When God created mankind there was a strong bond between the Creator and the Created. This bond extended to the rest of the earthly creation that God had made. Man was to work with the environment to subdue it and have dominion. In other words, he was to dress and keep it. God and man walked together, they talked together, and they worked together. All of those things are contained in the first chapters of Genesis. The Creator, Man, and the environment all worked … [Read more...] about The Garden of Eden Prototype
God
Handling Conflict
We all deal with conflict daily, in many forms. Even the church has conflict, internal and external, from time to time. With the Bible as our guide, which biblical examples can teach us about a specific quality that foils conflict? Where does this quality come from? What does it lead to? Let’s consider Gideon’s example to identify this quality. Chosen by God as a judge of Israel he was assigned to defeat a threat from neighboring Midian (Judges 6:1-8:21). He assembled an army of 32,000, but … [Read more...] about Handling Conflict
Overcoming Anxiety
Frustration is almost always the result of our will not happening. And for us humans, it's universally about our wanting to impose our will into a situation. It's about needing to control things or people. The concept of control is not only the root of our frustrations but also the root of our fears and our anxieties in life, which can be detrimental not only to our lives but also to the lives of all those that we love and those we interact with. The cause of fear and anxiety is often a … [Read more...] about Overcoming Anxiety
Conquering Frustration
An author named Jackson Brown wrote, “You can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles these four things: a rainy holiday, lost luggage, a busy store, and tangled Christmas lights. I would definitely add traffic to this list of annoyances. But you probably get that feeling, almost like nails across the chalkboard whenever this list of annoyances is mentioned. Have you ever been frustrated? Of course we all have. Our frustrations are usually caused by small annoyances that eat away at us. … [Read more...] about Conquering Frustration
Time and Chance Happens to All
Solomon addresses an issue that causes a great deal of perplexity to people because he’s made this statement that the righteous and wise and their works are in the hand of God (Ecclesiastes 9:1). At first that sounds like a great place to be. Then he says: “All things come alike to all: One event happens to the righteous and the wicked; To the good, the clean, and the unclean; To him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; He who takes an oath as he who … [Read more...] about Time and Chance Happens to All
The Search for Significance
Today, the entire world finds itself in a time of vast, uneasy change, where economic, social, political, and religious turmoil are the rule of the day not the exception. And now, we hear about the advent of AI. Our minds can only imagine how much that’s going to accelerate or increase what is already uneasy change. Already, the constant bombardment produces a toxic environment of unresolved stress. Unresolved stress leads to disconnected lives. Disconnected lives lead to helplessness. … [Read more...] about The Search for Significance
The True Nature of Leadership
I think we can say factually that we are in a crisis of leadership in this country and the world. It is not just political government. Leadership is also suffering in education, business, city governments, families and in the Churches. Today I want to take a practical look at this issue of leadership. It’s not so much a discussion of leadership principles but more about the whole concept of leadership, the nature of leadership. First, I want to look at leadership from a worldly … [Read more...] about The True Nature of Leadership