“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you.  Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you                                     Luke 6:27-28

I’m guessing that you already know which candidates you will be voting for in upcoming primary elections and the general election in November. For my international readers, I would imagine that you too have candidates for elections whom you favor, and those whom you oppose.

My word to you today is simple, but perhaps not easy. Pray for that candidate whom you oppose. I mean spend a little time interceding for that person, and maybe those who support that candidate as well.

I am not saying that you need to change your mind or your vote. You probably won’t. But it may just change your heart just a little bit. At any rate, we are simply doing what Jesus told us to do, so we cannot go wrong, right?

Prayer: Lord, thank you for the direction that can change our hearts, Amen

And that’s about it, friends. Be cheerful. Keep things in good repair. Keep your spirits up. Think in harmony. Be agreeable. Do all that, and the God of love and peace will be with you for sure.

II Corinthians13:11-13 (The Message)

In these days there exists a chronic level of anger and distress caused by sad and tragic news, and often vile political rhetoric. This noise is around us at seemingly every turn, so what can we do for respite? How can we build some margins around us so that we can restore some peace amidst the chaos?

Here are some ideas for building those margins:

• Erect some boundaries on social media. Take a respite of a few days from Facebook, Twitter, etc. and the myriad of social media which engulfs us. It will be OK to do that, trust me.
• Make sure you make time for exercise, just for you. Walk outside, do the treadmill, go to the gym, do your aerobics in your own home- whatever you do. Just do it (to co-opt a phrase).
• Get into nature. Visit a lake, a woods, the mountains, a beach. Enjoy God’s marvelous creation.
• Exercise silence. Nothing wrong with being silent. In fact, silence can be very healing.
• Journal your thoughts and feelings. It is just your time to go inward.
• Read your book. Here I assume you have a regular reading schedule- right?
• Listen to music, it can soothe your soul

These are just a few ideas which can be restorative. Let me know what works for you!

Prayer: Father, you want peace for us in all ways. Give us the desire to seek your peace, Amen

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.  And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.  We love each other because he loved us first.

I John 4:16-19

I have always marveled at the truth and simplicity of these verses. What great mental health principles! One of the things I often tell my clients is that “It is better to go toward the good than  try to avoid the bad!”

I point out how weary and discouraged we can become if we are always trying to escape that thing chasing us. As hard as we run, that bad thing is going to eventually catch us we think. But if we are driven by a positive goal, an aspiration, we can find the energy to keep on.

So it is with love vs. fear. The natural consequence of living in fear is anger. People who live in constant fear end up with resentments and bitterness. Fear often is driven by a perceived loss or potential loss.

The natural consequence of living in love is gratitude. Understanding that God is love frees us to have security in him. It also frees us to love other people, and not to fear them.

Prayer: Lord, help us to lean into love, not fear, Amen

 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day                                                      II Peter 3:8

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts  Isaiah 55:8-9

I am a time driven kind of guy. I have certain routines, and I am blessed with a good sense of time. For example, after decades of working in one-hour time slots, I have a very good sense of when an hour has elapsed. My counseling sessions are set for one hour in length, and I can manage that time pretty well in terms of getting to the issues we need to discuss, then wrapping up in the space of one hour.  

At the same time, I am time bound- to hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc., and I think of it in a linear way. I have a clear sense of past, present, and future, but I have no understanding of eternity. I think only God has the line on that one. In fact, if I try to think of eternity, I kind of get freaked out, because I cannot truly fathom it. Frankly, it’s kind of scary to think about.

Now consider a God who lives in the past, present and future all at the same time. One whose day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like a day. He sees all at the same time, while we humans are time bound and unable to understand time like God does.

So, when we ask God to intervene in our life, his time perspective is completely different than ours. Ours time sense is limited, and his is unlimited. I need to remind myself that God’s perspective is so much more comprehensive than mine. He does not operate on my time table, nor is he limited to time.

So, my job is to trust that his ways are higher than mine, and to recognize my limitations. That is a concept that I can better understand!

Prayer: Lord, your ways are higher than ours! Help keep us mindful of that, Amen.

