Tag: Relationships

Questioning Our Independent Spirit

In America we prize independence.  We celebrate our nation’s independence each 4th of July.   We conquered the West because of our independent spirit.  This attitude has trickled down to our personal identity and relationships.  We value independent men and women.  We teach our your girls and boys to be independent from others.  We say, …

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Dealing with Drama Like Jesus

DRAMA!  Some folks live with perpetual drama in their lives. By drama, I mean turmoil in relationships, crisis situations, and generally making a big deal out of every issue!  Drama  involves gossip, consumed with other people’s business, excessive worry, and conflict with others. Jesus had lots of drama surrounding his life, yet he dealt with …

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Lessons for the Outsider from Judas

Judas Iscariot is famous for his betrayal of Jesus.  We can learn many lessons from Judas regarding greed, unbelief, and hypocrisy.  But I wish to consider an aspect of Judas typically overlooked. It is likely that Judas was the only Apostle not from the region of Galilee in the north.  His surname Iscariot likely signifies he came from …

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Do Others Dread Seeing You Coming?

Last week I wrote a blog post about being approachable.  I want to tackle the other side of that issue in this post. I was talking to someone recently from another congregation and he said, “I know the elders just dread seeing certain people coming to them.”  Let’s be honest,  we all have certain people, …

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Filling the Gap: When You Have to Get an Answer

In the last post, we put forth the challenge of filling the gap with trust rather than suspicion when a co-worker or family member creates a gap by their actions.  In this post, I would like to address the issue of what you do when the person continues to create a gap by their actions. …

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Filling The Gap: Trust vs. Suspicion

Elders, what do you do when you go by the church office on Tuesday morning and the preacher isn’t there? Preachers, what do you do when your youth minister isn’t in the office by 10 in the morning? Husbands, what do you do when you can’t get your wife on her cell phone one evening …

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Be a Bridge Builder

170 bridges of more than 12 feet in length over 47.5 miles was necessary to be built to complete the Panama railroad.  The Panama railroad took 5 years to build in the 1850s and it connected ocean-to-ocean.  It was only five-foot wide and still cost $8 million to build because of all the bridges.¹ Imagine …

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Finding A “Worthy” Relationship

If asked to share a Bible romance many would suggest the beautiful story of Boaz and Ruth from the era of the Judges.   I love this little book.  The way this story is often told is that the wealthy Boaz falls for the beautiful, young widow who is destitute, virtuous, and caring.  They fall …

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Was Jesus Fair?

In America it seems we esteem the ideal of fairness.  We can be quick to claim we are not being treated fairly.  Church leaders are expected to treat everyone fairly, or they suffer criticism. Yet, we should ask the question, “Do we define fairness the same way God does?” In fact, it might be better …

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