This is my year of museums—of so many museums. If all goes according to plan, between January and December I will visit museums on every continent and in at least 15 different countries. In many of those places I will visit more than one. I’ve already been to so many that they are beginning to…
On April 6, 2018, the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League boarded a bus for the two-hour drive to their playoff game in Nipawin. They had no idea that their obscure little hockey team from small-town Saskatchewan would soon be known around the world. At about 5 o’clock that evening their bus collided…
If I could roll back time a little, what would my older self say to my younger self? That’s the premise of this short video. I also try to predict what I’ll want to say a few years hence… Transcription What was one thing when you were younger that you thought was going to be…
The year is still young, but already it has involved a lot of travel—before the end of February I had already spent time in six different countries. This is largely related to my EPIC travel project which, since January 1, has taken me to Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, the United States and, of…
Every Christian believes. Belief, faith, is the gateway to the Christian life and we mark our conversion from the moment we first believed: I have heard the gospel, I have put my faith in Jesus Christ. I believe! Belief is the gateway to the Christian life but it is far more than that. I believed…
Friday morning was the funeral for evangelist Billy Graham, one of the most famous men in the world. Two thousand people attended the invitation-only event. On the guest list were presidents, cardinals, celebrities, and megachurch pastors—an A-list of significant and accomplished people. Friday morning was the memorial service for Irene Morrison. A couple hundred people…
It’s the time of year for blogs and other sites to provide their annual round-up of the year’s most popular articles. I don’t know why we do this, but it seems to be a tradition. On that basis, let me tell you who visited and what they read in 2017. The site served up well…
I am not one of those good bloggers, those by-the-book bloggers. The good ones always know exactly who reads their articles, how many visitors they get each day, how people found their way to the articles, and on and on. But I have never paid much attention to such metrics. However, once or twice a…
It took a trip to Bavaria, but I finally saw color for the first time yesterday. Reds and greens at least. And it was pretty amazing. For many years I have known that I have significant red/green color-blindness (and am classified as strong deutan). This is a hereditary condition “caused by an anomaly in the…
It’s always a little easier to help others live the Christian life than to live it myself. It is easy enough to tell others how to face temptation when that particular sin has no hold on me. It is easy for me, a married guy, to give instruction on how to live the single life.…
So much of what life brings is beyond my skills, beyond my experience, beyond my comfort zone. In many ways I could tell the story of my life through the times I have been forced into action, forced to confront my fears, forced to do things that make my natural disposition scream out in fear.…
Who would have guessed that introversion would become such a popular subject? Who would have guessed it would even carry a book to the New York Times list of bestsellers in Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking? Her book brought into the public eye a personality type…
One of the great joys of being a Christian is the ability we gain to look at the Bible and, through the Bible, to see the world in the way God sees it. It is like the Bible is a pair of glasses through which we gain God’s vision and God’s perspective. The Holy Spirit…
It is our duty to reflect on life’s circumstances and to look for God’s hand in them. It is our duty because God works in and through our circumstances and, by his providence, matures and strengthens us in them. In his work The Mystery of Providence, John Flavel writes about the importance of doing this…
I knew next to nothing about my wife on the day I married her. We had dated for a few years, we had spent countless evenings talking on the phone, we had attended church, we had organized events, and even run a business together. But despite all that, we still barely knew one another. The…
I am a bad blogger. The good bloggers know exactly who reads their articles, how many pageviews they get each day, how people found their way to the articles, who their average visitor is, and on and on. But statistics and I just don’t get along, so most of the time I don’t know any…
My family celebrates two very different kinds of Christmas. Some years we head down to the South, to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to spend Christmas with my parents, my siblings, and their families. Other years we stay right here at home and keep things smaller and quieter. It is one of those stay-at-home years–we are at home…
You have heard the distinction as often as I have—the distinction between head knowledge and heart knowledge. We learn facts about God, about his character, about his Word, but it is not until those facts reach the heart that they become spiritually beneficial. They say the journey from the head to the heart is the…
I have often heard my mother say that women have a near-infinite capacity for guilt and that husbands and children intuitively know this and are adept at exploiting it. Not surprisingly, a common theme in books and blogs is the mommy guilt, the weight of unrealistic expectations. So many women, and mothers especially, believe they…
I don’t know that even the greatest theologian could ever plumb the depths of all it means that humanity was created in the image of God. But whatever else it means, we know that because we are made in God’s image, we are like God in certain ways and for a certain purpose. John Piper…