Blog

Story… My Atheist Neighbor Ted This is the story of my atheist neighbor Ted. I learned a lot from this guy. He kind of forced me to learn it—to learn to love him. We live in the rice fields in the country. Across the pasture from our house is my parents’ house and across the pasture from their house on the other side is a third house where someone new had moved into…actually they had moved into the house about two years ago. But no one knew who the not-so-new neighbors were, they …

How Do We Know Who God Is? God is love. And if you know love, you know God and if you don’t know love, you don’t know God. How do we know that? First of all, His Word tells us that. And secondly, every person ever created in all of creation desires love. They were created to desire love. Did you know that Jesus said that many will come to Him and say they did all these things in His name, including miracles? And He will say, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” How could someone do …

The Only Time Respect Is of No Value The only time respect has no value is when I demand it. When my children were little, I was hard on them. I demanded they respect me. But it didn’t take too long for me to realize that something wasn’t working quite like I had hoped. So, I asked myself: Why did I demand that my children respect me? It wasn’t so that I would be respected, but that my children would be respectful. So, I went to my children and explained it to them to help them to …

You Are Not Enough and It’s OK I think the only people who really believe they are enough are the people who haven’t lived long enough to figure out that they really aren’t. I am over 50 years old and I have chased so many dreams--and more than I ever imagined I would say chased me down and they’ve come true. But I say that because in every case, it didn't happen until I gave up, came to the end of myself, until I surrendered. But then my dreams chased me down or found me or ca …

What is Self-Love?First of all, you usually don’t know who someone loves, based on what they do. It’s why they do it that reveals who they love.They could be nice to you, but not really for you, for them.They could be somewhat critical of you, but it’s not for them, it’s for you. That is love.Love puts you first. Self-love puts me first.If I love God, I put God first. If I love my wife and my children, I put my family first. If I love myself, I may, at times, put God and my family first, but it’ …

If their Response is Absolute Outrage, Pride and Dismissal Not only do you know they are not standing on the truth. You know that they know they are not standing on the truth. Because no matter how much we disagree on something--no matter how shocked I may be at what you believe, that’s no reason for me to be outraged. If I am seeking the truth, I will just ask you to help me understand why and I am willing to talk about it. Because, if the truth is you are right but if I am not goin …

What Happens to You When You Hate? A fruitful person is fruitful because they are the 7 things love is: patient, kind, truthful, trusting, protecting, hopeful and persevering. But in life, people come along and hurt us. They can take your fruit but they can’t touch your root. In other words, they can hurt you but they can’t change who you are. If you love through the hurt, keep protecting, keep trusting and hold on to the 7 things love is: that loving restores everything that …

How to Trust God You know I used to think that trusting God was simply saying, God I trust you. While I kept doing the same things I had been doing. So, the reality was that I was trusting in myself more than I was trusting God. Then, my wife Tammie told me: Kenny, if you want to trust God you need to figure out what He has to say about the circumstances and the situation you are in and trust what He says more than trust your fears and your feelings. Now, that’s trusting God. If y …

What Gives You the Strength to Persevere? The world is going to tell you that if you love what you do, you will persevere and if you don’t love what you do, you are going to burn out. But, that’s not the truth. There are people all over the place who don’t even like what they do, but they are persevering. Other people actually love what they do, but they burn out or they quit. The strength to persevere is not in what you do but in why you do what you do. If you do it for yourself …

What Did Jesus Write in the Sand? In this Bible story, some men bring a woman to Jesus. They tell Jesus they caught her in adultery. They are trying to trap Jesus and they tell Him that the law says they should stone her to death and they ask Jesus what He thought they should do. Jesus says, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Then Jesus kneels down and begins writing in the sand. When He looked up, the men were gone and He asks the woman where the men were. S …