Author: Jon Gauger

Ava's head plopped low. Exhaling, she gave off a sigh full of as much frustration as a five-year-old can muster. She'd tried putting on her puffy winter coat all by herself. Instead, she'd managed to ball it up in a pretzel. That's when her sweet voice intoned, “Can you turn my outside inside?” If only fixing adult problems was as easy. Within the last 24 hours, my wife and I have been made aware of: A three-year-old who has just been diagnosed with a severe brain tumor. A couple who wonders if the family's mother will survive cancer that has…

What if Jesus wore cologne—and it rubbed off on you? A former boss was ferociously fond of a strong cologne which he wore religiously. You could step into the empty elevator on the first floor and clearly sense his fragrance even though he may have ridden ten floors up in that elevator ten minutes earlier! It still hung thick in the air. After a recording session, the splash of his cologne even managed to rub off on the studio headphones. And if you ever shook his hand, you surely "shared" his cologne for some time afterward. Did you ever consider…

How would you feel if you witnessed the detonation of an atom bomb? Seventy years ago this month, Christian Life Magazine featured a cover photo of 250 soldiers observing an atomic bomb explosion at a test site in Nevada. The probing headline asked: "What's Coming in '52?" This feature responded to an ominous article from Collier’s Magazine titled, “The War We Do Not Want.” So, the magazine assembled a group of leading Christian businessmen of the day, asking them to assess where American Christianity was at—and where it might steer in the new year. D.F. McKechnie, prominent CPA, advised, "Saved…

We love happy endings: In our books In our movies In our lives. It’s not that we’re pollyannish. We know life isn’t fair. The girl doesn't always get the guy. The job we're confident is God's will often eludes us. The cancer we pray would go into remission does so. Only to return and claim our loved one. Poised at the edge of a new year while glancing back at the old, this fascination of ours with happy endings is brought into sharp, even painful, focus. And here’s the brutal biblical truth: Nowhere in Scripture are we ever urged to…

Do you make a Christmas wish list? This year, we didn’t get around to it until Monday of this week. As in five days before Christmas (no sense in rushing these things, right?). The discipline of putting pen to paper brought to mind a question. What if, instead of just Diana and me sitting there in the family room, Jesus was there, too? And what if He decided to hand each of us a wish list? What would we find? I suspect the Son of God would not ask for a pair of new sandals or an updated robe. If…

Small gifts matter. Check out this email from my friend, Jack:   Peppermint bark in a metal tin. That—and a Christmas card—were in one hand as I knocked on the door with the other. It was just a small gift. With the house cloaked in afternoon shadows, the window's reflection made it difficult to see if Mark was home. Mark lives a few doors down from us, but he’s been existing in a world far from ours: grief. When at last I saw someone behind the door glass, it was not the face of Mark, the home repair guy we…

You've heard there's a national coin shortage, a computer chip shortage, a cream cheese shortage (I'm not joking), and a truck driver shortage. Supposedly, there's also a shortage of Christmas trees—real and fake—and we can likely expect another toilet paper shortage soon. To this list, add one more: a shortage of people who care to listen to others. Everybody loves a conversation. But hardly anybody likes to listen. Perhaps you’ve had the experience of asking someone about their day—and then been fire-hosed with a ten-minute monologue. (Of course, you’ve never done that, have you?). Despite Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, people…

With Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror, it was time to set up our Christmas manger scene. Slot A met Tab B, and the white cut-out boards snapped together in no time. The final touch—a white floodlight to illuminate Jesus and the manger scene. Having shoved the plastic fixture into the lawn, I connected the extension cords, turned the light switch and…nothing. A quick examination revealed a crack that was more than a little suspicious. Time to replace it. We found a new fixture at Home Depot the next day, and I eagerly threaded the floodlight into the socket. We turned…

Just an average-looking envelope. Not so much as a scribble on it. But inside was a ring. A wedding ring? It sure seemed that way to Laura, a neighbor lady. She'd found it in the street, not far from our home, while out for a walk with her dog. The ring bore a tiny inscription suggesting it was a gift from Gabe. But Gabe who? There are 50 some houses on our street. Though we know many of the neighbors, we surely don’t know them all. And what proof was there that it belonged to anyone on our street, anyway?…

We are just back from a trip to Israel. In eight days of audio and video recording, we interviewed 18 different people for some upcoming Moody Radio specials. Among them is a guy named Nizar Touma. He is pastor of the church of the Nazarene in the heart of Nazareth. If you’ve never been there, here’s what would likely surprise you if you were to visit Jesus’ hometown today. First, Nazareth is noisy. It's a city of nearly 80,000 with all the bustle and business of a busy place. Indeed, Nazareth is the largest Arab city in all of Israel….