“What is it that keeps a person from developing vision for their life?" she asked. The question came in a chance conversation, and got me thinking about vision and why it is so tied to human survival. “Where there is no vision people perish.” Proverbs 29:18 Vision. Clearly something about it has the ability to give, or at least sustain life. Because clearly, without it, people die. Can it really be this serious? Let’s define vision for a minute to see if we can find why it can be so vital, or why the lack of it can be so lethal. Vision is our ability to see what has yet to happen, like the stretch of road in front of us. We can see it, but we have not yet driven across it. ...

It was a strange time in Israel. The people who had seen the Living God pour Himself out in their midst turned to Samuel and asked that he appoint a king to rule over them. 4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah.  They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not follow your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have.” 1 Samuel 8:4-5 I wish I could tell you that I am not like them, but alas, I fear I am. I would never say it the way they did, but even that is part of the problem. We think that just because we do not say the words they said, that our hearts are not frighteningly similar. I would say it more like ...

The front room of the house was chilled as the sun was sinking. The shadows of the evening light crawled across the floor as she sat tending to the fabric in her hands. Her mind drifted occasionally to thoughts of the man that she would one day marry, feeling much older than her fourteen years. The word “wife” seemed like a foreign language to her, a title intended for someone much older. She had grown up in this home. More and more, she felt torn between the increasing duties she carried, and the laughter of her friends as they ran by her window. For years, sitting right here in this room, she had knit together the fabrics that became the clothes and linens she and her family ...

Trapped inside our life experiences and the impulses of our soul, we struggle to answer the question, “Who Am I?” Life asks us, circumstances accuse us, our days beg us to discover, and one way or another, we answer. We answer with the information at hand, and sadly, we often answer entirely without intending to. But we answer. We stand up and declare with our words or our actions, some self-discovered observation of our best understanding fills in the blanks for us, and we answer. A house full of diapers, laughter, tears, and the fading memory of quality sleep accuses us of being parents. The warm body in the bed next to us explains to us that we are a husband or a wife. The ...

She hated herself, almost as much as she hated him. She had not always been the hating type. She had once been gentle and kind, but life had not been gentle and kind to her. Today, she hated that she had followed one more time. She had followed her fear, instead of her heart, and she had followed this man into this room, because of another set of empty promises, and smooth words. But all the kindness went away as soon as she had consented. Once he had heard her “yes” he looked at her differently. Suddenly his touch was not so much about her, as it was about him. He became rough with her as he led her into the back room. Moments ago, he had seemed so attentive, and almost thoughtful. ...

He looked affectionately at the man He had made. He had taken some of His own heart and put it in there. He could see His Spirit roaming around inside the man. What He had deposited there would one day rejoin Him in a one-of-a-kind re-union. The desire for that moment would grow every day until it happened. But He understood what was happening, and He had the advantage of Eternal Patience. The man understood less and would have more trouble with the tension of waiting. To help the man in his longing for this reunion, the Eternal One excitedly prepared to unfold the next phase.  This step was going to be a fun one. “Look around,” He told the man, “do you see anyone or anything ...

Sometimes treasure is hidden in plain sight, right in front of us. The English language can become a smokescreen. Language itself can obscure or reveal the most meaningful of realities. Jesus tells the crowd, “The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, I came that you might have life, and life abundantly.” We read these words and unwittingly, we have multiple ways to drain the power from them. We read them through the familiarity of repetition. We read them through a modern, westernized thought process. We read these words through definitions and expectations that have grown old and stale over generations; all the while, hidden right in front of us is the mystery and power of God ...

It burns in us, this bent, (No, that’s too soft a word.) this craving, this drive for the thing we all call freedom. I would dare say every other drive we serve grows from the root of this one. We eat because we want to be free from hunger (or boredom…), we sleep because we want to be freed from the fatigue that chases us. As best as I can figure, at the root of all our pursuits is our drive to be free. It is so deep in us that our dreams and daydreams are about freedom, in whatever form we think it can be attained. And it is in this inner dialogue (“Where can I find freedom?”) where we encounter our first trap. We all have a picture, a picture that we believe will usher ...

Last year I drove past the prison where my father died.  I was on my way to speak new life to a group of strangers, who since have become family.  These two bookends, containing thirty years of time, intersected on a drive across southern Michigan and reminded me of the power of God’s intervention in my life. You see, I have not always been “Pastor Bob” the Freedom guy at Gateway Church and the token dude writer for Destiny in Bloom.   Once, I was an angry and fearful boy, who was raised by an addictive and distant father.  Once I was on a path to repeat my father’s destiny and end up alone, and in jail.   All indicators would say that his addictions and relationship ...

I was hearing another horror story, but this time I was hearing two things at once.  And this time I ended with hope.  While I was hearing the story with my ears, a storm was brewing inside my heart, and I was not in charge of it.  Sometimes storms clear the air and cleanse the countryside.  This one did. After twenty years of counseling I have heard stories.  Any counselor that stays with it and keeps their heart in the game has heard stories that break their heart.  Hard stories are one thing.  It is the horror stories that will turn your heart, send you running from the room, make you enraged, or crush you and whatever lame answers you think you might have.  But God.  But ...