His Work; His Timetable

time

Every Monday we’ll post something about maintaining your sexual integrity. Hope it helps. — His Work; His Timetable “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.” -Psalms 138:8 I’m winding this year up with a very mixed assortment of gratitude and disappointment, which is to say 2011 is business as usual. There’s not been a year I can remember in which I achieved even 80% of what I determined to do in January, nor has there been a December in which I couldn’t look back on something new, and of real value, that had been realized that year. Continue Reading

Warts and All and Camera Ready

Prayer

Every Thursday I’ll post an article having to do with either relational or emotional matters. Hope it helps. — Warts and All and Camera Ready “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” - I Corinthians 15:10 I’m not a fan of self-labeling, whether it’s positive or negative. It can lead to a limited, even inaccurate view of ourselves if our primary form of identification is our personality type (I’m a sanguine; I’m a Type-A) or our area of weakness (I’m alcoholic; I’m co-dependent) Certainly within a support group environment these markers Continue Reading

Christians and Crisis

Panic and crise

Every Wednesday we’ll post something to do with doctrine and recovery. Hope it helps. — Christians and Crisis When written in Chinese the word “crisis” is composed of two characters – one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity. - John F. Kennedy Crisis is an overused word. Family crisis, financial crisis, emotional crisis, nothing-to-wear crisis — its force gets watered down when it’s heard too often. If your name’s out there on mailing lists, I’ll bet you receive any number of letters from organizations describing Continue Reading

And the Soul Felt Its Worth

Christmas Scriptures

If I tell myself I’m wonderful, I’m deluded. If I tell myself I’m valuable, I’m spot on, and attuned to one of the most important aspects of what we’ll celebrate this Sunday: the immeasurable worth God places on us, expressed that first Christmas. Christmas is about Christ, of course, but it’s not about Christ in a vacuum, since He existed long before the nativity. (John 1:1-2) It’s about Christ in relationship to the people He came for, and their value in His sight. Angels said as much when they heralded the shepherds with “Peace on Continue Reading

The Nightmare in Corinth

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I’ve been teaching a series on I Corinthians in my adult Sunday School class. Since this isn’t a book that lends itself to Christmas cheer, for yesterday’s class I decided to thoroughly pervert The Night Before Christmas in an attempt to coat the teaching with some holiday style. Thought I’d pass it on, with my sincere apologies. The devil made me do it. --- Twas a nightmare in Corinth, and all through the church Each believer was acting as monstrous as Lurch. Some talking had caused poor St Paul so much care And he hoped that some Continue Reading

Random Ramblings #46: My Little Christmas Sinner

christmas kid big

Every Friday we’ll leave the topic oriented post, and instead post some personal comments. — A Cuppa Joe - Random Ramblings from a Fellow Struggler My Little Christmas Sinner My son hates it when I tell stories that make people want to pinch his cheek and say “Awww!” At the ripe age of 16 he’s entitled to balk at re-tellings of his cuteness, just as I’m entitled to write about them with impunity. (I’ve often told him he’s free to write about me when he’s grown, just as long as his accusations against me are interesting and salacious.) Continue Reading

My Glorious Thorn

Photo Credit: McCarter Theatre Center

Every Thursday I’ll post an article having to do with either relational or emotional matters. Hope it helps. — My Glorious Thorn He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see. - A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens Tiny Tim emerges as one of the smartest characters in this Dickens classic. In the quote above, his father Bob remarks that Tim, while sitting in church, gloried in Continue Reading

The Director’s Cut

Photo Credit: CAPA

Every Wednesday we’ll post something to do with doctrine and recovery. Hope it helps. — The Director’s Cut Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus! Why show me this, if I am past all hope?  - A Christmas Carol When a DVD comes out labeled “Director’s Cut”, then you’ve got me. Because of all the things in a good film I appreciate, my loudest kudos go to the Director who brings it all together. It’s his vision that shapes Continue Reading

Slow Fade

Photo Credit "The Examiner": Andy Truschinski as Young Ebenezer and Jessie Mueller as Belle.

Every Tuesday we’ll post something to do with restoring marriages. Hope it helps. — Slow Fade I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion engrosses you. Have I not? - Belle to Young Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol “My wife thinks I’m a jerk,” lots of men say, “so she’s mad at me.” Maybe, maybe not. Inarguably some men are jerks, their wives react, no mystery there. But lots of wives are angry or disappointed because they know their husband aren’t jerks. They know the man they Continue Reading

Unchained

"You have the power, as Paul says, to resist what you used to be in servitude to..."

Every Monday we’ll post something about maintaining your sexual integrity. Hope it helps. — Unchained “I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Men don’t come into my office because of a bad decision they made. They come because of hundreds, even thousands of bad decisions, linked together to forge a chain they, like Jacob Marley from the Dickens story, gird and wear of their own free Continue Reading