Governors and presidents matter.

If we didn’t know that before, we know it now.

An important fact: Governors and presidents are employees. We hire them to do a job. If they do it well, we let them keep the job. If they don’t do it well, we fire them and hire someone else. It’s that simple.

The time will come to decide if the employees we chose to manage our affairs are doing their jobs well.

But, as the old saying goes: “Don’t change horses in the middle of the stream.” The employees we hired to lead us will have to do.

Governors and presidents matter; but there is a leader who matters more.

That leader is you.

Be careful to not waste your emotions, energy, and time on finding fault with other leaders. When you do that, you fail to be a leader yourself.

Your circle of family and friends and neighbors need you to lead now. They need you to give them help and hope. They need you...

It’s all sacred time, but how many of us really knew that before a couple of weeks ago?

The urge is to wish for these days of fear and loneliness and loss to be over.

But my mom always used to say: “Don’t wish your life away.”

These days–yes, even these days–are sacred time. For better or worse, they are part of your one and only life. They are a chapter in your life story. When they are gone, you will never get them back.

“The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the LORD!” (Book of Job 1:21)

To see with eyes of faith is always a choice that is always in your control.

These days are nonrenewable, rare, and sacred.

Will you choose to see it that way?

Will you choose to live that way?

Grace and peace.

Can you think of a time in your life when the shadow of death was breathing down your neck like this?

Can you think of a time in your life when death seemed to be closing like a crypt over the whole world?

I have good news.

The buds on our crabapple tree are as fat as kernels of corn about to pop.

The first lightning and thunder of spring came last night with a steady rain.

Spears of green are thrusting through dead, grey leaves on the ground.

Each morning, a few more birds chatter and sing than the morning before.

The blue of the sky is changing from the pale, tight blue of winter to the richer, warmer blue of summer to come.

The air outside feels more electric as it flows into the lungs.

The chipmunk that was entombed under our deck for the winter…he is risen! He is risen indeed…and now busy doing whatever chipmunks do. I can see him right now as I type this.

Look and...

All of us are now finding out what it feels like to suffer a plague.

I don’t want to get into why. That wouldn’t do you any good here.

But I think you will agree with me on the what: COVID-19 is a plague on the human race.

The other day, a Bible verse came to mind: Gospel of Luke 22:31. Jesus said to his best friend, Simon Peter: “Simon, Simon! Satan has asked to sift you like wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Are we not being sifted like wheat?

A plague has a way of showing the truth about us. It shows the stuff in our souls. A plague will show a coward to be a coward, a fool to be a fool, a selfish person to be a selfish person. It shows that someone who claims to be somebody is actually nobody at all.

A plague also shows us the nobodies who are actually somebodies.

In the Bible...

It’s Day 11 in our COVID-19 hermitage.

Long, long ago in a land far, far away…what we would call “hardcore” Christians moved away from the cities and towns. They moved far out in the middle of nowhere. They moved far away from people. They moved far away from the life that “normal people” live.

These “hermits” made their “hermitages” (homes) in caves and shacks.

Why did they go out there?

In the year 2020, you and I might say they went out there to “cleanse.”

They went out there to cleanse themselves of the things that weigh people down in the “real world.”

It’s not because hermits were “holier than thou.”

No, no. A hermit knew that he was un-holy and weak. He knew that he was only human. Yes, maybe the “real world” has a lot of good things going for it, but it also has a lot of bad. A hermit knew that to enjoy the good things of the world made it likely that he would also...

Have you ever dreamed of taking a sabbatical?

For most of us, dreaming of such a thing is like dreaming of a surprise inheritance or winning the lottery.

“But,” we think to ourselves. “That will never happen for me! A sabbatical is just a daydream.”

Don’t look now, but unless you’re a first responder, a front line service worker, or a medical professional, you’re on sabbatical.

And, yes, it is a sabbatical…if you choose to think of it that way.

I know, I know. A sabbatical often involves travel. And that is out of the question at this time.

But even though your body cannot travel, you are the only one to say that your mind cannot travel. A sabbatical–chosen or forced upon you–is what you choose to make of it.

So, what will you choose to make of this sabbatical?

Where will you let your mind wander? What ideas will you let your mind explore? What perspective on life will you...

Today (March 9, 2020) is Travis Irwin’s 70th birthday.

Travis Irwin is my dad.

Will you give me a few minutes to tell you about him?

It is a miracle that Dad made it to his 70th birthday. It was just a couple of years ago that he got a rare cancer that we thought would kill him.

By the grace of God and the doctors at Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, he is alive and cancer free today.

Nothing will make you feel so thankful for someone as almost losing them.

And since today is another day we get with Dad–and a milestone day at that–I’d like to tell you why he is worthy of celebration.

If you had, or have, a good father, you know how hard it would be to write down everything you want to say about him. You would have to write a book, right?

Since this is a blog post and not a book, I’m going to share just one thing about Dad. But I think it may be the most...

Jesus didn’t get in trouble because he picked the wrong side; he got into trouble because he refused to pick a side.

Think about it.

The religious people of his day didn’t get along with each other. Some of them were Pharisees. Some of them were Sadducees. Some of them said “to hell with it” and moved to the desert (Essenes). All of them thought they were right and the others were wrong.

But they could agree on one thing: Jesus of Nazareth was bad.

Not because he picked one of them, but because he picked none of them. Jesus had no angle but to be faithful and obedient to God.

Not only was that hard for the religious cynics of his day to believe (“nobody is that pure!”), but it was something they simply could not stand. Just being next to Jesus showed them for what they really were. They weren’t in it for love; they were in it for the fight.

The political people of Jesus’s day...

Where is the glory in eating a burger and fries from the drive-thru?

Or binge watching TV?

Or scrolling through social media?

Or sleeping in on Sunday morning?

We know enough to know that glory–the deep soul satisfaction, the “shine on life” that comes from accomplishment, from overcoming–is not found in the cheap stuff, the easy stuff.

A glorious life must be, by definition, a hard life.

A life of challenge, disappointment, drudgery, failure, resistance, setbacks.

It is true that the harder the life, the more fuel for glory’s glow.

Also true: Life is hard.

Just plain old everyday life.

If you have a body, you will have hardship.

If you have family, you will have hardship.

If you go out and about in the world and do something out there, you will have hardship.

So life, everyday life, your everyday life…is glorious.

No, no. I didn’t say it could be glorious; I said it...

If you want to know God, go outside.

That is what Jesus Christ said to do, as the Gospel of Matthew has it in Chapter 6, verses 25 to 34.

Want a sermon that will change your life? A sermon you’ll never forget?

Do you want some good news for a change?

Go outside right now. Take ten minutes. Be quiet. Listen. Look.

Concentrate on the nature you feel and hear and see.

Listen to the birds sing. Watch them do what they do.

Study a blade of grass or a flower or a leaf.

If you let it happen, these things will preach to you a sermon without words.

Their message will bypass your mind and go straight to your soul.

What will that message be?

I can’t tell you. It’s a message just for you.

What are you waiting for?

Go outside and let the Gospel find you there.

Grace and peace.