My answer to a friend: There is no success in ministry, only service and moments of celebration. If you choose to minister, expect to be misunderstood. All of the pain people carry will fall upon your brow, and you shall be the stand-in for every ignorant statement...
You can be flawed, anxious and sometimes irritated, but don't forget that your life is the greatest company in the world. Only you can prevent her from going into decline. There are many who appreciate, admire and love you. And you don't know but there are people for...
Most biblical stories are descriptive, not prescriptive. They show what it looks like to wrestle with trying to live a moral life—recording success and failure. But here's the thing: That makes the Bible more holy, not less. Treating spiritual texts like a recipe book...
Rather than defining success by the brand of clothing we can afford, may we find it in the number of people we have helped to clothe.
You must read to your children and you must hug your children and you must love your children. Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens inside your house.
One of the greatest joys about working in education is that you are surrounded by people who define their level of success by their level of impact on others. They do this work not because they seek to make a fortune; they do this work because they seek to make a...
People may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success only to find, once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
High School Students: Be kind in high school. Be kind. One day you will get to look at your current classmates at a class reunion. You will get to do business with them in your hometown or elsewhere. You will get to teach your former classmates’ children, or doctor...
If you have always been short, chubby, and slow, and your sense of success means playing on an NBA team, failure will be your lot in life. If, however, you are pleased to play on a local playground team with other short, chubby, and slow people, and you have a...
Where is God? God is where we are weak, vulnerable, small, and dependent. God is where the poor are, the hungry, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the elderly, the powerless. How can we come to know God when our focus is elsewhere, on success, influence, and power?