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Phillip’s down, and he thinks he’s out.
Life hasn’t been kind to the 33-year-old; in fact, life has been brutally unfair. In just one calendar year, Phillip left his friends due to a job transfer, lost the job that transferred him due to downsizing, suffered an excruciating ankle break in a pick-up basketball game, and separated from his wife of seven years, though they are working on things.
Phillip tries to be hopeful when everything around him feels fatal. But he can’t mask the confusion. How can a year that started with such promise and confidence leave him feeling so lost and broken? How can a life driven with such expectancy just a few months ago feel so aimless now?
But what Phillip can’t see because he’s in too deep is how close he is to the Circle’s End.
Karen can’t believe her eyes, but there’s no mistaking that little “plus” sign. After months and months of futility, what she has dreamed of all her life is finally happening. She’s going to have a baby. That’s a much better explanation for that morning nausea than “stomach flu.”
The enchantment she and her husband are feeling is surely a precursor of things to come. The family they both have dreamed of. The joy and delights of holding that little one for the first time. The expectancy that life has made a turn for the better, and there is nowhere to go but forward.
And she’s right… to a point. But just as tides ebb and flow, Karen will eventually reach the Circle’s End.
However you would classify your circumstances, one thing is certain – they’re anything but still. [click to continue…]
Dateline Barcelona, 1992. The Summer Olympics are hosting the first-ever competition of the truly-best in their respective nations, as professionals and amateurs are all invited to the party. The United States has assembled a collection of NBA-plus-one stars that may be the best roster to ever take a tip-off. And their nickname: “The Dream Team.”
This isn’t about basketball. It’s about teams, and how you need a “dream team” of your own. Not the kind the wins medals, but the kind that empowers lives. While our culture idolizes the individual, the truth is, you were designed by creation and redesigned by gifts and talents to need the contributions of others in order to maximize your potential. I’d like to show you how to go about doing it. [click to continue…]
(From the forthcoming book, Coach Lightning)
Mention Morris Brown’s name around Jones County, Mississippi to anybody who knew him, and they’ll probably reply, “Oh, you mean Coach?” Not much chance of somebody piping up and saying, “He was my Social Studies teacher!”
But don’t let the labels fool you. Coach was always a teacher at heart. And while a football field or basketball court may have been his favorite classrooms, they certainly weren’t his only ones. There were precious few, if any, specialists in rural education in the 1950s. But that was fine with Coach Brown. He willingly embraced teachable moments wherever the situation called for it.
Just ask Dale Holifield, who grew up on a small farm in Jones County. At age 11, Dale was so shy he could have been considered antisocial. Outside of farming, he participated in very few activities. Even when he went hunting and fishing, he usually did it alone. All of that changed one summer day at the W. C. Houston grocery store, across from Shady Grove School. Dale was getting a cold RC cola to drink and chatting with Bubba Houston, the store owner’s son. The time came for Bubba to go to baseball practice, and he invited Dale to come along. Dale reluctantly accepted, and joined Bubba at the small practice field behind Bubba’s house. Hoping not to be noticed, Dale took a seat on the ground under a shade tree to watch the practice.
He didn’t sit very long. [click to continue…]
(Something of a “life lessons year in review,” in no certain order. I’d love to hear yours. Feel free to add your own in the comments section.)
1. How awesome your cancer surgeon is.
2. How nice people can be, even when you wish they would just hate you.
3. How God provides, even sometimes for fools.
4. The sun really does come out tomorrow.
5. How to spell “aneurysm.”
6. Life goes on, with you or without you.
7. Contrary to the words to the MASH theme, suicide is NOT painless.
8. Failure doesn’t stop people from loving you.
9. Rejection does not come with a cocoon to wrap you away for a while.
10. Nobody is more committed to your success than you are. [click to continue…]
It’s a common exchange, repeated in restaurants, homes, and shopping malls everywhere…
“Oh there you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“I’ve been right here the whole time.”
