Dear Friends, In the summer of 1980 my family moved to Huntington Beach, California. It was a great place for a teenager to live, and I quickly threw myself into the Southern California lifestyle, which for me, included surfing. We lived a couple of miles from the beach, and I was young and in somewhat decent shape physically - so it seemed like the perfect summer activity. The problem was, surfing was a lot harder than it looked, and I didn't really have the determination to stick it out. The result is that my surfboard quickly transitioned from a piece of athletic equipment to an item of decoration in my room. I've often thought back to those days of surfing, remembering the fun of sit
Dear Friends, I woke up this morning knowing it was going to be a busy day, in the middle of an already busy week. Unfortunately, I also woke up tired - which means I wasn't too excited for the day. Since a last-minute vacation to some exotic beach clearly wasn't a possibility, I made the decision to spend some time in the Word, hoping it would give me what I needed to make it through all that God has planned for this week. So with coffee in hand, I sat down in the living room and opened my Bible up to Ephesians 2:4-8, which tells us, “But God is so rich in mercy, and He loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, He gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead
Dear Friends, I've heard it said that it's easier to find men willing to die than it is to find men willing to be patient. That is certainly how it has felt for me personally this week, as I've struggled to be patient in almost every area of my life. And that's not a good thing, because God specifically calls us to be people of patience. The Apostle Paul makes this clear in Ephesians 4:2, where he writes, “be patient with one another, in love”. So as Christians, we're called to be patient. But it's a hard calling to live out because there are so many things in life working against our ability to remain patient. Fortunately for me, right when it seemed I would lose any shred of patience
