Recovery is about progress, not perfection. Beware of overly high expectations. They can look good, but turn deadly. George Elliot wrote, “Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.” The Bible says, “I considered all that my hands had done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and…
Kintsugi is the centuries-old Japanese art of fixing broken pottery. Rather than rejoin ceramic pieces with an adhesive, the Kintsugi technique employs a special tree sap dusted with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. Once completed, beautiful seams of gold glint in the cracks of ceramic give a one-of-a-kind appearance that actually enhances the beauty –…
Some play football. Others play basketball, baseball, or hockey. But real men play my sport. Chess. I was pretty good in my day (Houston high school champion, 1977). So bear with me while I quote an international chess champion. Savielly Tartakower was the Polish chess champion and a gold medal winner of the 1931 Chess…
The psalmist said, “Passion for God’s house will consume me” (Psalm 69:9). I love that word passion. You can’t achieve anything meaningful without passion. Vincent Van Gosh said, “I would rather die of passion than of boredom.” I agree. What is passion, exactly? I recently came across this definition: the degree of difficulty one will…
Poet Amiri Baraka said of modern culture, “God has been replaced with air conditioning.” We seek comfort above all else. Many of us have been duped into thinking God’s primary interest in our lives is our comfort rather than our character. We think he never wants us to suffer or feel pain. That doesn’t square…
2 Chronicles was the last book in the Hebrew Bible. The final verse of the final chapter offers an interesting insight to God’s purpose for our lives. King Cyrus issued a decree that allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Why did he do this? His explanation was simple. “The Lord…
First, there was the iPhone. Then there came the iPad, iPod, and iCloud. Now there is the ibrik. I’m sure our most tech-savvy readers will know what that is. For the rest of you, let me help. An ibrik is a metal pot with a wooden handle, used to brew Turkish coffee. The ibrik was…
Expectations are an illusion. In the Old Testament, the people of Israel wanted a new king. Samuel was directed to a man named Jesse, who had several sons. One of them would be the man. But which one? Samuel began the search with a set of expectations. The chosen one would have a certain height,…
It has long been my observation that virtually all addicts have in their past a combination of the following: (a) abuse, (b) trauma, and (c) isolation. Let’s talk about that first one – abuse. Specifically, emotional abuse. Jill Bley, a clinical psychologist and sex therapist, estimates that 85-90 percent of sex addicts have suffered from…
Television host Fred Rogers said, “Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else.” There’s a great little book called The Story of Everything. Author Neal Layton writes, on page 122, “You know, it’s possible that God’s plan for us is littleness. His plan for us may…