Life gives us seasons – and this is one of them – when we are reminded that the greatest blessings come in the form of the simple happiness of relationships. Working together. Enjoying down time together. Praying together. Simply enjoying the Gift of Being There…
It’s one of the most common prayer requests you’ll hear, especially for someone who’s going though “the stuff.” The theology is a little strange, because somebody’s asking God to do what He is already doing. But we all sort of know what it means: “Lord, be with them during this time.” We’re asking God to give someone else the Gift of Being There.
I can’t think of a more God-like expression of generosity, grace, and love than what some people call “the ministry of presence.” [click to continue…]
Remember the time your life was changed because you doubted your ability, and someone you trusted convinced you that you could do it?
Do you remember the healing effect that took place when somebody who hurt you deeply said those magic words? “I was wrong” or “I’m sorry” changed everything in an instant.
How about the time somebody saw something in you that you couldn’t see in yourself – something unique, special, gifted – and pointed it out?
All of these are examples of the six most powerful things you can say to someone.
You and I wouldn’t have to talk very long to agree that words have power. The old proverb still rings true that “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). If that’s true, then doesn’t it make sense that we have the power to intentionally choose life with our words?
I’ve made my living with words for a long time. And yes, I have seen up close and personal how words can crush someone’s spirit, destroy relationships, and create a slow (or quick) march to death. But I have also been on both sides of conversations where words gave life, strength, renewed passion and courage.
There are all kinds of ways to encourage, inform, and give new vision. But six expressions stand apart, in a league of their own. If you want to take your words to the next stratosphere, try one or all of these six in your relationships: [click to continue…]
I don’t know where it started, but if you’re watching, you may discover a fresh face of encouragement. In this neck of the woods… um, well, we don’t have woods. On these windswept plains, you’ll find it on Facebook among a group of teenagers in the Abilene area.
It’s a simple formula, really, but it hits a nerve of elegance, authenticity, and power.
It’s a declaration of something valuable or important one person sees in another, preceded by the words, “Truth is.”
Here’s a sampling: [click to continue…]
Leadership is generational
Every great or good leader I have studied or known all had one thing in common: Somebody saw their potential and called them out. They had an authority figure or a prophet, an “evangelist” or a teacher/coach who handed them the reigns one day, or encouraged them to go out and find their own place of influence.
There comes a point at which every leader must see past his or her own headlights. [click to continue…]
Have you ever wondered if God gets bored?
I already know the answer, of course. Whatever else I understand about the Lord, He is eternally interesting. And when it comes to us, He’s eternally interested.
But every once in a while, in the middle of the every-day kinds of exchanges, somebody actually takes at face value what He said, and comes calling.
No, I mean calling. As in, asking wasn’t enough – now I’m seeking. And since I’m not finding, I’m knocking. And when somebody like that cries out to God, I believe all of Heaven sits up and pays attention.
That is what the Lord encouraged, right?
Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious things which you still do not know about (Jeremiah 33:3, NET).
I wonder if He really meant that. [click to continue…]
This has been a season for sinking souls.
In California, two very dear friends are facing their second-greatest fear as their son is deployed with the Marines to Afghanistan. They know the promises of God. They know full-well that every other military parent or spouse has walked this same path. But that doesn’t change the fact that the emotions are more than they bargained for. Tossed about and beat up, their souls are sinking.
Here in Lubbock, a bright young professional had launched a successful and lucrative career when his work was upended by petty, jealous people. He lost his job and another significant source of income. And though he was innocent of the lies told against him, and though he has bounced back in a different setting, he still retreats to an emotional cave of isolation, as if he were totally guilty. Broken, bewildered, and just going through the motions, his soul is sinking.
In my home state, a once-confident, faith-filled woman lives in the wake of one of the most grotesque griefs of all – the death of a dream. Sure she had heard from the Lord about her future, and bold in her expectations of how He would order her steps, nothing has turned out as expected. First the heartbreak. Then the waiting. Then more disappointment. Now rudderless and aimless, she feels powerless to choose any direction… her soul is sinking.
However committed or expectant you or I are, none of us is immune to the sinking of the soul. [click to continue…]
