What Lies on the Other Side

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A while back, a good friend of mine died from cancer. A few days before his death, I visited him in the hospital, where he shared a dream with me—one that has stayed with me and continues to shape how I understand fear and faith.
In his dream, he saw Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying. Jesus was there because He knew what was coming. He knew betrayal was near. He knew soldiers would soon seize Him, bind Him, mock Him, and strike Him. He knew the whips, the crown of thorns, the nails, and the cross all awaited Him. As a man, He felt the full weight of that knowledge. His body recoiled at the pain He knew He would endure. His heart carried the sorrow of being abandoned by those He loved. His soul bore the burden of taking on the sin of others. The garden was where His humanity fully faced the cost of obedience.
As Jesus prayed, He stopped, looked at my friend, and said, “Would you join Me in prayer?” My friend, sensing the holiness and gravity of the moment, replied, “I am not holy enough to be in this place with You.” Jesus did not argue with him. Instead, He asked a question that went beyond healing and into the heart of faith: “What if I do not heal you?”
That question revealed what the garden was really about. Jesus was not praying to escape suffering; He was preparing His heart to endure it. In the garden, His flesh felt fear and dread, but His spirit chose surrender. He was able to bear what was coming because He knew what lay beyond it. He knew that on the other side of the pain was redemption—freedom for the lost, forgiveness for sinners, and life for many. The suffering was real, but it was not meaningless. Love, not force, carried Him forward.
In the dream, my friend chose to step into the garden. He did not step in with certainty or strength, but with trust. Faith was no longer defined by healing or outcomes. Faith meant choosing to remain with Jesus, even when the cost was unknown.
As I reflect on that dream, I realize how much I am still learning. I have often believed, without admitting it, that faith should protect me from the hardest valleys. But Jesus did not avoid the valley. He entered it fully aware of what awaited Him, because He could see beyond it. Prayer did not remove the suffering; it anchored Him to the purpose on the other side of it.
Fear enters my life in much the same way—through the pull of the flesh toward comfort, control, and escape. Like Jesus, I want the pain to pass. But the garden teaches me that fear loosens its grip when I lift my eyes beyond the moment. When suffering is seen only for what it costs, it overwhelms us. When it is seen in light of what God is accomplishing, it can be endured.
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”
Jesus left the garden knowing His body would be broken, yet His spirit was settled. He rose to meet the soldiers because He knew the cross was not the end of the story. He could bear the pain because He knew what waited on the other side—resurrection, restoration, and redemption accomplished.
I am learning that when fear rises, I must go to my garden and pray—to surrender even when understanding has not yet come. I am learning that what I fear is not settled by escape, but in prayer, where my flesh slowly yields to trust in the One who holds all of my tomorrows.

When Belief Becomes Life

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Many people know about Jesus. They have heard His name, listened to sermons, and learned stories from the Bible. They may believe He lived, taught, and died on the cross. They may even agree that everything they hear about Him is true. But knowing about Jesus is not the same as knowing Him. Knowing about Jesus is knowledge. Knowing Jesus is relationship.
I was reminded of this during a conversation with Carol as we talked about what salvation really means. We talked about how often people confuse knowledge with relationship. It helped to think about how God created us. We are made of body, soul, and spirit. The body is physical. The soul is the mind, where we think and reason. Many people believe in Jesus at this level. They say they believe because it makes sense. Their mind accepts the truth about Jesus, but belief that stays in the mind is still only knowledge.
At some point, a deeper realization must happen. A person comes to understand that knowing facts about Jesus is not enough, and that eternity with Him does not come through knowledge, effort, or good behavior. It comes only through salvation.
Salvation is when I ask the Holy Spirit into my life. It is the moment I stop standing outside and invite God to live within me. It is not just agreeing that Jesus is real. It is trusting Him, asking for forgiveness, and surrendering control of my life to Him. This is what Romans chapter ten describes when it says we are saved by believing in our heart and confessing Jesus as Lord. Salvation is not a thought. It is a response.
This is the moment a relationship with Jesus begins. At salvation, Jesus is no longer someone I know about. He becomes someone I know personally. Faith moves from the mind into the spirit. Knowledge becomes relationship.
From that moment forward, the relationship grows. Prayer becomes conversation. Scripture becomes personal. Life begins to change from the inside out, not because of rules, but because Jesus is now living within me.
A relationship with Jesus cannot be borrowed or learned secondhand. It begins with salvation and continues through daily walking with Him. Knowing about Jesus is information. Asking the Holy Spirit into my life is relationship.
In the end, the difference is simple. Before salvation, Jesus is someone I know about. After salvation, He is someone I live with. That is when belief becomes life—now and for eternity.

