No Chapter Is Wasted

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Last night Carol and I went to see the movie Song Sung Blue. It was a good movie, but what stayed with me was not the music or the scenes. It was the quiet reminder that we often meet people without any real understanding of what they have lived through. We see who they are today, but we rarely see the years that shaped them.
This morning, as I reflected on that thought, one truth stood out clearly. The only way to truly understand people is to spend time with them. A life cannot be understood from a distance, and a story cannot be known through a single conversation. Understanding grows slowly through presence, listening, and shared time.
When I taught men’s groups years ago, I would ask a simple question: how many sermons can you remember? Messages fade. Words spoken are often forgotten. But when someone tells the story of their life, it stays with you. You remember the struggle, the turning points, and the moments when grace intervened. A lived story carries weight in a way teaching alone never can.
That is because stories are not explained, they are lived. A life story holds pain, failure, endurance, and hope together. It includes scars and chapters that are difficult to revisit. Some stories are unfinished. Some are deeply painful. Yet none of that makes a life story insignificant. It gives it depth and meaning.
Scripture reminds us of this truth in Ecclesiastes chapter three, verse eleven: “He has made everything beautiful in its time.” This does not mean every chapter is easy or pleasant, but it does mean no part of a life is wasted in God’s hands. He sees the full story, not just the moments we struggle to understand.
There is a quote that has remained with me for years: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” Every person carries experiences that are not visible on the surface. Beneath what we see are losses, disappointments, fears, and quiet perseverance that have shaped who they are.
When we take the time to be present with people, those unseen parts of their story begin to emerge. What may appear as distance can be rooted in pain. What looks like frustration may be connected to loss. Time and patience reveal truths that quick judgments never will.
We live in a world where meaningful connection is becoming rare. Communication is constant, yet genuine presence is limited. We were not created to live isolated lives. We are relational by design.
My story is not meant to be lived alone. It is shaped and strengthened through relationships with others. In the same way, the stories of those around us need time, care, and understanding. Lives are not fully known in passing moments. They are understood, shaped, and often healed in community.
Just Some Thoughts

What Happened?

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This last week I had a conversation with someone who grew up under my leadership and the leadership of others. That conversation stirred something deep in me and brought back a question that has followed me for years: what happened? Not what happened in the world or in the news, but what happened to people we loved, prayed for, discipled, and sent out in the name of Christ.
In 1985, a small group of couples obeyed what we believed was a clear call from God, and together we started a church. We were not driven by numbers, buildings, or recognition. Our focus was missions, the restoration of men and women God brought to us, and raising up the next generation. We never owned a building. We met wherever doors were opened, in schools, parks, and backyards. We were small in number, but God was clearly at work among us.
We poured ourselves into mission work. We sent young men and women on mission trips, some for weeks, some for months, and some who gave years of their lives in full time service. Along the way, God brought men and women to us who were wounded, weary, or had stepped away from their calling. We walked with them patiently, helped restore their faith and confidence, and watched many return to fruitful ministry. What we experienced was not polished or impressive by the world’s standards, but it was real. There was repentance, sacrifice, obedience, and quiet faithfulness.
Years later, I look back with grief. Some of those same young people who once worshiped passionately and served faithfully are no longer walking with Christ. Some drifted away. Some denied the faith. Others embraced beliefs that left no room for the gospel. Not all of them, by God’s grace, but enough that the question cannot be ignored.
As I prayed through this grief, the words of Jesus in the Parable of the Sower became impossible to ignore. He spoke of seed that fell on rocky ground, springing up quickly because the soil was shallow, but withering when the sun rose and the heat came because it had no root. He also spoke of seed that fell among thorns, where growth was slowly choked by competing desires. In every case, the seed was good. What differed was the soil.
That truth brings clarity. One reason some seed fails is not because the gospel lacks power, but because faith becomes rooted in something that cannot sustain it. When faith is built on rules, systems, or the traditions of men rather than on Christ Himself, the roots never grow deep. Rules can shape behavior, but they cannot sustain faith. Traditions can create structure, but they cannot produce life. Jesus warned of this when He said, “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
A faith rooted in tradition may look strong for a season, but it cannot endure pressure. When those traditions are questioned or removed, the faith attached to them often collapses. Seed planted in shallow soil grows quickly because it is supported by routine and environment, but when faith is tested, there is nothing beneath the surface to hold it. Seed among thorns survives for a time, but it is slowly crowded out by other loves, other voices, and other loyalties.
A W Tozer captured the heart of this problem when he wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” If Christ is not the true center of faith, something else will be, and whatever replaces Him will eventually fail.
That brings the question full circle, not with despair, but with direction. How do we move forward? By returning to Christ Himself. Faith must be rooted in who He is, not in rules, traditions, or emotional experiences. What lasts is not what grows fastest, but what grows deepest. Only seed planted deeply in Him will endure the heat, resist the thorns, and bear fruit that lasts.

