Enjoying the Journey

Birthday Meditations

Birthday celebrations are special, especially when you get to enjoy them with family. The older I get the more my celebrations turn to meditations. (They tell me that reflection is just another sign of old age!) Every milestone in life is an opportunity to both glorify God and examine your own heart. I am very grateful that God has allowed me to live to my forty-second birthday. It has been a joy this week to hear from so many special friends and rejoice in the goodness of God. And it has caused me to think about so many things. God willing, tomorrow I will preach from the oldest psalm in the Bible. Not because I feel old, but because there…

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A Big Day

Tomorrow is a big day for our family. In just a few hours Lauren will turn 16 and Morgan will graduate from high school. As a dad it is both joyful and sobering to watch my baby girls grow up. Later this summer our youngest, Grant, will turn 13. (Pray for us, please!) Today is reflective for me and for their mother. Where has time gone? Just last month they were all born. Just last week they were learning to walk. Just yesterday they started school. Or at least that’s how it all seems. Life…a vapor. I am not writing these things to depress you! Instead, I am encouraging you to make the most of every day. Don’t waste one.…

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How to Make the Most of the New Year

A special hour-glass sits on the desk in my study. It was a gift from my family and means a great deal to me. It actually measures fifteen minutes of time and is a constant reminder to me that every moment counts. Minutes become hours. Hours become days. And days become – well, you get the idea. Recently my dad passed along to me a powerful quote by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799): “The hour-glass is a reminder not only of time’s quick flight, but concurrently also of the dust to which we shall at last return.” We measure time by years. By months. By events. By accomplishments. God measures time by days. God’s measurement of our lives is much different from…

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90 Days and Counting

28,835. That is the estimated number of days the average American now lives. Sounds like a long time, doesn’t it? Until you start figuring up how many days you have already lived. The other problem is that, though you may be able to tell how many you have lived, you cannot know how many you have left! If I were to give you $28,835 it would seem like a great sum of money…until you began spending it (and paying taxes on it!). What sounds like a lot seems to disappear quickly. Every day you live is like a dollar spent – it is either wasted on the temporal or invested in eternity. Soon we only have a handful left. As of…

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How to Make the Most of the New Year

Another “how to” post?  Not exactly.  There will be no formula.  No equation.  No list.  No step by step instructions.  But there is a truth – one powerful truth – that can help you make the most of the year ahead. We measure our lives in years.  God measures them in days.  Read Psalm 90 and notice the Lord’s emphasis on “the days of our years.” The way to make the most of the year is to make the most of the days.  One day at a time.  In fact, very ordinary days can turn in to an extraordinary year. When the journal of the famed explorer Christopher Columbus was discovered, one entry seemed to fill most days.  It was…

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Reflecting On Another Year of God’s Goodness

My elders were right when they said the years go faster as you get older.  I am sitting here this morning reflecting on another year of God’s goodness in my life.  The Lord has been so gracious to me.  My heart is full as I think about the wonderful heritage I have been handed through godly parents.  I am even grateful for my sister. (That is when you know you are officially old!)   Thirty-one years ago the Lord Jesus saved me as a five year old boy.  What an adventure I have been on ever since!  I am overwhelmed as I think of how God called me to be a preacher and began to prepare me for that work.…

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