I fly way too much. I have amassed nearly five million airline miles over the past twenty-five years of traveling. That is a lot of bad omelettes, delays, and bruised knees from incredibly unaware passengers who recline their seat backwards at warp speed. But there is one part of flying that still fills me with awe. Take-offs on cloudy, nasty days always reveal the nervous flyers. As the plane thunders down the runway and rises into a soupy overcast mix the nervous flyers grip the armrest tightly and glance anxiously out the window. Nerves are not soothed by seeing nothing but gray through the tiny portals. These takeoffs are usually accompanied by bumps, shudders, and stomach churning drops. The pilots always cheerfully glosses over the turbulence ahead. “We will have a little light chop as we head out”, the captain tells us before takeoff. Not long after lift off you begin wondering what “heavy chop” might feel like. Today was one of those
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Today is opening day in major league baseball. I will be heading to my real job directing the Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels television opener. And that will likely be my real job until you people start buying more books! In my mind there is no more special day in sports than opening day in baseball. The smell of freshly cut emerald green grass delights the senses. The base lines are painstakingly and perfectly defined by a grounds crew that is committed to perfection on this day.  Red, white, and blue bunting give the ball park a festive world series look. The players today act like little boys. This is the one day that these privileged athletes seem to forget they are millionaires and actually appear grateful that they are paid to play a little boy’s and girl’s game. Kids skip school and parents do not care because memories are being made for both of them. The hot dogs taste like gourmet food.  Tacky souvenirs are treasures to be kept. The atmosphere is magic. It is
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Today I decided to revisit the whole “Confessions of a Bad Christian” blog title. I periodically receive an email that asks something like this. “Why do you call your blog ‘Confessions of a Bad Christian’? Do you really think you are a bad Christian?” And my answer is always something like this. Yeah.  Sometimes I am. Sometimes “badder” than on other days. The blog heading of “Confessions of a Bad Christian” started out as a bit of a joke. It was based on the title of my first book, When Bad Christians Happen to Good People. But I will tell you that I have grown attached to the title of this blog. I have come to grips with the truth that I can, in fact, be a bad Christian. And that is the point of the title. It is a daily reminder to me that I am capable of thoughts and actions that do not reflect Jesus. I have found that the realization that I can be
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Today I am reposting the most highly rated post that I have ever written about rodents. This is also the only article I have written about rodents… but the truth of sentence one is unchanged. Gritty rats and mice living in sewers and farms seem to have healthier immune systems than their squeaky clean cousins that frolic in cushy antiseptic labs according to recent studies. The lesson for humans: Clean living may make us sick. That was the AP story that caught my attention. And I pondered the odd theory that these disgusting rodents may offer a clue to ineffectual Christian living as well. Let us explore. Associated Press Science writer Seth Borenstein writes about the recent research. The studies give more weight to a 17-year-old theory that the sanitized Western world may be partly to blame for soaring rates of human allergy and asthma cases and some autoimmune diseases, such as Type I diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The theory, called the hygiene hypothesis, figures that
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This has been a tough month for those living with cancer and those who live with them. The recurrence of cancer for White House spokesman Tony Snow and political wife Elizabeth Edwards has been sobering to say the least. Those voices that I wrote about a few days ago start trying to get your attention. It is easy to despair. But God is sovereign. He sent me a postcard of encouragement this week. His name is Ed. Ed is one of those friends that you don’t see for years and when you get together you pick up right where you left off. He is in town this week and we are hanging out, laughing, debating, laughing, and enjoying every minute. Regular readers of these ramblings might remember a reference to some Ed guy in previous posts. Move to the head of the class. I asked you to pray for him and wife Judy in October of last year. There was fear that Ed’s
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I started a series on not becoming a victim recently excerpted from my book “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for those Wounded by the Church”. I took a break from that series last week but I thought I had better not leave any potential victims hanging. So here is the last installment in this series. In the Christian walk hurts are inevitable. Feeling like a victim and deciding to stay there really is optional. The Apostle Paul was a pretty fair theologian and was hand picked to spread the message of Christ. He was not able to avoid trouble and hurts. To the church of Corinth he wrote, “As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses.” 2 Cor 6:4  Doesn’t sound like the type of message that would lead to a successful televangelist career. Paul obviously encountered difficulties in his walk with Jesus and he related his appreciation for
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I started a series on not becoming a victim recently excerpted from my book “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for those Wounded by the Church”. I took a break from that series last week but I thought I had better not leave any potential victims hanging. So here is the next installment. Blessings, Dave All of this leads to a hard truth that I am unable to avoid. It is incredibly easy to embrace victimhood when we are hurt. It is even more problematic when we are wounded and we are sure in our hearts that we have done nothing to deserve such treatment. In the last chapter we saw how Jesus asked the blind beggar what he wanted from Him. In the gospel of John we see another example of how Christ asked a seeker to make a decision to leave his woundedness behind, knowing that he could never again fall back on that as his identity.  Soon
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