In the zero-sum game, I can't win unless you lose. I can't do better unless you do worse. Lots of things in life are zero-sum. Chess. Football...
The Zero-Sum Game
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Sabbath Thoughts
These posts are the heart and soul of the blog—food for though on God’s Sabbath day.
Selah
“Selah.” That word shows up 71 times in the book of Psalms, but we don’t know for sure what it means. It appears to be some sort of musical...
Less Time Than You Think
Every year, I think I have more time. Pentecost ends, and the Feast of Trumpets seems an impossibly long way away. The days tick on, slowly at...
In Whatever State I Am
I had my first fast when I was six years old. I remember it because of how excited I was leading up to it. I wanted to do this. I was going to do a...
Reverse Engineering Your Destiny
The seventh trumpet. It's the moment everything changes. It's the reason "the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now"...
The Sons of Korah: A Lesson in Chain Breaking
Last week's Sabbath Thought was a little on the gloomy side. I think we ended on a positive note, but looking at three separate stories of...
How to Turn Success Into Failure
The kingdom of Judah was in a bad way. Athaliah—wife of the late king Jehoram (who lived wickedly until he was struck down by God) and mother of the...
3 Ways to Better Help the Hurting
I've been there. And if you're being honest with yourself, you've probably been there too. You hear prayer requests at Church services, or maybe you...
Ten Years of Little Steps
A little step is insignificant. A little step, taken once every day for ten years? Less insignificant. Over time, all those little steps add up to a...
Be Cézanne, not Picasso
When it comes to art, I have two basic rules: 1) It has to look nice and 2) I'm not paying more than $60 for it. This makes me uniquely unqualified...
To the Angel of the Church in…
Imagine reading through Christ's instructions to the seven churches of Revelation, only to get to the end of chapter three and discover an eighth...
What We Do in the Storms
I will always have a lot of respect for Job. He catches a lot of flak for his behavior toward the end of the book, and it turns out, yeah, when...
Five Words
In Washington, DC, in a museum just down the road from the Smithsonian, there's an old, beat-up piece of wood on display. It's an important piece of...
The Gap
So often, Pentecost feels to me like the last ellipsis before we trail off into deafening silence. We have this meaningful, tangible build-up to...
Three Ways to Move a Mountain
I know of three ways to move a mountain. The first is to attempt some kind of herculean effort, tearing the whole thing off its base and tossing it...
What’s Missing?
You come home at the end of a long day, only to find the most important things in your life are gone. What's missing? Is it stuff? Physical...
Resisting to Bloodshed
Here's the bad news: Satan is out to get you. To destroy you. He wants very much to rip away your salvation, to crush your spiritual potential, and...
Speed Limits
There are quite a few ways to deal with speed limits. You can perpetually keep your speedometer sitting at five over. You can cheat the system...