Respect

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I had a conversation with a young woman I have known her entire life. Her view of what is happening in America is very different from mine. I did not enter the conversation trying to make a statement or provoke a reaction. I was simply talking, believing that two people could disagree and still treat each other with dignity. I shared my views honestly and calmly. When the conversation ended, something unexpected happened. Because she did not like what I said, she withdrew what she called “respect.” That moment stopped me, not because we disagreed, but because of what her response revealed about how respect is being redefined in our culture.
That exchange brought clarity. If respect disappears the moment someone challenges your beliefs, then it was never respect at all. It was approval, given only as long as there was agreement. True respect does not require agreement. It requires restraint. It means allowing another person to speak without punishment. As Voltaire is often credited with saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” That understanding once stood at the center of honest conversation in a free society.
Respect cannot be earned through conformity, because if it could, every person we meet would become a standard we must meet. One set of expectations would cancel out another, forcing us to change who we are just to be treated with basic dignity. That is not respect. That is control. Respect, properly understood, is given because a person is human, not because their opinions are acceptable. When respect becomes conditional, honesty becomes dangerous and truth becomes something to hide.
Scripture draws this line clearly. In Acts chapter fifteen, Paul and Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement over John Mark that they separated and went different ways. The Bible uses the word paroxysmos to describe their conflict, meaning a strong or intense disagreement. Yet Scripture does not suggest they sinned by disagreeing or lost respect for one another. That same word, paroxysmos, appears again in Hebrews chapter ten, where believers are instructed to stir one another toward love and good works. The same word used for conflict is also used for sharpening. Disagreement, when guided by truth and restraint, is not destructive. It is refining.
Trust, however, is different. Trust must be earned through consistency and character over time. Someone may decide they do not trust me because they disagree with my views, and that is their right. But withdrawing respect because of disagreement is not moral clarity. It is an attempt to silence. When people say, “I no longer respect you,” what they often mean is, “You no longer affirm me.” At that point, conversation ends and division takes its place.
A society that confuses respect with agreement will eventually demand silence instead of dialogue and conformity instead of character. Scripture and history both remind us that truth is often sharpened through tension, not erased by it. Respect is given. Trust is earned. Disagreement, when handled rightly, is not a threat to truth, but one of the ways God uses it to refine us.

