On My Mind

Luke 15:11–31 I smiled when I saw the sign in the front yard. It was as big as a bedsheet: WELCOME HOME DAVE! Dave was the son of Jack and Nancy Carter. Fine young man. He had just finished the semester and was coming home to Littleton, Colorado, for the summer. You see it when […]

Jabesh was in the crosshairs of the sadistic King Nahash. Frightfully outgunned, Jabesh’s leaders were considering surrendering. “Here’s how it will go down,” said Nahash: “I’ll mark you as mine by gouging out the right eye of every one of you. You have a week to think about it—In seven days, you can fight me […]

Ready or not, one day it will be over. There’ll be no more sunrises, sunsets, or birthdays. Position and possessions will be history. Whether you lived in a castle or a cottage will be irrelevant. All you accumulated, both treasures and trinkets, will pass to someone else. Your proficiency, polish, and pedigree will be meaningless. […]

Dr. Fred Alexander, my college roommate, and lifelong friend, chose a career in higher education. It was a close call, because early on he felt the tug of a different calling. As a young Navy Reservist, Fred blew the top off pilot aptitude tests. The U.S. Navy pulled out all the stops to convince him […]

Approval ratings of politicians are at an all-time low. In a Gallup poll, Americans were asked to rank twenty-two professions for honesty and ethical standards. Congress scored next to last. We long for integrity in our elected leaders, but it no longer surprises us when a politician is caught lying, discovered taking bribes, exposed as […]

When they pass out medals for bravery, Sherry Basu deserves one. This four-feet-one-inch twenty-four-year-old was sixty-five pounds of raw courage. I met Sherry a few years ago when she was managing a one-day dry cleaner and laundry in my neighborhood that adjoined the convenience store where I bought my morning paper and coffee. I began […]

There are a handful of things in my life that have always been there—changeless, consistent, dependable: the sun has not failed to rise or set since the day I was born; the earth has not perceptibly changed its spin in my lifetime; God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And then there is my […]

The world’s tallest statue of an American hero is at the southern edge of Huntsville, Texas—a dazzling 77-feet-tall image of Sam Houston, composed of 30 tons of concrete and steel. It is impressive but nowhere near as imposing as Nebuchadnezzar’s statue on the plain of Dura in Babylon, which trumped Houston’s monument in both size […]

Dr. Batsell Barrett Baxter once told me about a cute kid who edged in next to him one Sunday after his sermon and whispered, “I wisht I wuz you!” It’s not just kid stuff. Many adults have enviously eyed someone who seemed to have it all and thought, “I wish I was you!” For some […]

I have never met Sue, but her letter made me wish I had. She had reason to be bitter but wasn’t. Sue wanted children—four of them. Instead, in her first six years of marriage, she had four miscarriages. The fifth pregnancy was problem-free. Sue was going to have this baby! And she did. Baby Robby […]