I love to express what I feel called to say. Writing helps me to open up my heart and do that. I hope that what I write helps you in some way. I hope it makes you think, encourages you, or inspires you. If it challenges you or if you disagree, I hope you know that I respect your right to have a different point of view.
Disappointment wants to dominate us and to steal the joy of hopeful expectation. Refuse to let disappoint destroy your joy in the present and your hope for the future. Life’s full of too many blessings to be disappointed by the ones you think you missed. Cancel your appointment with disappointment.
Disappointment says, “Look back and cry.” Jesus says, “Look to Me and rejoice!” The living Jesus is the best ointment to heal your disappointment. Prisoners of disappointment, let the living Jesus set you free!
Disappointment is like a pier. It doesn’t cross the lake, but it does give you a fresh viewpoint. If you refuse to look back, but look forward with hope, disappointment can’t last.
Disappoint your disappointment. Refuse to follow where it tries to lead you. Defer it until it’s so distant you hardly notice it.Continually point your mind toward your blessings, not toward disappointment.
All human life is made in the image of God. Respect God’s image in everyone. The loss of young human lives is no less tragic because it happens prenatally. When a country is overflowing with insults and rudeness, one kind word is powerful.
Violence is extreme arrogance. It pretends it has the right to hurt people. Human violence almost always causes more injustice than it solves. Both prenatal and postnatal violence are cruel.
Temptation is the “human race” bate, luring us into pride, divisiveness, and injustice. Unkind words from our own citizens, may be the greatest, current threat to America.Outward hostility is a poor substitute for the lack of inner strength.
Christians are called to humility: To love the people on both sides of an argument. Be beneficial. Help heal the hurt and hostility in our land.To resist humility is to work against God.
Play the “human race” card.Embrace all people as your equal. There is much unfairness in the world; try not to be the cause of even more. (Do you want to be treated the way you treat the people you least respect?) Unfairness is often well camouflaged. Sometimes we lack compassion because we’re unwilling to see someone’s pain.
We’ve all been treated unfairly in various degrees, but all unfairness isn’t equal. Bad things come to those who hate (bitterness eventually consumes them).
The Christian answer to racial conflict should be love. Race as a divisive feature of mankind is artificial. History reveals it as manmade. When humans declared superficial skin color to be significant, we unleashed much pain.
Refusing to try to understand someone’s viewpoint is the beginning of unfairness. Too many people want to overpower others. I want a world where we empower each other. If we want to be heard and respected, perhaps we should listen to and respect others.
Most people aren’t intentionally unfair, but it’s so easy to be unintentionally so. Although fairness and equality can never be fully achieved in a nation, we can do better than we’ve done.
A genuine attitude of fairness goes a long way towards peace, healing, and community. It’s easy to assume that things are fair, but if we haven’t examined them with open hearts and rational minds, how do we know they are?To learn your nation’s history without prejudice, pursue it like you would study an ancient civilization long ago destroyed. By learning how atrocities were committed in history, we may be able to prevent more.
The more you make room for the living Jesus to work in your life, the greater you are in His kingdom.
Stand up for what you know is right, deep in your conscience even when it’s uncomfortable. Don’t just for what you want. Tell what you stand for (instead of insulting your opponents). Love people, even when you disagree with them.
Compassionately warning people of danger is love. Dangerous times need such love. Warnings are good. They alert us to the opportunity to avoid pain and mishaps. Failure to warn someone who is stepping unaware into harm’s way, is unloving.
Danger lurks when the people of a nation embrace and promote self-destructive behavior. Beware of the march of evil ideas. (Not all points of view are just and righteous.) Your behavior matters. Choose to do what’s right before God and avoid doing wrong. When your conscience tells you that a bridge is out, it’s wise to turn back.
Rejecting Christian ethical standards, leads to becoming a prisoner of whims. The voices in your head & heart don’t always tell you the truth. If you find yourself trying to justify immoral behavior, you may be already deceived.
If you can’t (or won’t) vividly see your own faults, self-righteousness has set in. Our mistakes are warnings. They don’t define us, but challenge us to be better.
