The Way

I am at the core of who I am a child of God. I like that and most of the time I believe it and live that out. There are times that I get liquored up on my own press and fall into that "isn't God lucky to have me working for Him" mentality, but thankfully that happens less and less. (Lots of stories I could share here about how God has reminded me it is Him and not me.) I enjoy encouraging people. I feel it is one of the gifts that God has allowed me to steward and I feel most of the time that I use it to His glory. I do have a confession to make too . . . sometimes I get so frustrated and annoyed with people in position of leadership who are "above encouragement" from others and choose to be self-reliant and in no need of others. I find myself in a couple of those kinds of relationships periodically and run the gammut of backing off a little while and trying to encourage from another angle or just get judgmental and say, "to heck with them, let them figure ...

What a great sight to see young Kiki, a Haitian boy who had been buried under rubble for 7 days due to the devastating earthquake that happened last week. Arms outstretched and eyes wide open. Rejoicing that he had been found. Now it seems that other children have been rescued as well in the last few hours. Still there are many who have died, are dying and will die but all is not lost. Many are praying, giving, donating, going and responding in other ways to help the victims of this terrible tragedy. In the midst of all of this, there is hope. A promise of something better. I have often heard that faith is the belief and action of going through today because there is hope of something better. My faith wavers at times, but my hope in the Lord is sure. Through calamity, sickness, death, trials and challenges, my faith gets goofy at times. My trust wanes, but my assurance of a future hope of God's goodness and grace not only sustains my weak faith, it provides a solid hope for tomorro...

Seems like this past week has gone by quickly in some ways and painfully slow in others. The earthquake in Haiti was and is capturing the media, and rightly so. There are so many dead, displaced and many others will die if things do not change soon. We have friends who are adopting a daughter, Tia from Haiti and please pray that they will be able to get her out. Mike is still there with Tia and they are working frantically to get back to the USA. I traveled to San Francisco on Tuesday and was in the air when the news from Haiti started coming out. Twitter was my first inclination that anything had even happened. I began praying immediately and then started trying to get the word out about Mike and Tia. Katie, a girl who lives with Mike and Melissa Wilson was in Carrefour, Haiti at the orphanage when the earthquake hit. Katie is now back home in the US and that is great. Here is a link to the video of Mike and Tia in Haiti. On Wednesday I was at Golden Gate Seminary teaching an Intro t...

Has it really been 18 years ago that we were sitting at dinner with good friends of ours (about 7 folks we were pretty close to) when Sondra excused herself from the table and hollered for me and then quietly instructed me "to bring me some towels, I think my water broke." Me being the calm, cool collected individual that I am, and this was our 2nd child, mildly panicked and got some towels from our friend, Barry (we were at his house) and thus began the late night out for the birth of our Morgan. Sondra and I farmed Shelbi out to some other friends and made our way to Baptist Hospital where we settled in for a night of rest. WRONG! I flopped around on the floor like a fish out of water while Sondra laid in the warm bed hooked up to a monitor and other stuff they hook delivering moms to. After the nurses kept coming in to check on the progress and to really just keep us from resting, Sondra progressed rapidly and the nurse called our #1 doctor, Richard Presley (always joked w...

Hard to believe that the first week of the new year has come and almost gone. I rung in the new year in bed early on new year's eve. I was fighting a cold and after a nice dinner at Rose Pepper's with Sondra, Shelbi and Morgan, we came home and just hung out. The weekend was pretty quiet but pretty cold for sure. I ended up doing my Sat. run on the treadmill at the Y. Monday I headed to New Orleans Seminary for Youth Ministry Institute and did a presentation on using social media in ministry. Focused mostly on 2 Tim. 4:1-5 and the importance of staying true to the call and using social media as a tool and not the message. It is easy to get caught up in all the technology and waste time and not fulfill the ministry God has called us to do. I am always challenged and encouraged by my friend Dr. Allen Jackson who has done a great job in training youth ministers at NOBTS for 15 years. I got up on Tuesday and did my run workout which included 9 miles and 5x800s mixed in. It was much...

I just realized that I have been remiss in blogging this past week and can only chock that up to being lazy. No excuses on my part. I have been on vacation and guess that has translated into vacating from blogging. The past week has been very good and Christmas was great for us. We hosted a couple of families who families live out of state for a Christmas Eve meal. Both of the wives were pregnant and could not travel. One of the ladies, Trisha has had her baby since that time and Olivia is doing well and you can catch up with them here . The other lady is due mid-January. We had a great time with them and their little guys who are 2 and 1.5 yrs. Christmas morning was just the Turners and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The girls pretty much knew what they were getting for Christmas because they had picked out "all" of their presents. At least they thought they had picked all of them out. I pulled a little surprise with a North Face backpack each that they had been wanting fo...