While most Americans celebrated President’s Day earlier this week, the real President’s Days in my youth were celebrated on February 12^th (Lincoln’s Birthday) and February 22, (Washington’s Birthday). We honored these men who were recognized as the most revered presidents in our history.

George Washington was especially revered as the “father of our country” because he was not only our first president, he was the one who set the tone for our democracy. He voluntarily set aside his own military power to ensure that civil authority, not military might, would rule the young country. King George III of England reportedly said “If it is true that this man willingly handed over his sword and military might, he will be the greatest man in the world.”   

When those same Continental Army soldiers were ready to rebel against a Continental Congress that had not paid them, Washington averted a military march on Philadelphia that would have meant chaos for the fledging country. He addressed those soldiers in the Newburgh Address to quell their anger, and remind them that they had fought for a cause larger than themselves. Further, at the end of the address, he gave a physical reminder to them that he too had paid a very high price for his service, and shamed many who saw the great selfless service he had given. Here is a brief synopsis of that scenario…

On March 15, 1783, Washington delivered his Newburgh Address to the senior officers of the Continental Army. The speech contained important themes that would later reemerge in the Washington presidency – national duty, the submission of military to civil authority, and the importance of dispassionate and good faith debate. He reminded them of their duty to the American Republic and of his own personal sacrifices for the nation. “A grateful sense of the confidence you have ever placed in me—a recollection of the cheerful assistance, prompt obedience I have experienced from you, … and the sincere affection I feel for an army I have so long had the honor to command, will oblige me to declare… the great duty I owe my Country, and those powers we are bound to respect.”

At the end of his speech, Washington reached into his pocket and put on a pair of spectacles to read a letter from Congress. “Gentlemen,” he said softly, “You will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”

According to later accounts, many of the soldiers who heard the speech were moved to tears. As one veteran of the war recalled, “I have ever considered that the United States are indebted for their republican form of government solely to the firm and determined republicanism of George Washington at this time.”

So, we see what real leadership looks like in a time of crisis -personal sacrifice for a cause larger than ourselves.

Prayer: Lord, that we would again have such leadership for our country, Amen

“But, nevertheless, closing remarks means you have to say your closing remarks. I don’t know what to talk about anymore, your honour. If you want, I’ll talk to you about God and salvation. I’ll turn up the volume of heartbreak to the maximum, so to speak. The fact is that I am a Christian, which usually rather sets me up as an example for constant ridicule in the Anti-Corruption Foundation, because mostly our people are atheists and I was once quite a militant atheist myself. But now I am a believer, and that helps me a lot in my activities, because everything becomes much, much easier. I think about things less.  There are fewer dilemmas in my life, because there is a book in which, in general, it is more or less clearly written what action to take in every situation. It’s not always easy to follow this book, of course, but I am actually trying. And so, as I said, it’s easier for me, probably, than for many others, to engage in politics.

Alexei Navalny

(Source- Moscow Helsinki Group, from Navalny’s defense statement in a Moscow court February 20, 2021)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.                        Matthew 5:6

This is an excerpt from Alexei Navalny’s defense in front of a sham Moscow court. In that speech, he also referenced the Sermon on the Mount when he quoted the passage, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.  

The death of Navalny at the hands of a ruthless tyrant like Vladimir Putin must not be forgotten or minimized. He took his Christian faith and boldly spoke truth to power. Folks, I am not seeing  very much of that these days. Navalny paid the ultimate price for his beliefs and his relentless challenges of tyranny and corruption in Russia.   

It costs something to be a Christian. It means sacrificing our power and position for the benefit of those who do not have such privilege. I suppose each of us must decide the proper personal response to that challenge. For me, it is contacting my elected legislators to urge them to support the Ukraine in their fight against the Russian invasion.

Perhaps you do not have the same response, and that is, of course, your prerogative. I see it as a way to speak truth to power in my own little way.

Prayer: Lord, give us the strength to speak truth to power, just like Jesus did. Amen

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.                                         Matthew 7:7 (New Living)

One of the questions that I challenge my relationship couples to ask one another is to directly articulate what they need at the moment. A simple question, really, but it is important to get in touch with it ourselves, and then to ask for what we need. Some people seem to feel that their partner should KNOW what they need, implying that their partner can somehow read minds.

