Leadership is a difficult thing. Whether it is a parent in the home, elders in the Lord’s church, or one who runs a business, there is a responsibility inherent in leadership that can cause all sorts of issues. One of those issues is the “mountaintop leader.” This is the leader (or group of leaders) who sees their role as giving dictates from on high, never to be questioned by the people down at the bottom of the mountain. Their authority is never to be questioned, and they have no desire to get down in the middle of the regular folks and be a real person around them. After all, doing…

Warning! What I am about to write here may depress you. From a counseling perspective, it is probably the worst approach and advice anyone could ever give. But guess what? This world is full of disappointment and some of it you will likely never get over. This is just truth. This is why this world is not our home. Sometimes life is just disappointing and difficult. People deal with disappointment every day. There is what people wish for and then there is their real life. Maybe they wish they had more physical blessings. Maybe they wish they had a certain portion of ability or talent in some area in which…

I was sitting in a ladies’ class at the recent Freed-Hardeman Lectureship. It was one of the early sessions held in the lobby of one of the dorms, and it was a little less formal than some of the other sessions.  Most of the sessions begin with a song and a prayer before the presentation begins. On this particular morning a young lady, who was a student at FHU, was leading the prayer. She began with these words, “Father, thank you for Thursday mornings…” I had never heard it expressed like that before and it made me think about my own gratitude for each day of the week and the blessings I encounter…

Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, which means love and romance are in the air. For about a month leading up to this day, you can’t walk into Wal-Mart or Target without being knocked over by the combination of red hearts and pink banners. We are (hopefully) wise enough to realize that the type of love that is most often promoted and celebrated on Valentine’s Day is more romantic and attractional. While a wonderful type of love, it is far from being the deepest love one can express to another. That love was the one the Greeks called agape, and it is the type of love we see often in the New Testament.…

Recently I was listening to a friend of mine as he was talking about growing up and imagining things while playing outside. He talked about all of the imaginary bad guys he used to defeat in his backyard. It occurred to me that this was just his style. You see, in real life he grew up to be one of the good guys. He became a Christian and he learned to care about souls and he wants to make a difference in the kingdom. It made my heart glad to see that a young boy who wanted to defeat the bad guys grew up to do that very thing in…