It Doesn’t Make Sense…At First

It was a new job outside my career field. That meant learning new acronyms and new regulations. It also meant dealing with a lot more civilians. At first, so much didn’t make sense. By the time I left the assignment, I had a firm grasp of what didn’t make sense at...

Their Hope of Gain was Gone

Money makes the world go ‘round. Might makes right. The ends justify the means. These statements have a semblance of wisdom and are confirmed by our historical bias. But are such sentiments really true? Is there something more important than money, power, or...

Denying Jesus

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? Not me! That’s a fun song for small children, but when the question is, “Who is a Christian?” how shall we answer? The answer is of paramount personal importance. In John 18, Peter denies Jesus three times (vv. 17, 25, and...

What do I do now?

 My crew partner admitted to saying, “But I haven’t got to that chapter in the book!” His wife’s water broke, but he hadn’t finished, “What to Expect When You Are Expecting.” The end of the pregnancy snuck upon him. At the crucial moment, he asked the question,...

Just What We Do

It had been a 100-hour workweek. An inspection was coming up, problems were cropping up, so our work hours went up. No one told us to work such hours. No one questioned the need for long hours. The mission dictated the workload, so we worked. It was just what we did....

Something was lost in translation

Language doesn’t always make sense. If you were to ask a new-to-English-speaker, “What’s up?” the logical answer is, “the sky.” That answer does not actually answer the question that was intended. America’s favorite Bible verse is kind of like that. We see it on...

That Just Sounds Wrong

TV commercials sell products. If you remember the commercial but not the product, then the commercial failed. I remember a commercial that sold something, but I don’t remember what it was. I remember  the commercial because a teenage daughter shouted at her...

“Those Who Can Do. Those Who Can’t Teach”

My uncle said it. I am pretty sure he had never read George Bernard Shaw. Most of us who know the saying, believe it is a proverb— not something lifted out of a novel. The Bible, however, teaches us something different in Ezra 7:10, “For Ezra had set his heart to...

You’re Not the Boss of Me!

Imagine an older child telling a younger, “You need to clean up your room.” Would it surprise you if the younger said, “You’re not the boss of me!” Have you heard this same conversation? This “conversation” is a microcosm of the world at large today. Everyone wants to...

But God Raised Him From the Dead

I remember my first office. No longer living in a cubicle, the trappings of the office were nice. It would have been easy to let it go to my head. The office didn’t exist as a reward but as a tool to do my job more effectively. The most important part was the job. The...

New Testament

God Has a Better Plan

God Has a Better Plan

Two thousand years ago, Elizabeth wanted children. In her culture, children were her priority. She didn’t have any, therefore others looked down on her. Her society wrote her off as too old to be a successful Jewish woman. She was too old to have children. She was...

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Greek Yogurt Is Terrible

Greek Yogurt Is Terrible

Johnny stood, mouth open in disgust. “It gets stuck between your teeth, is too tough to chew, and tastes like day-old Dr. Pepper. Greek yogurt is yucky!” He wrinkled his nose even thinking about it. Jen paused her spoon an inch from her open mouth. “Have you ever...

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Come and See!

Come and See!

Nurses just know. They’ve been there, done that. They say, “Just slap a bandaid on it and stop complainin’!” But that same gruff nurse who blows off our ouches and owies as an annoyance will soften like butter in the warm, Texas sun when confronted with a patient who...

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Old Testament

Change Is Tough

Change Is Tough

The Air Force provides a lot of training, very little of it on a volunteer basis. One of the trainings I took was in “Change Management.” It may have had a different, more military sounding name, something like “Non-linear Progression of Leadership Requirements” but I...

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The A-Team

The A-Team

When the Air Force stationed my dad overseas, the only real disadvantage of living “on the economy” was a lack of US TV programs. If you lived close enough to base, you could watch the Armed Forces Network, but we lived too far away. Somehow, one of the American...

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