Freedom is wonderful, unless it’s used to self-destruct or to do wrong. Being your own moral compass is the road to confusion and personal chaos. Choose thoughts and behaviors that improve your life, help others, and align with truth.
“Not judging” isn’t being quiet about your beliefs. It is “speaking the truth in love.”
On going anger is dangerous, both to the angry person and to society. When your anger exceeds your compassion, you become a walking danger.
Sexuality’s not a toy for our fancy. It’s a God-given blessing that carries responsibility.
An artificial lifestyle is heartless. A superficial lifestyle is shallow. A beneficial lifestyle is beautiful.
Superficial thinking leads to arguments, but a relentless search for the truth leads to peace. As long as you will listen to your conscience, you’re not far from the voice of God.
Superficial Christianity’s common; supernatural Christianity’s Christ’s “narrow way.” If we’re not entirely convinced of eternity, we act like all that matters is now.Warning: It’s easy for Christians to be out of step with the living Jesus.
As comfort zones crumble around us, I find great comfort in the living Jesus Christ.The living Jesus is busy calming storms in human hearts, all around the world in 2020.Even though I don’t understand what’s going on, the peace that the risen Jesus gives, transcends it all.
When anger burns like fire and blows like a hurricane, a country is in trouble. Angry people aren’t very fun.
America’s experiencing nature’s furry in fires and storms and human rage from the White House to the streets. We need to disengage rage, before it’s too late! (Look at the past. People who rode rage, always crashed.)
To effectively communicate, take the shout out of your voice and disengage from rage. After all, rage is a goofy stage ( as a platform for speaking and/or a phase of life). If we turn the page on rage and engage each other with love and compassion, we can heal.
Taking offense lets your destructive emotions out of their fence. Best forgive. Rage is a cage that locks down the heart of the person who carries it. When you get mad at people, you acknowledge their ability to manipulate you.
Loathing is a heavy load, both for the loather and the lothees. Loathing is ugly clothing, but a smile is always in style.Loathing easily leaps into violence, but love likes to lead toward peace.
It’s sad that many people choose to be mad about what they don’t like, instead of glad about what they do. If you stay mad, you’ll stay sad. If you show love, you’ll rise above it like a dove. To get mad at someone for disagreeing with your opinion is arrogance.
Anger makes the human mind think irrationally. Volleys of anger kill the jollies of life. Cease fire! Escalate kindness to de-escalate conflict.
Anger creates tension. Widespread anger creates widespread tension. Peace please. To avoid getting mad, refuse to allow people’s words to make you mad. Instead of getting mad, try being merely miffed. Then you won’t wreck a relationship.
Jesus said, “Leap for joy,” but many Christians just creep along. We need more Christicism–first-hand, mystical encounters with the living Jesus.Christology is the study of Christ. Christian mysticism (Christicism) is experiencing Him. I experience mystical encouragement as Jesus speaks within me. I find that I am strongest when I’m weak enough to surrender to Jesus.
To be with the living Jesus and in awe of Him, is the most amazing form of prayer. Beholding Jesus dispels indifference and compels awe and obedience. Behold the Lamb of God! If Jesus never causes you to say “Aha!” you may have replaced Him with religion. Christ demystified is Christ denied.
A Christic (Christian mystic) is someone who continually listens to and obeys the risen Jesus. A Christic follows Jesus supernaturally, not just intellectually. Jesus didn’t teach concepts unrelated to daily reality. Follow Him daily, not religion. A Christic experiences and obeys the living Jesus for real.
Many people avoid mystical experiences with the living Jesus, because of fear. Much of modern Christianity has been demystified & emptied of awe, leaving a mere shell.
Too much Christianity demonstrates verbal proclamation, but behavioral denial. Demystified Christianity is often dull, but “Christ in you” is continual adventure. For admission into great joy, let the living Jesus lead your into daily mission.
Christians are called to live in a Christocracy–under the direct Kingship of Jesus. Do you?
When people don’t feel like they matter, shower them with kindness, until they do. Love and kindness are the fruit of the Spirit. We can’t have biblical Christianity without them. What peace there would be if everyone who claims to love God, would love people.
