Author: Jon Gauger

While babysitting Ava and Emma recently, Emma trotted into the living room bearing two dolls—and an announcement: “This is Anna and Elsa—but they lost their legs.” It was hard not to giggle at how this four-year-old crammed facts and fate into one tragic sentence. However, upon further examination, Emma's assessment proved reliable. The lead characters of Disney's Frozen franchise were decked out in their movie finest—but lacked legs. All of them. The sight of the dolls’ (plastic) smiles, despite their mangled condition, felt odd. At my wife Diana’s encouragement, the girls dug through their dolly collection and found some of…

  At the age of 99, Chuck Christensen is one of the best listeners you could ever meet. After every sentence you utter, he offers an affirming response. When you talk, he makes unfailing eye contact. He nods in empathy, asks clarifying questions, and leans forward—as if to support you. He's the only human being I've ever met whose "Hmm…" feels like a comforting hand on your sagging shoulders. Were your conversation recorded, stop-watched, and displayed as a pie chart, your half of that talk would invariably be larger than his. Always. Like me, you’re probably guilty of “listening” while…

“How did your church’s outreach event go?” I asked my friend Jack. “Went well—once it got started. The guy who rented us the equipment showed up 30 minutes late and took another 20 minutes to set up. So we had fifty people roaming the halls at church waiting for an event that started almost an hour late.” “Not cool.” “Not at all. I felt sick—like instead of hosting our guests, we’d given them a black eye.” “Isn’t that a little harsh, Jack?” “Maybe. But inside, I was seething—and I was blunt with the installation guy. Not over the top, but…

The lights are on, but nobody’s home. Okay, it’s not exactly a house—it’s a restaurant. Or at least it was. A while back, a team with a dream took a long look at a cavernous bar with a concrete floor. In its place, they envisioned a killer French restaurant. It would be the crown jewel of eateries in Chicago’s River North community. But the dream would take a significant investment. For about a year, I watched truckloads of contractors pouring in and out of the old bar. They cored through the cement, reworked the electricity, curved the drywall, hung new…

If you are a little child visiting our home, you can expect a warm welcome and a horsey ride. We will gladly sit down and play your favorite game or laugh at your favorite joke. Truthfully, you can probably even expect a yes to your snack request. As I often explain to friends, it's not that we never say no, it's just that we work real hard to say yes! But there are a few things we will not tolerate: children who refuse to say please and thank you. We demand it. Insist on it. In our experience, unless you…

On November 21, 1948, a tall preacher with a North Carolina drawl stood in the pulpit at the Van Orin Gospel church. It’s a small chapel in a small town surrounded by other small Illinois towns like Green Oak, Kasbeer, and Zearing. The preacher could never have known that just one year later, he would speak to 350,000 people in his Los Angeles crusade. If you visit the Van Orin Gospel church, as we did this week, you’ll see the plaque and pulpit that recall Billy Graham’s appearance. But they bring a question to mind. Before Billy Graham was Billy…

Sauntering off the plane in Colorado Springs, I paused to reassemble the contents of my backpack and then left the airport for lunch with a friend. Only later did I realize what I’d left behind at the airport: my iPad. Response? I started trashing myself for stupid irresponsibility. How could I have been so careless, so foolish? A nasty net of anxiety strangled my soul. For me, the iPad is much more than a tablet for surfing the web, checking email, or playing a game. I practically live on it. It's my laptop. I've written entire books on it! Tons…

Are you more intrigued with earth than heaven? Let me rephrase the question: How fascinated are you with heaven? The temptation is to answer this question with what we know to be the correct Sunday School answer: "Well, of course, I'm looking forward to heaven." But there’s a foolproof way to know the truth. Your praying (and mine) tells the real story. Attend your church's prayer meeting, and what are most of the requests you hear? We pray for physical healing, well-being, jobs, houses—that sort of thing. Most of it is temporary in nature. But look at all the prayers…

As the war drags on and the death toll goes up, the media is making a predictable turn. Their sympathy is shifting from Israel toward the Palestinians. Increasingly, we'll be shown tragic images of Palestinian children and women injured or killed. The not-so-subtle message will be, "If only those mean Israelis would stop attacking innocent people, stop occupying others' land, and start living in peace." Every death, every tear, every life matters—on both sides. But what you will probably not see online or on television is a clear presentation of the facts. With the kind permission of Middle East expert…

Question: Do you keep your valuables in a safe? If so, how safe is your safe? An old story offers a fresh perspective. The man was not just rich—he was extremely rich. And he had a question for Jesus: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus simply replied, "You know the commandments,"—and He listed several. Undaunted, the rich ruler replied, "All these I have kept from my youth." Amazingly, Jesus did not disagree with the man. “One thing you still lack,” offered the Teacher from Nazareth. At this point, the rich guy leaned forward, not wanting to miss…