the existence of time? Aristotle states that time is the measure of change. Einstein’s theory of relativity claims that time allows events to occur in sequence. In physics, the focus is on the arrow of time, with entropy providing its direction. Without this measurement, the universe could not begin, end, or change. Time is what makes history possible.

We exist within an unending rhythm of time. This moment, right now, will never happen again. Anything happening now cannot be duplicated because it will never exist again. Why do we assume that Heaven is beyond time? Christ remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. There is no beginning, no end, and no change. In heaven, moments don’t matter. But we are not there yet, so time still matters to us.

Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

The Call

Psalm 90:10,12, “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures… yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away…Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

We often take time for granted. We don’t fully grasp the moment until it becomes history, and then we cherish it. By the time we realize its worth, it’s already gone. We have to recreate the experience. When we grow old, those precious moments are all we have left. We remember them, replaying them over and over in our minds. We share them with others who have experienced the same thing.

Shared experiences validate our existence. When others remember the same moment we do, it reassures us that our lives truly intersected in time.

How to Capture Each Moment

Live each moment as if it were your last. Every moment is unique and should be treasured. The clock keeps ticking, and time keeps moving forward. We will never relive this moment in our lifetime. So, recognize its significance. Every breath, heartbeat, act, thought, and word is unique in time.

Take each moment to build meaningful relationships. Be present when engaging with others. Recognize that these moments can’t be repeated. Regret is like the echo of a bell that has already rung. Once the sound leaves the bell, it cannot be called back.

The wise use of time is not the building of castles that will someday be dismantled. It is the planting of seeds whose shade we may never sit under.

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A God Created Out of Hunger

The God who is, not the God we makeIs your God created out of hunger? There is a quiet danger in faith that doesn’t present itself as rebellion. It feels reasonable. Even reverent. It begins when we try to understand God using only the raw materials of our own experience.

Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.”

The Origin of Hunger

We are finite creatures, bound by time, limitation, and need. Hunger is one of our earliest teachers. We learn the world first through absence—what we lack, what we want, what we fear losing. And because hunger is our native language, we are tempted to use it as our primary reference point for God.

But when we do that, something subtle happens.

We start shaping God in our own image — not intentionally, not rebelliously, but instinctively, carving Him from the wood of our own longing. We imagine a God who thinks as we do, reacts as we would, and values what we value. That god becomes understandable, predictable, and — most dangerously — familiar.

Habakkuk 2:18 19, “What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols! Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.”

Made in His Image

Scripture says we are made in God’s image. Our temptation is to distort that truth and shape God in our own image.

Genesis 1:27, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”

The issue isn’t that such a god is entirely false. The issue is that he is small. A God born from our desires will always be limited by them. He can’t correct us because he is created from our assumptions. A god created by us can’t confront us because he shares our blind spots. He can’t surprise us because he never exceeds us.

This is why idolatry in Scripture is often described in terms of simple materials—wood, stone, metal —not because the materials themselves matter, but because they are easy to handle. A god we can shape is a god we can coexist with. A god we can live with rarely changes us.

The True God

Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

The true God resists this simplification. God refuses to fit neatly into our boxes. He answers Moses with “I AM,” not with an explanation. God responds to Job not with reasons but with vastness. He enters the world in Christ in a way no one expects and still cannot be contained.

And yet, even knowing this, I feel the pull.

I want a God I can predict. A God who agrees with my conclusions. A God who confirms my instincts and sanctifies my preferences. I am tempted—daily—to trade awe for familiarity, mystery for manageability.

But a God small enough to be comfortable is too small to be worshiped.

Psalm 139:14, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Perhaps the most authentic stance is not certainty, but reverence. Not mastery, but surrender. To allow God to stay God—even when that means acknowledging how little I truly understand.

If I ever find that God fits perfectly within my grasp, it might be time to question whether I have been carving again.

Instead of becoming who we want Him to become, Jesus is who we need Him to be — a gracious God who calls us to repent of our sins and trust in His sacrifice on our behalf.

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