If we don’t (or won’t) love people who offend us, we’ve settled for something less than biblical Christianity.Heartstemic racism can be overcome. Christ wants to set us all free from racial divisions, racial judgments, and racial unkindness. One of the most important things you can do in life is to show heart-felt love to people who have been made to feel like they don’t matter.
When differences are dispelled by love and daily diminish, that’s true, biblical diversity. The Bible says that Christians are from “every kindred and every tribe,” yet united in Christ. To see people but fail to perceive their pain, is to have what Jesus calls “a calloused heart.”
Jesus said that He found no one in Israel with a greater faith than a particular Roman centurion. Perhaps some of the people we look at as political “threats” are also people of great faith. The color that matters most: Are your sins covered with the red blood of Jesus?
Be hostile against any evil within you. Be kind to help other people overcome evil.Few people show hostility to gentle words; but many respond with hostility to insulting words.
Powerful ideas can be presented with gentleness. Weak ideas require aggression. Rude words are a jackhammer that demolishes the walkways between people.
Love’s not a whimsical feeling, but intentionally kind behavior. Explosive topics should be spoken of with gentleness, not with insults. Gentle words are much more easily heard & received than hostile, hateful words. It should be no surprise when reckless words create pain and retaliation. On the field of politeness, rude people lose every time.
If you want your pain to be taken seriously, perhaps you should take other people’s pain seriously as well. For my handbook on Christian Race Transformation, read: Off the RACE Track–From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.
My house is surrounded by forgotten history. It’s on Blackman Road in the middle of a former plantation. I live on (or near) land that was cleared and worked by black men, women, and children, who were held in a lifetime of forced labor and human trafficking, by Judge John Overton.
Judge Overton established much of Tennessee’s legal system. He was the lifelong best friend of President Andrew Jackson, who was a frequent visitor at Overton’s plantation house. Overton first called it Golgotha (which means place of a skull) because it was built in 1799 on an ancient burial ground and many skulls were unearthed during construction. Later he changed the name to Travelers Rest. I tell more about the Overton plantation in my book, Off the RACE Track.
Blackman Road comes to a dead end a few hundred feet before it reaches Travelers Rest. If you extended it, it would lead right to Overton’s mansion. Could Blackman Road have been the way slaves came and went? Could it have been the road to slave shacks? I haven’t been able to find the origin of the name anywhere.(Someone helped answer those questions by sending me an old newspaper article and a map that showed that Hays Blackman {1797-1873} had a plantation around what is now Blackman Road, that was adjacent to Overton’s land, prior to the Civil War. After he died, his son, Dr. Blackman inherited the land. Blackman Road was probably named for one or both of them.)
Another plantation that adjoined Overton’s land, (which is just a few blocks away from my house and I frequently walk to) is now called Ellington Agricultural Center. It’s owned by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. The main building there is a reproduction of The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s plantation house. It was built by a wealthy banker in 1928.
Prior to that, the land was a plantation owned by William Ewing and his family. They are buried in an old cemetery on the property (the first grave was in 1822). Some were Confederate soldiers. However, the Ewings and their plantation are a mystery. Although they were neighbors of John Overton, I haven’t been able to find anything about them on the internet or anywhere else, besides from the gravestones. Only silence. I often wonder why their stories (and the stories of their slaves) are lost to history.
My house on Blackman Road is also surrounded by three Civil War Battlefields. The Battle of Nashville was fought a few blocks west of here. During that battle, Overton’s Travelers Rest Mansion was the headquarters of Confederate General John Bell Hood. The Battle of Franklin about was fought about 10 miles south of here, and the Battle of Stones River about 30 miles southeast of here.
When I’m sitting on my deck, looking at my huge magnolia tree, it’s so peaceful here. It’s hard for me to imagine the bondage and cruelty that took place all around me.
I didn’t plan to live on Blackman Road. My previous house had been on the market for two years and wouldn’t sell. (Well, it did sell one time and my wife and I put a contract on another home, but our buyer backed out the night before closing.) When our previous home finally sold again, our realtor called me and said that she had found the house for us. She told me to get my wife and daughter and rush to Blackman Road because a house had just gone on the market and she was showing it to someone else.
