I’d just purchased the ring I’d give Kristy as an engagement ring. I carefully placed it in my passenger seat, making sure I buckled it in, glancing down at it every thirty seconds as I drove home. It was a treasure I could hold and move. I could tuck it away not to be seen or flaunt it around for...

I’ve been lied to before.  And it will happen again.  Lies with shattering results and rivers of tears.  Other lies have been less monumental, appearing almost trivial, but they too have resulted in rivers.  There have been lies from friends, teachers, pastors, and strangers.  Lies about God,...

My wife, Kristy, and I saw Crazy Heart last Friday night. It was a moving redemptive story about a washed up country music artist. He learns to love again and dares to write new songs. He reenters life. After the movie my mind was filled with inspiration, to live more and write better. I walked into...

The most rewarding thing I did this week was toss a messy pile of roof shingles into a nasty dumpster. I suppose, as a pastor and writer, I should have something loftier to claim, a driving sermon, a thoughtful article. But not this week. The pile of shingles littered the back corner of my small lot...

Yes, last night I watched the television show The Bachelor. A friend of my brother-in-law is one of the girls on the show, so we tuned in to see the mess. Last week I watched the first three episodes from season one of Mad Men, the hit show on A&E about the advertising world in the 1950s. The show’s...

The lights dimmed, the entire place went dark. Massive screens across the back of the stage burst with colors. A video began telling the story of the Passion conferences.  After a few minutes, the video piece transitioned and powerful words scrolled onto the screens as violins and cellos filled the...

My wife falls asleep immediately, head to the pillow, but I like to read myself into the dream world. I climb into bed and pull my headlamp over my curly hair. I aim the light at the pages and read the words working my way through the ink, a story bleeding from the author’s heart and honed by his mind....

I just turned off a 60 Minutes interview with Andre Agassi.  Agassi recently released his autobiography, which sent waves through the tennis world as he admitted to hating tennis for most of his life. He was forced into the game by his fanatical father, who taped ping pong paddles to his hands as a...

My dad wasn’t always there. He was around and fatherly for my childhood but relatively absent for most of my teenage years. He regrets missing those irreplaceable moments of first dates and first cars, and we’ve reconciled since those vacant years but neither of us can get them back. I tell you that...

He was big. Like a vending machine. And as black as coal. I don’t mention that because I’m racist, because I don’t think I am. I mention it because he was. His eyes were sunken into his skull and the whites around his dark pupils burst with brightness by contrast. My one-year-old daughter knew...