Last week Joanne and I celebrated sixty-one years of “I do’s.” Included in those sixty-one were a few “I dang sure do” years as well as a few “I don’t know why, I just do” years. Then there were the “Rinky dinky do” years and the “Doodle de, do, da” years,” and a few “Whoop de…
Last week, I submitted a manuscript for book number twenty-eight – that is authored, co-authored, or compiled. It reminded me that my first book, “EvangeLife” was published in 1984. When one publishes his or her first book, they tend to acknowledge a lot of people from family members to teachers, to coaches, to counselors, to best friends. Among…
As I passed the lake near my house last week and saw a large number of ducks, it reminded me of two things. First, another well-used piece of advice from my High School Baseball Coach – “Ducks on the pond.” In baseball terminology, that means there are runners on base and the batter has the…
“This will only last for twenty-five minutes” said the technician last Friday, as if that would comfort me. I was about to endure my first nuclear stress test, and I had not slept much the night before. In addition, I had not been allowed to eat for twelve hours. Part of me was proud that I had made…
Some call them “Life Verses” while others give then different names – these Scripture verses that one discovers in the tough times of life; that become more than just daily Bible verses. I was fifteen years old, laying in a Houston Hospital bed with a broken second vertebrae of my neck and a broken future,…
I am compiling a book on Advice with a different bit of advice each day. I have learned that much advice takes many words, but some of the best advice takes only four words: • Think before you speak. • No pain, no gain. • Go with the flow. • Be still and know (Psalm…
This week Americans will celebrate our independence on July 4. While we are independent from tyranny, we must remain dependent on the Trinity – God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For my non-American readers, while we have no desire to wrap the Gospel in red, white, and blue, we do invite you to celebrate…
I was born at King’s Daughters Hospital in Temple, Texas. My Mother was a Registered Nurse there. It was a Tuesday. Several weeks later, she and I were in church together in a small Baptist Church in rural Bell, County, Texas. My father was the pastor. I cut my teeth on a green-back Broadman Hymnal,…
I last week’s Manna, I mentioned attending my first annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention at age nine with my Pastor/Father. Let me elaborate briefly on why my father was a highly successful pastor. Nacogdoches, Texas is not small compared to nearby Woden or Alto, nor is it big when compared to Dallas or…
I attended my first annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention when I was nine years old. Our family drove from Paris, Texas, where my Dad was Associate Pastor at First Baptist Church, to Chicago, Illinois. We stayed in a hotel that was taller than anything I had ever seen. We met in a convention center…