In the Zone

When I was a kid, someone told the cautionary tale of boating and fishing in the Ohio River. They said that one day there were boating and fishing on the river. When it was time to go, they got the boat up close to the dock to get it out of the water and back on the trailer. The problem was the book got stuck in the shallow water. So the man got out of the boat and plunged into knee deep mud. We waded through the mud and water to get the boat in. Except that it wasn't mud. It was human waste that came from the treatment plant just up the river. It was the last time he went in the river to fish. Yes, that is a very disgusting story. He claimed it to be true. No, I never boated or swam or got close enough to the Ohio River after that to test his theory. From then on I just imagine the mounds of poop deposited just off the bank and in the water. In Philippians 3:1-11, Paul talks about all his accomplishments. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, of the tribe of Benjamin and...

Commitment is hard. Just look at statistics on marriage and jobs. You'll find that in America, at least, we are increasingly a culture that does not like to commit. Co-habitation is on the rise while marriage is in decline. People frequently have two or three careers in the course of their lifetime. Our faith, though, requires great commitment. It means sticking with it in good times and in bad. A committed believe does not walk way when things get messy. They don't look around to see where else they can go. In Philippians 2:12-18, Paul talks about working out our salvation with fear and trembling. What he means here is that our faith requires hard work if we're going to keep it for the long haul. Faith in Christ requires a commitment to see things through, even if we don't like what is going on. A committed believe is committed to their faith and to their church. They plug into a local body, serve the body, tithe to the body, and seek to grow the kingdom of ...

You ever step on a LEGO? Man, those things hurt. I have a house with kids. We have toys all over the place and sometimes they don't get completely picked up. Since I'm the last one to go to bed, I have to turn out all the lights and make my way to the bedroom in the dark. I, inevitably, will step on a toy, usually a small, painful one like a LEGO. Boy, does it hurt. I will grab my foot, hop on one leg to the couch or chair, and quickly make sure I have punctured a major artery. I'm embellishing a bit, but you get the point. Those small little toys can become large stumbling blocks in the dark. So, I use my flashlight to illuminate the path. More accurately, I turn my phone into a flashlight to navigate in the dark. It casts light onto the floor so I can see where I'm walking. It helps me to avoid the tiny, but painful, toys in my path that can make me fall, stumble, and be distracted by the pain. In Psalm 119:105-112, the Psalmist writes about that. He calls...