The last sentence of a book is not where I would ordinarily begin a conversation, however, it’s the choice for today. In the last lines of his book, Robert Marks shares, “Non-computable you are Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.” These words arise from one of my favorite passages in Scripture, Psalm 139, and capture, at least …
Category: Flourishing
Screen Culture
A decade…ten years…if you have lived less than two decades, you may have little to add to this dialogue; nevertheless, I propose that even those remaining in their teens might offer some perspective on what changes they have observed over the last decade. For me, the differences between decades emerges from interactions with students, or …
Bathrobes and Towels
Honestly, it’s not a frequent occurrence for thoughts of Bathrobes and Towels to arise while contemplating Scripture, unless, of course, you visualize the numerous childhood nativity scenes where these two garments are essential props for depicting the fashion of the first century. Clad in a parent’s bathrobe and a towel on the head, children do …
Quiet Ego
“Develop a Quiet Ego. Our ego is like a kid trying to fit in during middle school. It just wants to be liked.” We might locate a bit of humor in this statement, especially if our middle school years are long behind us; and yet, no matter how many candles appear on our birthday cake …
Sticky Wicket
Perhaps it’s just my weirdly curious nature that seems to be distracted by an unusual phrase that an author uses that prevents me from moving forward in a text. And, yes, I am able to clearly comprehend the passage, but the unfamiliar wording sticks with me. Do you ever find yourself reading through a resource …
Reset Button
“Is there anything more gratifying than a Reset Button? When your cell phone is acting finicky, you reset it and suddenly the world returns to normal, right? Turns out there are a bunch of household items that have one, and knowing a problem can be fixed by pushing a button — instead of shouting and …
Redefine Toughness
Using the legendary football coach Bear Bryant in the first chapter is a great method for capturing a sport-minded person’s attention to continue reading. After all, even the non-football fans living in the southern United States are familiar with Bryant’s accomplishments on the gridiron. Just look at how often any mention of football at a …
Spiritual Arteriogram
How’s your heart? Not a question you typically hear someone ask a healthy person. It’s an inquiry reserved for a patient on the mend, someone recovering from by-pass surgery, or perhaps an angioplasty. However, while reading Gods at War this week, Kyle Idleman was suggesting that perhaps I needed to consider the health of my …
Stick-to-itiveness
Post-it Notes…this is the answer I provide to students when a discussion arises over the question, “What do you wish you had invented?” Not only would I be financially secure, I would have been responsible for creating an item with perfect balance—enough stickiness to adhere where it’s needed, but not too much that it destroys …
Eulogy Virtues
How do you want to be remembered? An awkward question to say the least, but one, I propose, if more people would ask it, might create a better world. Some people choose not to consider their own mortality, but we’ve all heard some variation of the saying, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.” We …
