“Praise is warming and desirable. But praise is an earned thing. It has to be deserved like an honorary degree or a hug from a child. A compliment, however, is manna, a free gift.” (American poet Phyllis McGinley) As Phyllis McGinley suggests above, a sincere compliment is a gift we give to others, a special…
It was back in 2015 that Claire and I began to significantly increase our “gratitude attitude” by starting a Thanksgiving Jar project as one of our New Year’s resolutions. It was a simple enough plan — just set a large glass jar on the kitchen counter into which we would drop little notes of things…
10 Books That Made Us…And 5 Others That Also Helped
Part One: “The Why of Spiritual Disciplines” Part Two: “Purposeful Planning Produces” Part Three: “Discipleship By the Book” Part Four: “Practical Praying” Part Five: “Stewardship: The Managing of God’s Assets” Part Six: “Self-Denial and Self Control” Part Seven: “Body Life”
Rather than considering the Christian life an inevitable movement between highs and lows, the far healthier perspective (that is, the one that is more biblically-centered) is to consider the Christian life an ongoing pilgrimage in which our hand must always hold fast to the hand of our Lord as He lovingly, unerringly leads us to…
“Shout for joy, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away his judgments against you. He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you will fear disaster no more.” (Zephaniah…
Last month Claire and I were blessed to participate in a reunion party involving people from the Christian Brotherhood’s early years. It was a momentous event as more than 50 of us celebrated the grace of God poured out upon America during the days of the Jesus Movement in the early 1970s. We celebrated too…
“Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world.” That’s how Anglo-Irish writer Kenelm Henry Digby described chivalry in The Broad-Stone of Honour published in 1822. That’s a nice description. But…
10) Take Nothing for Granted. Routine can be comfortable but it can also wreck spontaneity, passion, gratitude, and fun. So be careful. Cultivate a spirit of appreciation for one another. Understand that true love isn’t mere sentiment. It is action and thus requires time, effort and dedication. My friends in Belarus have a saying that…
