Three verses have been driving the direction of this blog for the last couple weeks, and at least another more. Here they are: A righteous man chooses his friends carefully (Proverbs 12:26a). Be not deceived, bad company corrupts good…
Many years ago, Bay and I sat with a seasoned youth pastor over lunch. He was a gentleman greatly respected in the field. I don’t remember what brought up the topic, but we entered a conversation about friendships, and…
A few weeks back I spoke at a women’s retreat, and over four sessions, summarized the topic of joy (that was not easy trying to condense). At one point during the retreat, a friend asked me a question. Her…
Who doesn’t remember Michael W. Smith’s most popular Christian hit? In just .29 seconds, I found approximately 2,170,000 hits on the internet when I Google-searched for it. Released in 1983 and written for a friend who was moving away,…
David saw that Saul had come out to seek his life. David was in the wilderness Ziph at Horesh. And Jonathan, Saul’s son, rose and went to David at Horesh, and strengthened his hand in God. 1 Samuel 23:15-16…
I’m sitting on my favorite old couch with a fresh, blank page waiting to be written on, with a new topic, on a new day, of a new week, in my favorite month of the year. Here’s a side…
It’s very Pollyanna-ish. Yet, there is no question that if we are being fruit-filled, fruit-refreshing, joy-givers, then we are passing on gladness. It certainly wouldn’t hurt our world to hear more people playing the glad-game. There’s plenty of negativity…
Generosity is a practical expression of JOY. Over and over again, I’ve been reading the above quote, which I actually wrote in my Bible, sometime last February, a little more than a month into my focus on joy. Here’s…
1 – The fruit of JOY – it’s not meant to be hoarded, but to be given away. 2 – We are called to be life-giving fruit bearers. Those two statements. That was last week’s lesson on joy as…