God is the KING of all the Earth

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“God is the KING of all the earth…He reigns over the nations; God is seatd on His holy throne…the kings of the earth belong to God; HE is greatly exalted.” (Psalm 47:7-9) When I remind myself of this, I see our presidents (whoever they are) differently. God has His own good purpose in raising ones up and replacing others, even destroying some. I only need to see it like God does, and do my part in working alongside Him for HIS glory. If I’m called as a prayer warrior, PRAY! If I’m called to teach or preach, TEACH! PREACH! If I’m called to govern, GOVERN! If I’m called to administrate, ADMINISTRATE! If I’m called to write, WRITE! If I’m called to give, GIVE! If I’m called to build, BUILD! Whatever He has called me to – Lord help me do it with all YOU give me to do it with! Thank You for Your Holy Spirit and Word! Thank You Lord God for Your promises and for YOUR Kingdom coming!

They Became Worthless

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In 2 Kings 17, Scripture says something shocking: they became worthless. This does not mean God stopped loving His people. God’s love did not change. What changed was their usefulness to Him. Worthless here means no longer useful for the purpose God created them for.
God chose Israel to reflect Him, obey Him, and show the world who He is. Over time, they slowly moved away. They worshiped other gods. They copied the practices of other nations. They bowed to idols. They refused to trust the LORD. They ignored His warnings. Eventually, they forgot who the LORD is. None of this happened all at once. It happened through small compromises made day after day.
So the question is: can people who are worthless to God still think they are useful?
The answer is yes.
People can be very busy and still be spiritually worthless. They can feel successful, moral, productive, and even religious, while being completely disconnected from God’s purpose. They may be useful in their own eyes, useful to society, useful to a cause, yet still useless to God because they are no longer aligned with His truth or will. Self-deception is powerful. Scripture warns us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
Drifting away from God is slow and quiet. Prayer fades. Obedience becomes selective. God is not rejected outright, just slowly replaced. The conscience grows dull. The heart grows comfortable. And usefulness fades without the person realizing it.
But there is hope. While drifting away from God takes time, repentance is immediate. The moment a heart turns back to God in humility, usefulness can be restored. God does not need years to forgive years of compromise. He responds instantly to repentance.
This is the difference between worthless and useful.
Worthless means existing without fulfilling God’s purpose. Useful means being aligned with God’s truth, listening to His voice, and obeying even when it is hard. Usefulness is not about activity. It is about faithfulness.
The warning of 2 Kings 17 is not written to shame us, but to wake us up. God’s people did not fall because they stopped believing overnight. They fell because they stopped remembering who God is. What happened to them can happen to us, unless we guard our hearts, resist compromise, and return quickly when we drift.
God never stops loving His people. But usefulness must be protected. And when it is lost, it must be recovered through repentance, obedience, and remembrance.

When Emotion Replaces Truth

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This morning I was awakened with one thought. I do not know where these thoughts come from, and I wish they would arrive later in the morning instead of three o’clock, when the house is quiet and the mind has nowhere to hide. The thought was this: we are moving toward a world where everything is controlled by emotion.
There are more than eight billion people on this earth, and every one of them carries emotions shaped by fear, pain, belief, and experience. Emotion itself is not wrong. It is human. But when emotion is allowed to rule, people become easy to control. Those who tell the most emotional story gain the most power, regardless of whether the story is true. Emotion does not need facts to move crowds. It only needs a feeling to follow.
We see this every day in the news. Tragedy becomes verdict. Headlines replace facts. People choose sides instantly, not because the law is unclear, but because emotion has already decided the outcome. The same event is called justice by one group and cruelty by another, depending entirely on how it makes them feel. In this environment, truth struggles to breathe.
This is why laws must have no emotion. Laws exist to slow us down when feelings run high, not to speed us up. If laws bend with outrage or sympathy, they stop being fair. Emotion can alert us that something is wrong, but it cannot tell us what is right. When emotion becomes the final authority, it stops being a guide and becomes a weapon. A society cannot think clearly if it only feels loudly.
When emotion rules, complexity disappears. There is no patience for process, no respect for restraint, and no tolerance for uncertainty. Leaders are condemned whether they act or hesitate. Authority is labeled weakness one moment and tyranny the next. Governing becomes impossible because emotion refuses to wait, and wisdom cannot be rushed.
This is why families matter now more than ever. Truth must be taught early, and it must be allowed to overrule emotion. Homes are where children should learn that feelings are real but not always right, and that truth does not change based on how something makes us feel. A society that loses this lesson in the home will eventually lose it in the law.
So how do we move forward? We slow down. We resist the urge to react to every headline as final truth. We defend process, even when it is uncomfortable. We allow facts to emerge before judgment hardens. We practice discipline in thought and restraint in speech. And we rebuild strong families where truth is valued above feeling and responsibility is taught alongside compassion.
A world ruled entirely by emotion may feel compassionate, but it cannot be just. And without justice, no society can endure.

