During the last months of my son's senior year in high school, Jeff had a lot of conflict with his mother. As a result I was doing more mediation at home than I was through my conciliation ministry. Night after night the three of us applied principles of confession,...
A friend may be writing a letter to me that I might not like. Although we’ve talked repeatedly, there are tensions between us that are still not resolved. Yesterday another acquaintance said my friend is composing a letter to me. He gave no details, just “He’s writing...
To find your greatest weakness, first identify your greatest strength and then look right behind it. That’s one of the tragic results of sin: it twists our strengths into weaknesses, just as (-1) x 100 becomes -100. Are you highly intelligent and well-studied in the...
One of the hardest and yet most profitable questions you can ever ask another person is … “How did you experience me?” In other words … “Please tell me how I made you feel and what you were thinking about me during our recent interaction. I really want to know … even...
I share a lust with St. Augustine. Although he was a pillar of the church, he regularly prayed, “O Lord, deliver me from this lust of always vindicating myself.” We inherited this lust from our original parents, who invented the art of excusing sin by blaming others...
C. H. Spurgeon wrote, “Where self begins, sorrow begins.” That’s a diagnosis that explains most of my unhappy moments. Angry? Usually because I am not getting what I want. Resentful? Someone didn’t treat me the way I think they should. Self-pity? People just don’t...
The apostle Peter's denial of Christ is a classic example of a neurological/emotional failure that today is commonly referred to as “amygdala hijacking." As Peter demonstrates all too painfully in Luke 22:54-62, this process typically involves sudden, intense...
Peter, James, and John were hijacked. So was Paul. The same was true of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, and Rachel … even David, the man after God’s own heart. Chances are that you’ve been hijacked too. Probably within the last week. It has nothing to do with being on an...
I’ve seen a lot of foolish behavior during my thirty-two years as a professional conciliator. Like the man who divorced his lovely Christian wife to marry a woman who had already been married and divorced six times. When I asked him whether he saw a pattern in her...
I wake up some mornings and feel overwhelmed before I even get out of bed. Ministry challenges, relational concerns, personal weaknesses, past failures and future tests swirl through my mind, causing me to doubt myself and fear the day. Time and again, I’ve found...