“The joy of the Lord is your strength.” – Nehemiah 8:10 I recently celebrated my birthday — the first one since I’ve been so active on social media — and I must admit I was surprised and honored by the greetings and well-wishes I received from so many different contexts. I heard from childhood friends, […]
“Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the […]
“A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” – Proverbs 17:17 I just came back from a long weekend with four of my oldest — in terms of length of friendship — friends. We arranged to meet for a four-day weekend on the North Carolina coast to catch up, watch […]
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; profuse are the kisses of an enemy.” – Proverbs 27:6 (ESV) The story I’m about to tell you is true. While I am not particularly proud of certain aspects of this story, I think it has a happy enough ending, as well as a useful moral, so I’m […]
“You can’t go around half-pregnant.” – A famous saying by my uncle. Our mission here at Ontozoan – One Real Life is to motivate and inspire men to embrace Thriving Authentic Masculinity and to become the best possible version of themselves. Part of the way we accomplish this is through my passing along lessons I’ve […]
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” -Colossians 3:23 (NIV) Congratulations! You got the job! Now what? If you’re just entering the work force, or changing to a new job, you wouldn’t be human if your excitement didn’t also contain a bit of apprehension. […]
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” -Proverbs 14:12 (ESV) What we wish we had and what the world actually contains are often two different things. As I have written previously here, ambition and restlessness — what some have called divine discontent — can […]
“Are you crazy? A man in a really nice camper wants to put our song on the radio! Gimme a pen, I’m signin’! You’re signin’! We’re all signin’!” -Lenny Haise in That Thing You Do (1996) Yes, I quoted a movie from last century, but it’s one of my top five — you really should […]
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant […]
“Do not dare not to dare.” ~ C. S. Lewis We live in the age of the Internet Tough Guy. You know the one; he launches his attacks from the safety of his man cave, boasts of his prowess and his willingness to fight anytime, anywhere, but strangely cannot be found when it’s time to […]
