Archive for February 2026

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The Silliness of Horizontal Cravings

February 25, 2026

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you.
 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” (Psalm 73:25-26)

The hymn “More Precious Than Silver” includes the line “…nothing I desire compares to You.” Nice words to sing, but frequently forgotten in the daily cravings of our lives. Paul David Tripp in his devotional, New Morning Mercies, writes that sin “…causes us to look horizontally for what can only be found vertically.” (New Morning Mercies, January 6 devotional thought)

In many ways, our culture tells us what we should be craving. It’s been that way for a while. Remember “Big Mac Attacks” that McDonald’s assured us was natural? And how about the automobile commercials that feature starry-eyed consumers who are suddenly living their dream in a shiny new vehicle (complete with a cringing monthly car loan amount)?

Recently, I bought a pair of slip-on shoes. I like them. They’re comfortable. But guess what? I get a daily email or social media ad from the company trying to convince me that my feet will not be satisfied until I buy another pair. If they had their way, my closet would look like a shoe store.

The professional sports leagues have been trying to convince me that the NBA All-Star Game and NFL Pro Bowl are essential to my viewing pleasure. They aren’t, and I haven’t.

Unless it is fulfilling relationships and helping others in need, there isn’t much horizontal meaning. If someone or some group is trying to convince you that it is essential for your happiness, that’s a red flag of its non-essentialness. Like the story of the prodigal son, life away from the father (and the Father) looks enticing, exciting, and enthralling. And like the prodigal son, realizing how unfulfilling those ventures are brings us to the place of “void” that is bewildering.

I mean, be honest! Do the real housewives of Beverly Hills ever seem happy? With all of their makeovers, Botox treatments, and cocktail parties, they seem to be miserable human beings who are always complaining about someone or something.

I can;t remember a time when someone complained about the fact that God loves them and is always available for a talk. It doesn’t seem like there has ever been someone who gossips to their friends about God is all uppity! And yet, we spend most of our time trying to make life meaningful that has no connection to the Lord.

More precious than silver. Where do you look for value?

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Playing Dead

February 13, 2026

When this perishable body puts on imperishability and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55)

In my substitute teaching adventures, I am not adverse to the idea of facilitating the fun factor for the classroom. Although my days in the classroom are winding down, students at my middle school still seem to light up when they see I’m the guest teacher for the day. Oh, there are the warts who seem to enjoy being the cause of chaos. They are the ones who I believe have season tickets to the principal’s office, seats with their names on them.

For the most part, however, the students energize these old bones of mine. Last week, I played dead. They enticed me to lay on a classroom long table while they said kind words over me. It was the last of fiove days subbing in their sixth grade classroom. During the week, we had discussed “grandma candy”, buying their first car (Thankfully, a ways down the road!), the growing number of fidgets, and how short and unfair their lunch period is.

So playing dead was an appropriate way to end the week. Their words weren’t scripted by the students. They searched for nice-sounding adjectives that seemed complimentary to their short-lived instructor stretched out on a hard-surface tabletop.

Death has chummied up to me too frequently in the last few months. Old youth group members, college classmates, current and former church members, and, most recently, my college classmate, teammate, and wedding groomsman, Stan Brown. All have been officially laid out. It’s caused me to appreciate anew the awesomeness of the resurrection and the promise that eternity holds for us.

The only uncertainty that a Jesus-follower has about death is when its arrival has been determined. As I layed on that classroom table, I had about five seconds of resting in peace that comforted my tired feet. Then, with outstretched hands, I gather myself up and shouted to the wide-eyed students, “He rose again!”

I’m not sure many of them made the “Up from the grave, he arose” connection, but a few did, and they smiled and giggled in delight at the “conquering death” moment as they departed for life in their school hallways.

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Column Reading

February 9, 2026

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” (Matthew 13:16-17)

In our church sanctuary, there are a couple of floor-to-ceiling columns on the side. My usual seat is on the right side, second row from the back, sitting between my wife and a 97-year-old man who goes by the name Pic. Sometimes, if I’m not pinned in, I can step to the outside of the pew as we sing a praise song or hymn.

You see, the column blocks the last couple of words on each line of the song we’re singing, which are projected on the screen in front of the sanctuary. For some of the praise songs, it’s not a problem because the lyrics are as repetitious as a “Dick, Jane, and Sally Primer Reading Book” from first grade. However, hymns, not so much! It looked like this:

Joyful, Joyful, we ad…God of glory, Lo…hearts unfold l…opening to the…Melt the cl…drive the dark…

So I find myself singing the first few words and mumbling the last few like a sixteen-year-old boy trying to ask the young lady who plays the clarinet next to him in band class to the Homecoming Dance. He gets the first few words out, and then his lack of confidence arrives on his tongue. He mumbles through, causing confusion to appear on her face.

That was me yesterday, singing with half a knowledge and humming through the “column words.” The Call to Worship was a greater challenge, with the worship leader saying a few words to lead the congregation into the next line of unfamiliarity. If my theology was formed on the basis of column-obscured biblical truth, I’d be warped in my walking with Jesus. In other words, if I only get half the message and decide to fill in the rest, like it’s a crossword puzzle, I’d be a flawed follower. Like Marcion in the second century, who rejected the Old Testament and excluded any of its references in the New Testament, his bible was very thin…and flawed.

My “column-challenged” understanding seemed like a parable Jesus might have told, explaining why some people saw but did not understand, that they only got half the story and made up the rest. That they read half of the gospel and filled in with what they thought sounded good. The trend these days seems to be to take a little bit of gospel truth, spin it around with preconceived ideas, and come up with a recipe that sounds vaguely spiritual but mostly opinionated.

We live in a time where the number of bible translations and paraphrases is more numerous than ever, and yet we are about half-a-truth proficient. The columns of our indifference and apathy have allowed us to settle on half the story. The half that isn’t gotten often makes the difference between being people of hope, faith, and grace. The half that isn’t gotten is also oftern filled in with the words of our culture, slanted and suspect.

For me, one solution is to step aside two steps, without knocking my wife or Pic over, and see the whole picture. Either that or like Mr. Frank, an elderly character in my Red Hot: New Life in Fleming novel series, who has memorized the words to all the hymns, taken them to heart, and sings with his eyes closed.

Or, I suppose, find a place that does not have a column blocking my view, where I can see the whole screen, the whole truth.

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