You know the feeling! You’re not sick but you don’t really feel good. You’re not depressed but you’re not really in a happy place. Yep, you’re “outa sorts” (out of sorts) and you feel blah. Outa sorts is something akin to stale bread or constipation.
Continue reading “Outa Sorts”Having a Grateful Heart
It is funny how some things stick in our brains forever and others flee like a bird. I have never forgotten the statement of my good friend and Christian brother Kenny Gilbreath, who related the phrase his uncle always prayed in every prayer, “Lord, give me a grateful heart.” I have often thought about that phrase and the profound meaning of it.
Continue reading “Having a Grateful Heart”Resurrection of Personal Responsibility
When I get up in the morning and look in the mirror, I see the man who gives me the most trouble in life—ME! It would be easier to blame my parents, my wife, my siblings, my co-workers, or society in general, but I need to take responsibility for my own failures, brokenness, and, yes, sin.
Continue reading “Resurrection of Personal Responsibility”Work With Your Own Hands
I was raised in a working-class family who had risen out of Depression Era poverty. Most of our neighbors were either poor or slowly rising to middle-class status. Our exposure to rich people was rare.
Continue reading “Work With Your Own Hands”Don’t Let Them Divide Us!
I remember watching action-hero cartoons as a child and the general theme would be a bad guy wanting control over the world and a super-hero good guy would save the day. The same plot repeated itself in every show; the bad guy almost prevailed but in the end the good guy saves the world. What works in the fantasy world does not always play out in the real world. Most of us are apprehensive about the future.
Continue reading “Don’t Let Them Divide Us!”How to Fix the World
The basic unit of any society is the home. Many of our problems in society are caused by the breakdown of the home. Home is where the problems begin, and it is where the solutions begin. The talking heads in our country like to ignore the operation manual (The Bible) and refit society according to our brokenness. This is like trying to build a house on sand.
Continue reading “How to Fix the World”“Stay-At-Home” Order — Alabama Style
Our collective great-aunt, Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama just had a press conference with a “Stay-At-Home” order. Don’t you just love Aunt Kay with her South Alabama drawl; all our Southern politicians of old talked like this once upon a time, it was a requirement. I really like her, I really do. I would like to sit and have a chicken liver dinner with her, complete with potato salad, baked beans, and ice tea.
Kids (and Old Men) Are Funny
I have been a kid and I think I was a funny kid. I am a father with two grown children and my kids had some funny moments that we still laugh about as a family. Each of us have retold the stories from our own perspective and we all laugh again. Now I am a grandfather of five ranging in age from about sixteen months to almost thirteen years old. My grandchildren are especially funny–in a good way. We have lots of fun.
Things As Well With Me As They Are
I remember some of the old timers testifying in my childhood country church, “I thank the Lord, that things are as well with me as they are!” If you had asked them to explain, they would have added: “There are a whole bunch of people who are in worse shape than me. I may not be rich, but I have enough. I am so thankful for what I do have. I could be dead. I should be dead. I can still do for myself. God has been good to me and mine.”
Marriage is God’s Idea!!!
“When you open the box and assemble the parts without reading the directions, you will have leftover parts. Read the manual—God’s Word.”
In the beginning, God in His wisdom established the building block of society and community known as the family. This family begins with the union of a man and woman. Society and community begins and properly functions from this basis.

