CoffeeBreak With The Word

I stared the pictures of the faces of sweet children from Uvalde, TX and the tears welled up in my eyes at the senselessness of their deaths. In the days since the talking heads on the news channels have left me full of fury, the only remedy being to turn it off. How we love […]

If we want to live life to the full, one indispensable factor is courage! A hundred things will arise today – inner doubts, criticism of others, sickness, confusion, evil, lethargy – that will conspire to cause us to retreat to the safety of our couch, losing ourselves in mindless diversions. It takes guts to overcome […]

The documentary was a sad story of fraud, one man’s choices that turned the lives of dozens of families upside down. I was moved with compassion, at first, for the woman who was the catalyst for legal action on behalf of those who shared her losses. But, as the story continued, I saw her sorrow […]

Most of us profess that we want to be with people who are ‘just who they are,’ who are real but, at the same time we are tempted to create an image.  We can look good on in our social media, posting images that catch us in our best moments. It’s a sad line that […]

I can point you to a short-cut to misery – start comparing your life to others!  In a matter of moments the sunshine will dim, your clothes will turn into rags, your car will be too old … any blessing you may enjoy will be forgotten. Envy is part of human psychology and reaches across […]

My son, Sean, is in Uganda with a missions team for a couple of weeks. His note yesterday said  “Church is just different with those that have nothing … God just kinda crushes you with the spirit of reckless abandon they show up with. Such joy.”  His words kept echoing around in my head for […]

So sure that the course of action was a mistake, I fussed angrily. I predicted that the decision would produce terrible results.  Later I looked at the situation and declared – “I was wrong!”  Wonder of wonder, when I admitted that I had misjudged terribly, I felt great freedom, no longer feeling any need to […]

Who likes ‘discipline?’ I am not talking about the kind that parents bring to their children. The discipline of which I write is about controlling how we eat, how we spend our resources, where we allow our mind to dwell, and how we use our time.   One of the persistent myths among us is […]

Jerry has authority issues. I park outside the lines, drive a bit above the speed limit, and push the boundaries of social propriety. Strangely, though I resist rules, I am also a person who loves order, who keeps a calendar, shows up on time, and likes it when others do their job as expected. Complex, […]

I am tired… of endless conflict, of one-sided conversations, of simplistic thinking that fails to wrestle with the real complexity of life, of hatred.  We are subjected to those who stir our deepest fears with the aim of gaining control over us. Politicians do it. Preachers do it, too.  I think you know this but […]