When I get up at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, November 9, I’ll do my morning journaling and writing. I’ll make breakfast for Daniel (Waffle Wednesday!) and get us both ready for the day. We’ll make the 30-minute commute to Daniel’s preschool. After I hug and kiss my boy goodbye, I’ll pick up a coffee and head to the office. There, I’ll fill a page with a list of things for which I’m thankful that day. I’ll jot down a few prayer petitions for people in my life. I’ll hand write five thank-you notes to people who have done something generous or kind for me.

Then I’ll get to work. On November 9, I’ll be putting the finishing touches on the Lake Norcentra Park project for Rochester College in 2016. We’re getting ready to start painting an 1800-square foot mural with volunteers from the community. Christine Gibson, a children’s book illustrator, designed the mural that won a public contest that...

Sometimes, I don’t feel the feeling of love.

Sometimes, I feel angry, confused, or hurt.

Sometimes, my body language, my eyes, and my tone of voice belie whatever comes out of my mouth. The spoken language of love is discordant when unspoken language is in a minor key.

So there is only one thing to do when you cannot speak love: Act love instead.

Do what you cannot bring yourself to say.

When sentiment fails, serve instead.

Nothing revives the sentiments of love better and faster than the actions of love. The truth is, love is not love if it’s feeling only. Love is true when love is doing things. Love does not depend on sentiment because service does not depend on sentiment. You choose love when you choose to serve.

Don’t let bad feelings or no feelings be an excuse; choose to love. Just do it.

Please, let’s not allow ourselves to become pessimistic about our election on November 8.

Disappointment, disillusionment, or displeasure are acceptable as long as their expression is civil, mature, and serves the common good. After all, free expression can be very good for our republic and for our souls.

Pessimism, however, is completely inappropriate and out of place. Yes, feel free to express pessimism if that is what you feel. However, ask yourself: Is pessimism the rational choice? And, yes, whatever you feel is your choice. Does pessimism serve you well? Does pessimism serve your fellow citizens?

I’ve listened to everyone from comedians to news commentators to even my own pastor make fun of this election. Some fun is worth making, either because it lightens the mood or it reveals the truth through satire. Yes, humor can inform and uplift society in a contentious election cycle...

What is the message at the heart of Christian faith?

You can put it a lot of different ways.

Here’s one that resonates with me these days: Abundant life is neither bought nor earned; it is freely given and freely received.

This is backwards and upside down if you have any common sense.

Because common sense says you work like hell and worry like crazy and then, maybe, you save up enough money to to take a break once in a while. Common sense says abundance life is something you buy for a couple of weeks a year or on a weekend. You need money and status to afford abundance life. And money and status take a lot of striving and worry.

The problem with common sense is that money runs out. Status is fragile. You’re a hamster on a wheel until one day your heart gives out and you die.

Yes, abundant life as we know it in our culture is expensive and exhausting. It will cost you your...

You need to vote for you on November 8.

The president who matters most to you and your family and neighbors is the president who presides over your life: You.

It’s not the end of the world–it’s really not–if the person you don’t want in the White House gets there anyway. Will he or she affect the country and the world? Yes. Will he or she affect your life? Yes.

Recognize, however, that the person who will affect you and your world most is looking back at your in the mirror.

You pick your own cabinet. You set your own agenda. You make your own policies. And these choices you make will affect your block, your family, your house of worship, your school, your town a hundred times more than the choices someone makes in Washington, D.C.

By now, I’m sure you already know the candidate you will choose for President of the United States.

But ask yourself this today: Would you vote for...

Yesterday marked eight years of marriage for Tracy and me.

Boy, has this turned out nothing like I thought it would!

When I was a teenager and twenty-something, I had a picture of what my wife would be. I had a script for how marriage would be.

The gift of eight years of real marriage to a real woman is this: I can clearly see that my illusions of marriage and a marriage partner were selfish. They were all about me. More specifically, they were all about how awesome I would be as a husband and how grateful and lucky my wife would feel to be with me.

I gave myself to a real marriage with a real woman and it revealed things about me that my twenty-something self worked so hard to deny or excuse.

It turns out, I’m not so great after all. Back when I wanted to get married, I wanted to get married for me. Then I got married and I found out that marriage is not for me; it’s for her...

Life is not in the accomplishing; it’s in the trying.

Standing on the summit only reveals another summit off in the distance. Another valley to cross. Another mountain to climb. Another peak to reach.

The truth is: We live 99 percent of our lives everywhere but the summit. We live most of our lives climbing the slopes or wandering in the valleys.

Is it wisdom, then, to make our happiness and peace conditional on standing on the summit? It is wisdom to ever say: “I will be happy when…?”

Indeed, the joy and rest at the summit is only joyful and restful because of the labor and struggle of the slopes and valleys.

No slopes, no valleys, no mountaintop experience.

Those peak moments are a blessing when they happen.

But we don’t live life on the peak.

We live life in the slopes and valleys.

Life is not in the accomplishing; it’s in the trying.

“I am happy and at peace here...

“Finished” is the obsession of my life.

“I will be happy and at peace when I’m finished with _________________,” I say to myself.

Art doesn’t look as beautiful, food doesn’t taste as good, and music doesn’t sound as sweet until every item on my to-do list has a line through it.

In the last few years, I’ve become a husband, homeowner, and father in that sequence. Each of those roles is teaching me that if I want to be happy and at peace, I need to learn to live with “unfinished.”

Indeed, if I want to be in lifelong, loving relationships with my wife and son, “unfinished” is the only way to be.

On most days, I have to choose between finishing my list of things to do–things that neither live nor love–or living and loving unfinished relationships. It’s easier to cross things off a list than it is to try again to connect on a deep level with someone who is as different and difficult...

This is it. It doesn’t get any better than this.

Depressing words or liberating words?

Depends on what you mean by “this.”

And “this” is whatever you choose to believe it is.

Here’s one thing you know is true: Someone would like to sell you something better than “this.” Someone will spend a lot of money to persuade you that you just can’t live “this” way.

I have a head cold and I slept awful last night.

I’m not going to get better in the next five minutes. In fact, my body is likely to feel worse as the day goes on.

Someone wants me to buy their cold and flu medicine. Someone wants me to buy their energy drink. So someone will communicate with me relentlessly every day (even when I’m well and well-rested) to persuade me that if I’m sick and tired, I just can’t live this way. Someone will position themselves so that when I feel discomfort, my first impulse will be to...

Some things we habitually avoid are things we need to mind instead. Avoiding them will not make them go away. Avoiding them will make problems that are impossible to avoid later.

Exercise and healthful eating are in this category.

So are the difficult aspects of relationships with children, parents, siblings, and spouses. Things like forgiveness, reconciliation, and working through issues and misunderstandings.

Habitually avoiding some things, however, may be a signal that we should let them go instead:

The job that feels like it is paying the bills but impoverishing your relationships and soul.

The “friend” who sucks all of the oxygen out of the relationship and weighs you down with being clingy and needy.

The social circle that always seems stuck in reliving the glory of the past, complaining about the present, and has no plan for the future.

The religion that seems like...