The Forgotten Word

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One evening I found myself reading words written nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, yet they felt as if they were speaking directly into our time. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I stopped there, my eyes resting on one word—pursuit. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit of it. That word carries meaning we seem to have forgotten. To pursue something means to work for it, to risk failure, to accept responsibility for your choices, good or bad. It means sacrifice. Our founders understood this. Happiness was never meant to be handed to us by government. It was something earned through effort, discipline, and perseverance.
As I thought about the world around me, it became clear that the idea of pursuit has slowly been erased. Many people today believe it is the government’s job to give them whatever makes them happy. They’ve been taught this way of thinking by leaders and by media that reward outrage and entitlement. When they are unhappy, they don’t look at their own choices. They demand. They protest. They rebel. They expect others to sacrifice so they can be comfortable. Laws are ignored. The rights of others are dismissed. The loudest voices claim moral authority without accepting moral responsibility.
Later in the Declaration, Jefferson wrote that governments exist to secure our rights, and that they only hold power because the people allow it. He also wrote that when a government becomes destructive to those rights, it is the people’s right to change or remove it. That sentence no longer feels like distant history. Our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are being stripped away, not all at once, but piece by piece. The pursuit of happiness has been twisted into a promise of happiness without effort, without accountability, and without sacrifice.
Our forefathers lived differently. They worked hard, endured hardship, and put their families and communities before themselves. They didn’t demand comfort. They built it. They understood that freedom costs something and that someone always pays the price. Somewhere along the way, we became so focused on collecting possessions and chasing pleasure that we lost sight of what it takes to defend true freedom and to seek the good of all people, not just ourselves.
We still have a choice. We still have the means. We still have the power. But power unused is power lost. If we continue to trade responsibility for entitlement and sacrifice for convenience, then freedom will not be taken from us—it will be surrendered. A nation does not fall in a moment; it erodes when its people forget who they are and what they are willing to stand for.
This is not a warning meant to divide, but a call to awaken. Freedom survives only when ordinary people choose to pursue it, protect it, and pass it on. If we fail to do that now, then history will not ask what our government did to us. It will ask what we were willing—or unwilling—to do to keep America free.

Outrage Is Not Evidence

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Over the past week, and really over the past year, as we have listened to the news and talked with people, one thing has become clear: emotion is driving much of our national conversation. Anger, fear, and outrage dominate what we hear. Reactions are immediate and intense. Feelings are loud. That leads to a basic question worth asking: does the law operate on emotion?
It does not. The law exists because emotion is unstable. Feelings change quickly, but facts do not. Laws are meant to be built on evidence, process, and restraint, not on how strongly something feels in the moment. Emotion can express pain or grief, but it cannot define truth. Justice depends on facts.
That difference has been lost in the recent killing of a woman during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation in the Twin Cities. Before the facts were fully known, emotion took control of the narrative. Media outlets rushed to fill airtime. Special interest groups rushed to frame conclusions. Stories hardened while investigations were still unfolding. Outrage moved faster than evidence, and reaction replaced patience.
Grief after a death is natural. Emotion is human. But a deeper question must be asked: who benefits when emotion is continually stirred and sustained? Emotion does not remain high on its own. It is fed. The media benefits because outrage keeps people watching, clicking, and reacting. Calm truth does not hold attention the same way anger and fear do.
Some special interest groups benefit in a deeper way. Funding is not always the goal. Power and influence are. Their agenda is not simply to protest or reform, but to weaken the foundational principles that hold the nation together. They understand that a united people grounded in law, truth, and shared values is difficult to control. A divided people ruled by emotion is not.
Heightened emotion gives them leverage. When people are angry or afraid, they stop asking hard questions. Facts become obstacles because facts slow things down and bring clarity. Emotion creates urgency, and urgency allows pressure to be applied before truth can surface. Confusion replaces understanding, and reaction replaces reason.
These groups often speak the language of justice, but unity is rarely the goal. Division keeps attention focused. Prolonged outrage keeps people emotionally invested. When emotion fades, influence fades. That is why outrage is rarely allowed to settle.
This does not mean a life did not matter. It means justice cannot be rushed. Facts exist for a reason. They slow us down. They protect fairness. They prevent outcomes from being decided by pressure or passion. Without facts, law becomes reaction, and justice becomes unstable.
Scripture reminds us of this principle in James 1:19–20: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”
Aristotle observed, “The law is reason, free from passion.” That insight still matters. When reason is removed and passion takes control, justice is weakened.
The law exists to rise above emotion, not to be driven by it. When emotion is constantly stirred, it is worth asking who is doing the stirring, and why. Justice cannot be built on feeling alone. Without facts, neither justice nor freedom can endure.

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.