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...

I love the American flag.

I learned to love it early. My parents were strict about it. When we went to parades, they taught me to take off my hat and hold it over my heart whenever the flag passed.

In elementary school, we said the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.

As a Cub Scout, I learned flag etiquette that I still follow to this day.

In high school, I was a state finalist at the American Legion Ohio Citizens Bee and won an American Legion college scholarship.

We fly a big American flag on the front of our house every day. I raise it at first light every morning and take it down at sunset every night. I never leave it up in the rain.

I’m disappointed by some of my fellow Americans who don’t seem to know how to treat the flag with honor and respect.

Some examples:

The American flag should not be left out in the dark unless a light is shining on it. But in my...

When I moved to Detroit, I had to learn about hockey.

For example, there are three main positions in hockey: forwards, defense, and goaltender. You can guess what players in each of those positions do.

When I first came to Detroit, the city’s professional hockey team, the Red Wings, had a center forward so popular that people around town simply called him “The Captain.” Steve Yzerman played all 23 seasons of his hall of fame career for the Red Wings. He wore the “C” (for “captain”) on his hockey sweater for 20 of those 23 seasons. When Yzerman retired in 2006, he was the second all-time leading scorer in Red Wings history (next to “Mr. Hockey” himself, Gordie Howe).

Soon after I learned about the Captain, I learned about a player who filled another important role on the Red Wings: Darren McCarty.

McCarty was the “enforcer,” a position you will not find in the hockey program you...

Fact: If your guy wins the election this fall, the people who voted for the guy who lost are not going away.

Democrats, there is no future of America without Republicans in it.

Republicans, there is no future of America without Democrats in it.

City people, there is no future of America without country people in it.

Country people, there is no future of America without city people in it.

Conservatives, there is no future of America without liberals in it.

Liberals, there is no future of America without conservatives in it.

People of color, there is no future of America without white people in it.

White people, there is no future of America without people of color in it.

If someone tells you that by voting for them, you can make half of the country go away, you need to find a better candidate to hire for office. He or she is either lying or stupid. You deserve better than a...

It’s September 11 and I never will forget what happened or how it felt on this day 19 years ago.

“Never forget” is a thing a lot of people say in memory of that day.

This year, for the first time, I started to wonder: Never forget what?

The first thought that came to me when I asked myself the question is: “Never forget what happened.”

That thought led to: “Never forget who did it.”

That thought didn’t get far. It ran into my allegiance to the rule of Jesus Christ, whose command is to forgive and to love enemies. I don’t get a pass on that because I am an American or because the world is dangerous.

No, if there are people who hate me because I am American or Christian, the Christ who hung on the cross for them tells me to take up my own cross and do the same. The Christ who prayed “Father, forgive them” over those who crucified him requires I pray the same prayer for those...

At a Christian men’s retreat back in college, a preacher asked us to guess which command shows up most often in the Bible.

His answer? “Do not be afraid.”

I didn’t fact-check him on that, but Google told me the command appears at least 70 times. That’s a lot.

If you are a believer and God-follower as I try to be, you believe in obeying God’s commands without question.

So, if God says “do not be afraid” 70 times in the Bible, would you agree that he really means it?

In my reading of the Bible, God gives overwhelming proof that we don’t need to be afraid. From Genesis to Revelation, God comes through for his people again and again with love and power.

When you think about all of your favorite Bible stories, you see the same theme: God works to help his people overcome every threat to their lives.

At least half of the Christians I know count this as their favorite Bible verse:

My dad was a Church of Christ preacher and my mom was a school secretary. They raised three children.

Dad and Mom brought us up to believe and practice good, old-fashioned family values and the teachings of the Bible.

I am proud of my upbringing and thankful for it. Now that I’m a dad, I’m trying to pass on the things my parents taught me.

My youngest sister, Bethy, was born with Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disease that affects the digestive system and lungs. When Bethy was born in 1983, they didn’t give her much of a chance to live beyond her teen years.

Bethy needed a lot of extra health care. She needed more health care than the rest of the family put together. At least once a month, my parents drove Bethy from our small town in rural Ohio up to a big hospital in Cleveland. Every day, the had to do a lot of special in-home treatment just for her. Since my parents didn’t have...

The Gospel of Matthew 20:1-16 records a story that Jesus told in his day.

You can read the story for yourself here.

Farms and farmers’ markets were the heart of the economy in Jesus’s time.

Farmers grew food and sold it at markets in the cities.

When farmers needed a labor force to work on their farms, they hired day laborers from the cities.

Likewise, when people in the cities needed money to buy food from the farmers’ markets, they hired themselves out to work on the farms.

So, the story Jesus told is one that would sound so normal to people that it would almost be boring…until the surprise twist at the end of the story.

In this story, a farmer needed laborers to work in his vineyard. So, as any farmer would do, he went to the public square in the nearest town. There, he would find people waiting from someone to hire them for the day.

In this story, the farmer went to the...