Placed on the Altar

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This morning, while reading Genesis 22, one sentence stayed with me:
“Because you have obeyed Me and have not withheld even your son, your only son.”
That verse leads me to a hard but honest question: What would I withhold from God? Would it be my health, my family, my security, my reputation, or the things I love most? Whatever I am unwilling to place in God’s hands often reveals what I fear losing the most.
God already knows what I want to hold back. The test is not for Him—it is for me. Fear is usually the reason I withhold something. Job understood this when he said, “What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” Fear tightens my grip and convinces me that surrender will lead to loss. But Scripture shows the opposite. God does not ask for surrender to take from us, but to be first in our lives.
When I place what I love on the altar and release my grip, I am not losing it—I am trusting God with it. And what God receives, He is faithful to provide for in ways I could never imagine. As Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Genesis 22 reminds me that obedience comes before provision, and Job reminds me that fear only robs me of peace. The answer to both is trust. And the promise that remains true, even when obedience feels costly, is this:
God will provide.

California at the Breaking Point

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As California moves toward 2026, it feels less like a future we are choosing and more like one being forced upon us. The state that once stood for opportunity now feels weighed down by rules, costs, and decisions made far from the lives they affect. Under Governor Gavin Newsom, California has been governed by mandates and messaging while everyday reality grows harsher. Housing slips further out of reach, fuel prices stay among the highest in the nation, businesses close or leave, and families quietly calculate what they can no longer afford. The state spends more than it earns, runs massive deficits, and responds not with restraint, but with more control.
Energy tells the story clearly. California’s policies have pushed oil refineries out of the state, shrinking supply and driving fuel prices higher. When fuel costs rise, everything rises with it, from food and goods to construction and emergency services. For many people, driving to work is no longer a choice but a burden. The pressure is not subtle. Make traditional living too expensive, and people are pushed toward one approved way of life whether they are ready or not. That is not leadership by example; it is leadership by cost.
This approach is spreading across California lawmaking. Regulations block housing from being built, so scarcity becomes permanent. Business rules raise costs until employers leave or never come at all. Transportation and environmental laws raise prices long before alternatives exist. Life in California now feels like a narrow hallway with fewer doors each year. When government limits options and raises prices at the same time, freedom fades quietly, without a single dramatic moment.
The solution is clear and unavoidable. California needs change in government and new leadership. We need leaders willing to remove regulations that harm workers, families, and businesses, not defend them out of pride. We need leaders who understand that affordability is not a luxury, it is survival. Policies must be judged by what they produce, not by how noble they sound. As Milton Friedman warned, “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies by their intentions rather than their results.” And as Ronald Reagan reminded us, “Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.”
California is not beyond saving, but it is dangerously close to accepting decline as normal. If 2026 feels like a breaking point, it is because many people sense that the state is being steered by ideology instead of reality. Change will not come from speeches or slogans. It will come when leadership respects the people who work, build, and keep California running, and stops punishing them for living ordinary lives.

Some Things I Have Learned in My Old Age

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The older I get, the better I can see the past. Not because I remember more details, but because I understand them more clearly. Time has a way of stripping excuses from our choices and revealing patterns we were too busy or too proud to notice when we were younger. What once felt confusing now feels instructive, and what once felt urgent now feels secondary. The past stops accusing and starts teaching, if we are willing to listen.
I have also learned that anarchy in the home breeds anarchy in society. Disorder does not begin in governments or streets; it begins around kitchen tables where responsibility is avoided, truth is softened, and leadership is absent. When families lose structure, discipline, and purpose, society pays the price later. A culture cannot be stronger than its homes, and no law can replace what is missing in the hearts of fathers and mothers.
Along the way, I learned not to take the trip, but to let the trip take me. The more tightly I tried to control outcomes, the more frustrated I became. Growth often comes not from mastering the road, but from being shaped by it. The journey teaches lessons that no destination ever could, if we stop fighting it long enough to learn.
I have noticed that when I become afraid, it is usually because I do not understand the future. Fear thrives in uncertainty, especially when faith is replaced with control. The unknown exposes our limits, and that exposure can either humble us or paralyze us. Understanding may not remove fear completely, but trust gives us the courage to move forward anyway.
What I believe is needed now more than ever are desperate men. Not reckless men, not angry men, but men desperate enough to pray, desperate enough to take responsibility, and desperate enough to stand in the gap for their families. Comfort has made too many passive, but desperation can awaken purpose. When men realize what is at stake, they return to their knees and reclaim their place as protectors, leaders, and servants.
Thomas Paine once wrote, “The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows from reflection.” That line has proven true with age. Hardship reveals character, pressure refines it, and reflection completes the work. Strength is not found in avoiding difficulty, but in allowing it to shape wisdom, patience, and resolve.
These are not conclusions I reached quickly, and they are not lessons I learned without cost. They are simply truths revealed over time, written slowly by experience, failure, faith, and reflection.

