On April 12, 1861, Confederates fired 40 cannons at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina. With that, the Civil War had begun. For the next four years, friends and families were divided by their competing visions and beliefs. Two former army buddies soon found themselves in conflict. Confederate General Braxton Bragg was in command…
Let me give you six words: We pursue relief; God pursues results. That’s how we get into addiction. We value comfort over character, pleasure over peace, and gratification over God. And relief over results. You will never find sobriety until you become okay with not always being happy. Sometimes, life hurts. And some level of…
“The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10). That’s a strong statement. Think of all the things we could have put in place of money, in that verse. “_______ is the root of all evil.” Lust Envy Pride Resentment A bad burrito But the Bible says our problem is the…
For those of us living in America, July 22 is a day of wild celebration. July 22 is . . . National Mango Day National Penuche Fudge Day National Rat Catcher’s Day National Refreshment Day But more importantly, today is National Hammock Day. The hammock comes from Spanish culture. They invented the hammock, or “stretch…
Some things are hard to predict. Just two generations ago, my grandparents’ world would have never seen any of this coming: A motorized vehicle replacing the horse and buggy Bicycle repair man inventing an airplane The eradication of polio Man walking on the moon A peanut farmer becoming President of the United States The Miracle…
Viktor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who was taken to one of the death camps in Nazi Germany. All of his family and friends were gassed and murdered. He writes in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, about one day when he stood in front of the Gestapo, stark naked. They had taken away the…
President Dwight David Eisenhower was a rare success in American history. He was both a five-star General and a two-term president who presided over amazing peace and unity throughout the land. But his future success was not clear from the beginning. Eisenhower was an average student in school. At the military academy, he spent more…
In 1946, Rebecca was born to a poor family in Tennessee. Her dad was a tobacco farmer. After her birth, her dad paid the doctor’s fee with a bag of oatmeal. Raised with 11 siblings, Rebecca was determined to set out on her own after high school. She pursued a career as an author and…
One night when I was about 13, I went to my school and ran around the track, imagining there were thousands of people in the stands cheering me on. In my mind, I won the race. But the race wasn’t real, and my “time” didn’t matter. It didn’t count. We achieve a lot of things…
Over 200 years ago, John Wesley’s “Holy Club” asked themselves the same 22 questions every day. I suggest you try this yourself. (I will shorten and paraphrase some of these for the sake of brevity.) Am I living the life of a hypocrite? Am I honest in all my words? Am I a gossip? Can…