Two weeks ago I was above 7000 feet in the mountains of Glorieta, New Mexico. Last week I was near sea level in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Being in the Valley was “déjà vu all over again” for me. Forty years ago this month, having graduated from seminary and resigned at the small…
I’ve just returned from a week of refreshment high in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Glorieta, New Mexico. Every time I visit Glorieta (and I’ve been doing it for more than forty years) I look at the mountains and reflect on Psalm 121:1-2 – one of the first passages of scripture I memorized as…
Don’t you hate it when a song gets stuck in your head and won’t go away? There is a Vineyard song that keeps running through my mind. “This is the air I breathe . . . This is my daily bread . . . I’m desperate for You.” When was the last time you were…
The writer of Ecclesiastes said, “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the difficult days come (Eccl. 12:1).” Yesterday we celebrated our granddaughter’s fifteenth birthday. Someone said, “Grand kids are God’s reward for not killing your teenagers.” I’m not sure about that, but I am sure that our lives have been…
Everywhere I’ve been I have discovered people to have at least one thing in common. Whether I’ve been in the over-crowded cities of the third world or the high-tech cities of North America; whether I’ve been in the great urban centers or in the open-country, rural areas; whether I have been among the very rich…
Currently I am compiling a book for America’s National Prayer Committee that includes multiple authors from various denominational backgrounds. Chapters from authors are arriving daily. I used to wonder why God chose eight or nine men (depending on who wrote Hebrews) to write the New Testament instead of just picking one and inspiring all of…
I have a younger brother of whom I am very proud. He is heavily involved in the Southern Gospel Music industry. If you log on to www.solidgospel.com on Sunday morning, you will hear him as Breakfast Bob. When Bob was young he came home from church one Sunday having memorized Eph. 4:32, “Be ye kind…
This week – with flags and fireworks, parades and picnics, back-yard cook-outs and ballgame tailgates, water sports and watermelon, patriotic church services and patriotic goose bumps – we will celebrate our nation’s birthday one more time. Make no mistake about it, I am proud to be an American. I am glad I live in a…
My office was moved again last week – this time into a “Retirement Office.” It is my seventh office in twenty-two years on the Southwestern Baptist Seminary faculty, and my last. My wife won’t let me bring all the books and file cabinets and pictures home. So I have two options: keep teaching as an…
I’ve just returned from the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in San Antonio, Texas. More amazing to me than the inspiring sermons, the uplifting music, the debatable reports, and the non-binding resolutions, was hearing an experience from a colleague of mine. Staying in a hotel just a few block from the historic Alamo,…