Category: Thursday Thoughts

This season, I have been learning a lot about the difference between expectations and the attitude of expectancy.  We all have, and I think, need expectations. They can be a source of great excitement or discouragement.  It seems to me that there are a few options regarding expectations: The first option is accepted by many…

In listening to Bono’s audio autobiography, Forty Songs, One Life, he makes the comment that fame does and should change you.  We call it growth. The only question is whether it changes you for better or worse.  It is a good listen despite some of his language, length, and antics. There are several things in his…

We all meet a lot of people over our lifetimes; therefore, the older we get, the more people we have met. The question I have come to consider is, “How have the many people I have met throughout my life impacted who I am today?” I have wondered why some people have had significantly more…

My brother-in-law, Peter Anderson, passed away on September 30, 2023, at 71 years of age of brain cancer. Peter finished well. He had spent over 50 years battling alcoholism and finally reached sobriety twelve years before he died. During the last decade, Peter and I read more books together than I could count. He would…

I have found some of the most helpful books for me as a leader focused on my issues!  You may think that is obvious, but it wasn’t always so. I used to think if something didn’t work out, it was because of the events around me, my team, or the timing, but seldom did I consider…

Recently I had a dream that took me back to high school. After I awoke, two vivid memories from our senior year preseason football camp rushed back into my consciousness. Both were highlights of my senior year, for different reasons. We would stay several nights at the HS gym and have all day practices and…

Last week, we saw how living with God’s wisdom and understanding allows us to develop character traits of endurance and patience, which leads to impactful lives lived with gratitude. Most of us would love to leave a legacy of these two enduring attributes: impactful and thankful.  But the concrete question then becomes, how do we develop…

I ask for God’s wisdom all the time. This is often because I find myself in situations where I lack the cognitive capacity and/or experience to fully comprehend how to respond to a given situation. Let’s face it, if there really is an omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful, and all-loving God who is actively engaged in our…

Forty years ago, I specifically remember telling a friend that I was thinking of starting a new church, and he responded, “Why in the world would you need to start a church? There are plenty of churches around, and most of them are only half full. Just tell everyone to go to the church closest…