When my wife, daughter, and I arrived at Blackman Road, we all really liked the house. Our realter said that the other guy was planning to put a contract on it, but she thought she could talk him into buying another house on a different street. So we immediately put in an offer. Our realtor said there were 3 other offers made that day, but the sellers accepted ours.
Then our realtor, with great astonishment, told us that something amazing had happened. She said that she had faxed (remember fax machines) our signed contract to the sellers’ agent. When that agent called our agent to accept the contract, she told our agent that her sellers would also pay the $4,000 toward our closing costs that we had requested. However, neither our agent or we ever requested that. Our agent just couldn’t understand how it happened. We told her it had to be God.
So now I live on Blackman Road. In reality I’ve been on black man road ever since I sold Ebony’s Pictorial History Of Black America door to door when I was in college. Spending 6 days a week hanging out with hundreds of amazing black people opened my heart to them. I’ve been on the road of love and respect for black men, women, and children ever since.
America’s history of racial distancing has left a legacy of divisiveness. Racial distancing is when you only open your heart to people who match your color. It involves avoiding, ignoring, or mistreating people who don’t look like you.
Separating by color isn’t just a matter of physical proximity. It’s done in the heart. Jim Crow laws separated people. Racial distancing keeps hearts apart. “Separate but equal” is a famous, racial distancing phrase in American legal history.
The distance between you and another person should never be based on skin color. To me racial distancing’s boring, but connecting across color lines, fun and inspiring.
The shortest racial distance between two people is a Christ-filled, heart connection.If churches would refuse to racial distance the way some refuse to social distance, we’d see revival.
Racism can be subtle, but racial distancing is obvious and apparent to any observer. It spreads misunderstanding and stereotypes. It hampers heart-felt equality.
Separating by color and “liberty and justice for all,” are contradictions. People don’t eye-color distance. Why should we skin-color distance?
If we could fill in The gaps in melanin Equality would be revealing.
Racial distancing refuses to listen to people describe the pain that it has caused them. It usually denies that pain and blames the separation on other causes.
Tired of all the talk about racism? Perhaps we should shift the conversation to racial distancing instead.It’s greater wisdom to distance from people with destructive attitudes and behaviors, than from people with a different skin color than you.
It’s hard to ignore color, but when you connect with people’s humanity, color doesn’t matter and racial distancing vanishes. Racial distancing and color-kindness — you can’t do both at the same time. Search: Off the RACE Track From Color-Blind to Color-Kind.
You don’t need to rely on secondhand info about Jesus. He’s talking to you directly.
I don’t understand why many Christians prefer to hear a preacher instead of reading the Bible and hearing God’s direct voice.If you would listen to and obey the voice of God speaking thru your conscience, that would do you more good than any sermon.
You’ll know Jesus better if you listen to Him directly, not just thru a preacher. Try it!
When the fruit of the Spirit isn’t freely flowing from within, we’re quenching the Holy Spirit. Here’s how we do that.
Love: Self-focused Christians are shutting down the inner flow God’s love.
Joy: Angry Christians are missing out on God’s joy.
Peace: Worried Christians are dousing “the peace of God, which passes all understanding.”
Patience: Frustrated Christians are turning off the flow of God’s patience.
Kindness: Rude Christians are extinguishing God’s kindness within their own heart.
Goodness: Disobedient Christians are refusing to let God’s goodness flow thru them.
Faithfulness: Dishonest Christians are stopping God’s faithfulness from manifesting thru them.
Gentleness: Harsh Christians are overriding God’s gentleness that is trying to come out of them.
Self-control: Self-destructive Christians are ignoring God’s ability to give them restraint and self-control.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory,” but when we quench the Spirit, that hope’s stifled.If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough fruit of the Spirit in your life to convict you?
The more we surrender to the now Jesus, the more we manifest the nine aspects of the fruit of the Spirit. Jesus said that Christians are known by their fruit. Is the fruit of the Spirit regularly flowing thru you? (Want more spiritual fruit? Go here.)
Free Gas for Your Think Tank -- Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement 