Thursday Thought

A friend at work recently texted to thank me for praying about a family health situation. Good thing it was a text and not FaceTime. I’m sure there was a strained look on my face as I pondered whether, in fact, I had prayed. Perhaps I did pray initially, but not nearly as much as my friend credited me. Can you relate to that? Someone asks you to pray, and you give hearty agreement to their request with every intention to follow through. And then, you don’t. Your friend is assuming you’re praying—counting on it. They've told others that you…

Attempting to put sunscreen on a two-year-old is like trying to catch a greased pig. You can try, but it’s not going to be pretty. Yet Emma wanted to play in the park and it was sunny outside and since she was in our care, we dug out the sunscreen. A dab on her nose and each cheek should have been easy to smooth out. Should have. Did I mention Emma is two? She looked this way and that and up and down and around. I tried rubbing that lotion in for all I was worth. And failed. Her head…

Air travel is back.  In a big way! Between July 1 and July 5, TSA workers screened more than 10 million people.  That's a record exceeding any pre-pandemic numbers. Snaking through the Disney-like security lines at O’Hare last week, I observed a flight attendant's ID tag marked in bold black letters, "Known Crew Member." The speed with which she breezed through lines that bogged down the rest of us gave new meaning to the expression, "cleared for takeoff.” Finally shoehorned into my airplane seat, I watched as fellow travelers attempted to mash luggage into overhead bins that seem to shrink…

I heard something the other day that nearly curled my toes and curdled my milk. Some guy was relating a personal incident that he summarized with the phrase, "that's my truth." Like a noxious weed, this expression is invading the landscape of American thought. The big deal? Truth and personal experience are both treated as equals. But there's an ocean of difference between the two. Truth operates independently of experience. Experience is personal, flexible, and open to interpretation. Truth is impersonal, fixed, and not open to interpretation. Truth exists outside of opinion—yours or mine. For me to claim that water…

What are you seeking most in life? What’s the secret driving passion of your soul? The honest answer is surprisingly easy to gauge. I say real because most believers are wired to give a “Sunday School answer.” That Sunday School answer, of course, would be Jesus: He’s number one in my life, we insist. But here's a simple test to determine what you are genuinely seeking: it's the first thing you think about every morning and, likely, the last thing you think about at night. Despite our claims to love Jesus best, many of us primarily seek comfort, power, influence,…

Dressed in a powder blue paper gown, I sit crinkling on the exam table.  The doctor looks over every inch of my skin for evidence of skin cancer or pre-cancerous growths. Armed with her magnifier, she always finds something (thankfully pre-cancerous, to this point). Nothing escapes her examination! The reward for all this probing and poking and intimidation? She blasts every problem area with a can of liquid nitrogen. It's an instant burn that throbs, turns red, then oozes, then scabs over. Maybe you’ve had the same (not joyful) experience. Frankly, there is nothing about this examination that is pleasant….

The sticker stood out on that electrical switch box on the scoreboard at the football field. It said simply, "You are beautiful." My initial reaction was, What a great message! Then the cynic in me said, Wait a minute. Nobody posts anything these days online, let alone on an electrical box, without some kind of agenda. Maybe it's an internet hoax or a British rock band or PR campaign for some new product. After a brief online search, I arrived at the website, you-are-beautiful.com. There I learned that more than 5 million of these 1.5" x 2" friendly sticker reminders…

There's no way it should have been that difficult. All I was trying to do was replace our broken toilet seat. You remove two screws, pop off the old seat, and install the new one. A five-minute job—ten at the most. The first bolt came right off. The other—not so much. Rusty! More than rusted, it appeared welded. No amount of torque from my wrench or spray from my WD-40 made it budge. It was time to get serious. With a power tool, I could slice the bolt off and grind down some of the wing nut. Still no go! Finally, we…

It's the most impressive mountain range in the state of Illinois. You say there are no mountain ranges in the Land of Lincoln? Okay. So maybe I've exaggerated the peaks of rust that jut skyward near Chicago's Kedzie Avenue. Upon closer examination, the man-made mounds of steel reveal surprisingly recognizable chunks of everyday stuff. Crane-mounted magnets and hydraulic claws paw at the piles, sorting and stacking washing machines, cars, refrigerators, dryers, freezers, and more. Though I’m glad for the recycling, I’m a bit sad for myself—and you. In those piles, I see the investment of so many false hopes, not…

Our two garden boxes are nothing to brag about. But come July or August, they will produce: beans, tomatoes, onions and peppers (sweet and spicy). We have every expectation of enjoying our own organic crops.   The soil we used was pre-loaded with plant minerals. We’ve watered regularly and there’s been plenty of sun. I even yanked a couple of weeds earlier today. So there’s every reason to hope for a harvest.  The other day, in a weird warped moment, I asked myself, how would I feel if after all the work (mostly my wife’s) of planting, watering, fertilizing and weeding we got nothing for…