Peacemaking & Conciliation
Asking Parents to Give Up Their Keys

Asking Parents to Give Up Their Keys

One of the hardest things I’ve ever done was to ask my mother and my mother-in-law to give up their car keys. Doing it with each of them on the same day (since they both lived with us) was especially difficult. Our moms loved running their own errands, going out for...

How Well Do You Love Your Enemies?

How Well Do You Love Your Enemies?

Do you have an enemy today? Someone who has has done you great harm or is out to get you right now? Perhaps it's not been quite that bad. Perhaps someone has simply spoken critically to you or about you, or has otherwise disappointed or failed you in a hurtful way....

Preventing a Breach

Preventing a Breach

I learned the hard way how easy it is to breach a dam. When I was fourteen, my dad hired a contractor to enlarge a stock pond on our ranch by building a dam. It was ten feet high and thirty feet thick at its base. As the pond filled, we discovered that the dirt around...

7 Ways to Redeem an Offense

7 Ways to Redeem an Offense

I recently received a complaint from a woman who I will call Ruth (not her real name) regarding a video clip I used in one of my blog posts. The video is called "It’s Not about the Nail." It features a graphic metaphor built around a woman with a nail in her forehead...

Reputation vs Character

Reputation vs Character

Jeff’s reputation was being trashed by people in his own church. He was respected throughout the city for his outstanding Sunday school classes, which had drawn hundreds of people to his church. But then he got caught in the middle of a congregational battle over the...

Changing a Murderer into a Minister

Changing a Murderer into a Minister

Businge Peter Simon passed the long hours in his prison cell dreaming about how he would murder the man who sent him there. But before he could put his plot into action, God intervened in a dramatic way. Here is what Businge wrote to me: Brother Ken, Praise the Lord,...

A Lost Translation … Almost

A Lost Translation … Almost

XYZ Translators (all names changed) was about to lose a ten-year investment in learning the language of a remote tribe in Africa. John and Janice had lived with the tribe for a decade, building relationships, mastering their vocabulary and creating an alphabet they...