Author: luke

On top of all the blues and overwhelmingly sad and empty feelings, one of the great struggles of depression can come when you can’t even identify its origin.  Have you ever felt that way?  “I’m sad, and I don’t even know why.”  Or perhaps you recognize that much of life is going well, but you… Continue reading Depression: Where is Your Treasure?

Betrayed. Nothing else could describe what our son was feeling as we brought him into the clinic and into the room where he would receive the dreadfully anticipated shot that we had tried to prepare him for since about a week prior.  How could his parents do this to him?  He had even been good… Continue reading How Could God Do This?

Reiterated from Sunday’s message. Click here to listen. We’ve all been there: lying awake at night, our minds swimming in our troubles, emotions aflare, desperate for hope and help, or just downright distressed!  To sleep would be both a blessing and a defeated surrender, yielding to the hopelessness of our troubles and an inevitably terrible… Continue reading How Can I Possibly Sleep at a Time Like This??

When you’re drowning helplessly and hopelessly, you’ll frantically grasp at anything and everything in desperation to pull yourself out of the water or at least hold yourself above the surface!  Such is our typical approach to the problems of life: we start to feel desperate, frantic, and hopeless, and we want them to stop.  NOW. … Continue reading Looking for the “Quick Fix”

How could I have done that?  We all have those things from our past, however recent, that leave us feeling ashamed and terrible.  Perhaps we can’t seem to put them behind us, and we may even begin to define ourselves by those things.  Should the guilt of our regrets eat us up?  Is this what we… Continue reading Burdened by Guilt

What is more precious than gold but cannot be bought, earned, or saved? Time is a very valuable commodity!  We hope to make the most of our time, as Ephesians 5:15-16 says: Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. … Continue reading Bowed to the Wrong god: The Idol of Productivity

March 5 is Ash Wednesday this year, and you may see some people with ashes in the shape of a cross on their foreheads.  This day and its practice kick off a season called “Lent,” during which many people will abstain from meat on Fridays, as well as something routine or habitual during their day,… Continue reading Should We Observe Lent?

Another Monday, another workweek.  Some of us love our jobs, while others of us just try to survive the day and pay the bills.  Either way, as we head into work, we each face a set of unique difficulties and struggles.  We may yearn for one day when we retire, relax, and do what we… Continue reading What is God Doing in My Work Week?

We’ve all been there.  The magnitude of a seemingly insurmountable task leaves us paralyzed at best and in wretched despair at worst.  How can we push ourselves through unbearable effort to strive toward the unattainable?  We may be staring hopelessly at the course toward financial recovery, the journey toward overcoming addiction, the long road of… Continue reading Too Daunting: How Can I Do This?

Regrettably, the subject of giving is almost an instinctive taboo in church.  Its struggle starts where too many churches have taken wrong approaches, with extremes toward the prosperity gospel with claims that God will bless your giving with an abundance of wealth, or toward a legalistic approach that condemns lesser contributions, or perhaps toward a… Continue reading Giving IS the Gospel