God Keeps What Is His

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During my quiet time, I had worship music playing in the background. Without warning, the theme from Schindler’s List came on. It is a piece of music Carol and I both struggle to listen to. It carries too much weight, too much sorrow, too much history. Yet instead of turning it off, I let it play. As it did, my thoughts began to move in a direction I did not expect.
That music does not just tell a story; it remembers one. It carries the grief of a people who have been hunted, scattered, and nearly erased. It led me to think about three realities that have stood at the center of human hatred and conflict for thousands of years: the Jewish people, Christianity, and the city of Jerusalem. These are not random targets of history. They are connected by one unchanging reason: God declared them His own.
The Jewish people have endured persecution unlike any other group in human history. From slavery in Egypt, exile in Babylon, and dispersion under Rome, to medieval pogroms, expulsions across Europe, and the Holocaust, generation after generation has tried to erase them. Entire empires committed themselves to their destruction and failed. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Rome, and Nazi Germany are gone. The Jewish people remain. This endurance is not accidental. God said, “I will take you as My own people, and I will be your God.” Hatred toward the Jews has never been merely political or racial at its core; it is spiritual. Satan has always opposed what God has chosen, believing that if he could destroy the people of covenant, he could call God’s promises into question.
Christianity bears the same mark of opposition. From the first century onward, believers were imprisoned, burned, crucified, and fed to lions, not for violence, but for confession. Rome persecuted Christians because they would not declare Caesar lord. Today, Christianity remains the most persecuted faith in the world, with believers imprisoned or killed simply for naming the name of Christ. Scripture explains why: the church is called the bride of Christ. Jesus Himself warned, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first.” The enemy understands that to attack the bride is to defy the Bridegroom. Yet history shows that martyrdom has never weakened the church. As Tertullian observed long ago, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
Then there is Jerusalem, a city no larger than many modern towns, yet fought over more than any other city in history. Destroyed and rebuilt, conquered by Babylonians, Romans, Crusaders, and empires long forgotten, Jerusalem continues to draw the world’s attention and conflict. Why? Because God said, “I have chosen Jerusalem, that My name may be there.” Jerusalem is more than land; it is testimony. As long as it stands, it declares that God enters history, chooses places, and keeps His word. Satan believes that if he can destroy the city God chose, he can deny God’s authority and escape judgment. Yet Jerusalem still stands, scarred, divided, and contested, but enduring.
As that music faded this morning, one truth remained clear to me. The enemy’s strategy has never changed: destroy what God loves, oppose what God chooses, and silence what God declares His own. History tells a different story. The Jewish people endure. The church continues to grow. Jerusalem remains. What was meant for destruction has instead become evidence of God’s faithfulness.
The enemy resists, history records, and God remains faithful.

Faith Beyond the Gavel

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The church does have a responsibility to defend its rights. When religious liberty is narrowed, biblical conviction is pushed aside, and courts are asked to redefine truth, conscience, life, and morality, silence is not faithfulness. Laws matter. Rights matter. History makes it clear that freedoms are rarely lost overnight, but slowly—through rulings and compromises that seem small at the time but shape a nation’s soul.
But we must be honest: defending our rights will never give us our heart’s deepest desire. No court ruling will cause America to honor God. No legal victory will cause His truth to stand in a nation that no longer wants it. Courts can protect space for the church to exist, but they cannot give the church power. They may restrain evil for a season, but they cannot produce repentance, revival, or obedience to God.
The danger comes when the church begins to believe that righteousness can be secured through law rather than lived through surrender to the One who holds our future. The enemy is content to let us win arguments if it keeps us from winning hearts. He does not fear a church that is loud in courtrooms but quiet in prayer. James Madison understood this when he wrote, “We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, but upon the capacity of each of us to govern ourselves.” Without moral and spiritual self-governance, no system of law can hold.
The court that ultimately shapes a nation is not the Supreme Court, but the throne room of God. His judgments are eternal. His truth does not bend with culture, elections, or public opinion. When the church prays instead of postures, repents instead of reacts, and lives under God’s authority rather than demanding the world submit to it, God is honored—and only then does His truth stand.
Yes, we must defend our rights. But we must never place our hope in them. Our hope is not that judges will rule rightly, but that God would rule in our hearts, and through transformed lives bring light to a darkened nation. Laws may restrain evil for a time, but only God can redeem a people.