Gone Fishin!

I suppose by now you've heard that James Cameron has made the claim that he has found the grave of Jesus and his family. Think about the implications for a minute. Paul said in 1 Cor 15 that if Jesus is not raised then we above all men are to be most pitied. He's right! If Jesus did not ovecome the grave everything I base my life on is gone, my worldview, my vocation, how I approach my family, my dreams, and my eternal destiny. It also means that Jesus is a liar and a fraud. It means that whatever good things He said are no good, because its all built on a lie. So with that in mind think about it for a second before you dismiss this claim. What would it mean to you, to the world if Jesus was just a really good dead man? Before you lose all faith, this claim by James Cameron can be answered. I've compiled a couple of webistes for your viewing pleasure that could point you in the right direction. Be a critical thinker, examine the evidence. Truth has a funny way of coming out...

How does one place value on a life lived. At our end lies a 2 foot high piece of granite with a name, two dates and a few words scribbled on it. Between the dates lies a most profound symbol….a dash. It’s a small black line that spans the time between our birth and our death. Contained on that dash are our first steps, our first words, our first bicycle ride, our first day at school, our first recognition of beauty. It will contain our loves and our jobs. It’ll hold our weddings and the birth our kids. It’ll bear the pain of separations and wars. That little black line will represent all we did in life for passers by. Every person we ever had an impact on will ride that line. Our recognition of God is there. Our hurts our failures our achievements all sit right on that little line, that dash. Today a dear friend lost her grandfather. As she shared stories of him, his smile, his hard work, his profound impact on her life, I thought “How could a little dash hold a life like that?” Well i...

Bill Hybels in one of his books says that after two years of becoming a Christian most church going folks have no friends outside the church. None! That is so contradictory to what the Bible says for believers to do. I'm not sure what it is that drives Christians within the confines of the church. Maybe its that we came from lives that were not pleasing to God and we don't want to go back to that. Maybe its that get comfortable with our Christian friends. Maybe as my friend Alvin Reid used to say, "We got saved and we got over it". I think its probably a combination of all. As a Chaplain in the Army I am surrounded every day by people that believe differently from me. Its kind of like reverse missionary work. The world comes to me. One such example I'll tell you is for your encouragement today. PVT E from one of my companies requested to see me one day a few weeks ago. Many of my counseling requests are whiny soldiers who just want out of the Army. This one was di...

A couple of weeks ago at a prayer breakfast for my Battalion I used a trailer from the movie Groundhog Day. It is indeed one of my favorite movies. I love anything with Bill Murray. In fact I laugh thinking about him sometimes. The story line is that Bill Murray is a weatherman, he hates his job and he hates winter. He goes to Punxsutawney PA, home of the groundhog for Groundhog Day to see if the big rat is predicting another 6 weeks of winter. When he gets snowed in that night, he wakes up to the sound of Sonny and Cher singing “Babe, I got you Babe”. He finds that he is stuck in the same day with the exact same events happening over and over again. Every day its Sonny and Cher and its Groundhog Day. I nearly drives him nuts! Well, in Basic Combat Training after going to the same ranges, day after day. The same privates with the same names, the Johnsons, the Smiths, the Jones, keep showing up. They all look alike too. They all have the same haircut. They all wear the same thing. It ca...

I get by with a little help from friends. That was a line from an old Beatles song, but there’s a lot of truth contained therein. As of today I have been mobilized away from my family for 23 months. Its hard to fathom that it has been that long. I’m tired of being away. I love my job, but I love my family even more. I miss them and they miss me. One of the problems being mobilized brings is the normal household stuff that men like to do. I love to fix stuff and work with tools. My wife does not. Its not her lane, its mine. Imagine your home after the man of the house has not been there for more than 23 months. Weeds spring up, stuff gets worn out, repairs need to made and there’s no one there to do all that man stuff. We can’t just hire a man to hang around and do my husbandly duties(Amen to that!). So the house has suffered. Imagine that you want to simplify your life and sell your house that’s too big. But you have a problem, the house needs work to get presentable to sell. There are...

Part of my duties as a Chaplain is to be in the shoot for funerals and death notifications. Death notifications are brutal. You’re there at the front door of a home of unsuspecting folks that have sent their child off to the Army. You are in your green uniform and as soon as they see you, its over, their world is ruined. It’s a difficult task. Then we have the honor of officiating funerals for retirees. I have done 5 or 6 since becoming a Chaplain. One which I’ll eventually write down was hilarious, some are short and somber. This week was a profound event for me however. It spoke to my soul about the value of friendship, lifelong friendship. It spoke about the bond of “drinking buddies”. I learned about the value of a life that gave more than it took. I also learned that God has His timetable with people, and He isn’t much concerned with how I’d like things to be done. I got called to take the Chaplain role for this funeral on Thursday. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time, right...