It is often a sort of cultural norm that we don’t directly ask for what we need. For some people, they do not ask because they may feel it is presumptuous to ask for something of another person. Some may feel embarrassed or unworthy to ask for what they need. Some people just find it hard to ask for help of any kind.

It does take some level of humility to ask for help. As I often tell my clients, humility is the beginning of wisdom. Indeed, humility is the beginning of growth and the path to a more peaceful way of living life.  

Prayer: Lord, we know that we can ask you for what we need, and that you are faithful, Amen

“What is the price of five sparrows—two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.                                                                                                                                   Luke 12:6-7

Please enjoy this blog from the past as I take a day off…

I considered several different topics for today’s blog, and I ended up, for one reason or another, rejecting them. After I had written them, they just did not seem to hit the mark. That happens sometimes, right? So, I decided to just look up the verse of the day on my Bible app, and it was Luke 12:6-7. You can’t go wrong with good old Luke, probably my favorite Gospel writer. Luke gives such a good summation of Jesus’ teachings.

 In this passage, the comfort that is expressed is so clearly obvious, yet easy to pass over sometimes. Jesus asserts that God does not forget a single sparrow. Not one! Then he states that God has numbered the very hairs on our head. (Admittedly, easier for God to do with some of us, but I digress.) He cares so much about our needs and welfare that he knows us that intimately.

We need this reminder from time to time when things around us are so altered and abnormal. Many of the landmarks that we previously used to navigate our regular routines and plans have been changed, or altered by the pandemic, political unrest, or cultural changes we cannot readily accept.

Maybe some of those landmarks were inadequate to begin with. Perhaps this is the time to rethink what those landmarks should be. Holding on to the truths that Jesus taught are good ways to feel the sense of direction that we need. Just the basics- God loves us and values us, even in the midst of the chaos we may be experiencing.

This disruption can serve as a way to find new navigation tools that really work. If we feel secure in the understanding of the most basic truths of God’s love for us, we can ultimately make sense of our changed environment and be better for it in the long run.

Prayer: Father, thank you for the simple truths which provide such comfort to us, Amen.

Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ                                                                                                                                                             Philippians 3:8 (New Living Translation)

There has been controversy over the Jesus Gets Us commercials that we have seen on television. Most recently, a huge amount of money was spent on Super Bowl ads for the Jesus Gets Us campaign. Some argue that the ads are not theologically correct. Some say that the ads are thoughtful and heartwarming. Some argue that the money spent on the ads could have gone an awful long way in helping to fulfill the mission that Jesus put before us – to love your neighbor as yourself. Oh, and by the way, our neighbors are people that we may disagree with, people that we judge as wrong or sinful, etc.

I also heard a good podcast that suggested that Jesus is not the one needing a slick PR campaign. His reputation is just fine. It is the Christians who are called by his name that need their image improved. We need to love others better than we currently do.

The Church grew by leaps and bounds in the first centuries after his death and resurrection, and no advertising was necessary. The only way that people knew about Jesus was through the transformed lives they saw of the people who followed him.

So, good food for thought, right?

Prayer: Lord, we know Jesus gets us, help us to understand him better, Amen

Alexei Navalny has died.

That is what the news is reporting today. Navalny is a hero of rare proportions. He bravely stood up to the despicable predations of Vladimir Putin, and he paid the ultimate price for it. Many Russian citizens are mourning his loss, and some will follow in his martyrdom by protesting his death.

I am a student of history, and I see the repeat, over and over, of the results of authoritarian repression. Like the canary in the mineshaft who gives her life to warn of impending danger that others do not yet see, men like Navalny give their life to highlight the danger of leaders like Vladimir Putin.

We in America have the “luxury” of simply giving some passing attention to such heroism. We note the injustice and sadness of his death, yet this news cycle will pass, and we will go on with business as usual. That will be to our detriment.

I talk with my clients about the need to redeem pain into gain in order to give meaning to the pain and suffering. My prayer is that the suffering and sacrifice that Alexei Navalny will not go unredeemed.

Prayer: Lord, help us to more clearly see the evil around us, Amen