The Role of Hardship in Shaping Character

“Endure hardship as discipline…”   – Hebrews 12:7 I never liked the word discipline. It always made me think of punishment — and I didn’t care for punishment.  Losing privileges, being sent to my room, having my allowance docked — I never liked any of it.  The worst, however, was corporal punishment — the dreaded […]

Decide to Live a LIfe of Consequence – Part I

Happy New Year!  I hope your 2015 will be one of significant growth and progress toward becoming the man you were created to be. Around this time, many people make resolutions for the new year.  Some of these are vague — so nebulous as to be useless — such as, “I’m gonna get in shape.” […]

He Who Rolls A Stone…

“Whoever digs a pit will fall into it,and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling.” — Proverbs 26:27 (ESV) By now you may have already heard about the news story broken by Rolling Stone magazine — a horrific tale of a brutal sexual assault on a female first-year student that allegedly […]

The Advent Conspiracy – A Cure for Grinches?

Christmas is just around the corner.  Despite the holiday-themed tv ads that began in early November and the radio stations that started playing Christmas music around the same time, it’s possible you may have missed it.  As a friend of mine observed, “Christmas seems to come earlier every year.” If the crass commercialization of the […]

The Wisdom of King Solomon

Men:  We have to talk about sex. If there’s one area where millennials are stuck, this is it. The Water Was Dirty Before You Got In Now, before you conclude that I’m pointing my finger at you, please realize that the Boomer cohort gave us the sexual revolution and rampant divorce, and the Gen X cohort were […]

Why I Gave My Nine-Year-Old Son a Combat Knife

It was the first night of my son’s initiation into manhood.  We had hiked to the top of Pinnacle Mountain and beyond the boundaries of Table Rock State Park and made camp for the night.  After dinner, we sat by our campfire, and I began to explain to my son the purpose and the content […]