A few days go, I started feeling achy and tired. My head drifted into a fog. My doctor sent me to get a COVID test on October 2. I await the results.

Whether the tests come back negative or positive, I feel like the fatigue and heaviness I feel are not biological; they are spiritual.

I feel under the weather in my spirit.

I note that the more I expose myself to the news and social media, the more my spirit feels feverish and weak.

It is as if I am absorbing all of the anger and fear that I see in the world.

What about you? Do you feel it, too?

What is the antidote?

I can tell you what will not neutralize the poison.

Taking in more news and more social media will not make things better. If you keep searching for hope in those places, you will not find it.

Voting for one candidate or another will neither comfort nor heal you.

Beating whoever you count as your opponent will...

The thing that distresses me most about these times is the naked contempt, hatred, and ill will that some Christians display for their enemies.

This will do more to darken the witness of the Gospel and destroy the church of Christ than any “liberal agenda.”

As a Christian, it makes me sick in my soul to see how the darkness of contempt and hate is overshadowing the Gospel.

Jesus Christ said that his people are the ones who “bless those who curse” them, “pray for those who persecute” them, and “turn the other cheek” to those who strike them (Gospel of Matthew 5:38 - 48).

If this is what a Christian does, how is that so many Christians in America are publicly cursing, persecuting, and striking their enemies?

What happened?

How did we get this way?

We stopped believing in the power and promises of God and started listening to the politicians who promised us power.

The “Sermon...

What does it mean to “pray for the President”?

The first time I recall praying for the President was around August 1990. That month, the United States led an international coalition into a war to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I recall that on the day the news announced that U.S. forces were engaging in combat, our church held a special prayer service. I listened to our elders pray for God to guide and protect President George Bush as he led our country to war.

Over the last 30 years, I can recall periods when the Christians in my life devoted a lot of prayer to the President. I can also recall stretches of time when the Christians in my life barely mentioned the President at all.

My observation is that the Christians in my life tended to pray for the President when they liked him, but not when they disliked him.

So, again, what does it mean to “pray for the...

It is human nature to always be closing or opening.

I know a woman who, over the years, so closed her mind that she ended up closing out her own family. She passed her last years full of herself, but alone. The only light in her life was the dim light of the TV. Death closed in.

I know a church that once had hundreds of members. The most common sound, besides praise, prayer, and preaching, was the sound of children. But as old age closed in on the church leaders, they closed off every chance for the younger members to try new things. Now, less than 20 bitter people huddle in the chilly church building where 300 used to raise the roof in praise. Death is closing in.

I know a nation that was once open to all challenges and all comers. It was open to a great and growing plurality of all kinds of people. It was so open to new ideas that people called it “the American experiment.” Now...

…run for office.

You owe it to your community, your country, and yourself.

I’m talking to you. Yes, you.

And I really mean it: You get yourself into a public office.

Go ahead and keep posting on social media. Go ahead and be a critic of the people in office now.

But, earn your credibility and your integrity by doing the job yourself.

It’s so easy to get into public office. It really, really is!

Do you belong to a house of worship? Volunteer to head up a committee.

Do you have a child in school? Run for school board or volunteer for one of the offices nobody wants on the PTA (secretary or treasurer).

Does your neighborhood have an association or block club? Put yourself out there as someone who is willing to organize, promote, and recruit its activities.

Do you live in a city, town, or village? Apply to serve on one of its many community boards (like the holiday parade...

Get a random group of Americans together around some good food and a couple of hours with nothing else to do. Get them talking about themselves and telling stories about their lives.

And in that place where food and lives are shared, the “hot buttons” aren’t so hot anymore.

Ask them something like: Do you think it’s good that people from other countries want to move to the United States and settle here? I bet most people around that table would not only say “yes,” but would tell you that a close family member or friend is an immigrant.

What if we then took the next step and asked that group of Americans to imagine that their little dinner party was now in charge of designing the country’s immigration system. Ask them to imagine that they are starting from Square One and making over the immigration system from the ground up. What would that immigration system look like? How would it...

If I were a senator in September 2020, what would I do?

That is: Would I cast a vote to confirm the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court? Or, would I pledge to wait until after the election?

Of course, as a senator, I don’t do my work in a vacuum.

An entire state with millions of people hired me to represent them in Congress. As their employee, I have to take into account what most of them want me to do in their name.

I also belong to a political party machine that supported my election and that I will need for my re-election.

Favors are the currency of politics. Who do I owe what? Will they call in their favors on this vote? Who owes me? Do I have enough “political capital” to go against my party leadership or the will of the people back home?

Finally, I have my own character and convictions, which must help me navigate the many difficult choices that all add up to the...

When old things break down and die, new things can be born and grow from them.

If you have a garden, maybe you see this all the time. Dead plant matter becomes compost for growing new plant life.

Can you think of a time when a relationship ended or you lost a job and something new (and better) came along in its place?

I’m old enough now to know that the good life is not one long winning streak that leads to the top. The good life is what grows from a lot of failures, losses, and setbacks. The way we grow into our best selves is to grow from our worst moments.

But this is a choice we must choose. When something ends or falls apart, we must choose what to do with what is left of it.

The choice is simply this: Either try to put everything back to the way it was before, or to let something new grow in its place.

God gives us grace to choose to grieve what we lost and let something...

The best things come to those who cling, crawl, drag, drudge, grind, and grit inch by inch until they get there.

Joy is the sum total of millions upon millions of mundane moments.

The last one standing with be the one with the highest tolerance for boredom, disappointment, heartbreak, loss, pain, and and setbacks.

What could get you through all that?

Only one thing in the universe: Love.

Everything else–fear, rage, vanity–is too thin to go the distance. A future that is lasting and worthy cannot be at the end of those things.

Glory is at the end of the grind and only the grind. And love is what keeps grinding until its object shines like a diamond.

Do you have the love?

Then keep grinding.

How does America know the church of Christ is the church of Christ?

The Christ himself said: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Gospel of John 13:35).

Clear as a bell.

To make it more clear, Jesus showed what he meant by “love one another.”

He washed his disciples’ feet and told them to do the same for each other (Gospel of John 13:1-17).

“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (Gospel of John 13:15).

So, then, the love Jesus’s disciples in America are to have for one another is the kind of love that washes feet. Down on hands and knees, five senses, full contact, personal, vulnerable.

In America, the church of Christ has “blue” people and “red” people. It has conservatives and liberals. It has city folks and country folks. It has Democrats and Republicans. It has people of color and white people. It...