An annual tribute to my mother and an encouragement to you:
She was an incredible woman. Born in 1921, she aspired to be a vocal performer. As a senior in high school, she contracted tuberculosis. Her dream to perform was no longer possible and the vocal scholarship to attend college was rescinded. She married a handsome Navy pilot just before he was deployed to the South Pacific Theater in WWII. He returned quite a different man than the one she married. Post-Traumatic Stress played a major role in the alcoholism and other challenges the marriage and family would face over the ensuing years. Ma endured a life of suffering and poverty but persevered to provide for her family and was rich in a faith grounded in her relationship with Jesus the Christ. She was the most spiritual person I have known – her intentionality to unconditionally love and pray fervently for family and others was amazing. Finally, it was congestive heart failure that opened the door for her to go Home in 2010. She was a loving woman, wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. Today she is wearing her ‘victor’s crown’. Thanks for your example, Ma – I love you.

Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May provides a great opportunity to honor your mother. I am not talking about the Hallmark card, flowers or even Shari’s Berries. I challenge you to write her a tribute or letter of thanks and read it to her. (If she is no longer living, read the letter to your kids.) Take her out to eat and ask her about challenges she faced raising you. (Again, if she is no longer living or not accessible, ask a woman in the church of her generation out to lunch and have a similar conversation.)

I know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown. – Revelation 2:9-10. Life did not play out the way the church in Smyrna may have anticipated. There were attacks in the physical and spiritual realms. Yet the Lord’s expectation was for them to “be faithful, even to the point of death.” In life, families are under attack physically and spiritually. It is easy to blame or even judge parents when things do not go as anticipated. Yet the call is to be faithful to our Father by honoring the earthly mother and father He blessed us with.

The command with a promise is: “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.” (Exodus 20:12). The promise is one of blessing – it may be a blessing of affirmation; it may involve emotional healing; or it may initiate spiritual healing across generations. What we know is that God is a faithful Father and as we honor our earthly parents, He will follow through with His promise.

Prayer guide: Thank You for the mother and father You blessed me with. Life is playing out exactly as You have planned. I confess there were many years when I was certainly more dishonoring than honoring of my parents. Forgive me. Thank You for the heart change You initiated in me that provided an opportunity to honor my mother and father while they were alive. And thank You for the generational healing my family has experienced as a result. You are an awesome God and a wonderful Father! Amen.

A faithful father leads by example in honoring his mother and father.

Is there anything you need to think differently of? As one of the speakers at the Stand in the Gap event on The Mall in Washington D.C. in 1997, Dr. Tony Evans, Pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, charged the men in attendance to think differently about their role in the home, church and community.

At one point during his talk, he asked the men to ...read on

Football season is done. March madness is behind us. And now baseball season is in full swing! As a sports nut, this pretty well sums up what I need to think less of. As a hunter, if you have the popular plaque in your home that says, “This marriage is interrupted for hunting season,” it may be a sign of something to think less of.

None of this is necessarily bad stuff. But it is stuff that can ...read on

School did not come easy to him. He had friends that never studied but always got better grades than he did. Regular homework was tough enough. Tests required doubling down and investing more time to study. He preferred being outside kicking or throwing a ball but his folks said that he needed to think more of his education than athletics.

Professionally, first rattle out of the box there were ...read on

It was quite the view. One could look to the east and see a beautiful valley, and to the south to see other peaks they had summited. They were literally on top of the world, at least this part of the world at 14,265 feet. What a perspective! All else is small stuff from this elevation.

Of course, one always has to come down from a mountain-top experience. The hope is ...read on

Things changed that first Easter not quite 2000 years ago. A new perspective entered the hearts and minds of Jesus’ disciples. All the teaching, the parables and the miracles would now provide grounding for a new way of thinking. While eyes had been downcast Friday and Saturday, they became focused on Jesus’ eternal perspective Sunday.

Easter, the most important date on the Christian calendar, is a reminder of ...read on

The father-son relationship is a powerful force in this world. With time and commitment, a father grounds his son in the right stuff and equips him to navigate life well. A father’s influence is powerful and is not an option. The only option is to invest well for a positive influence or be passive and let the influence be negative. The collateral damage of passivity on the fathering front is seen in many societal woes being faced today.

The Father-man relationship suffered disconnect in ...read on

Spring has sprung and summer is just around the corner. Any summer family plans? Here is a thought: The Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky, is a beautiful museum in a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark. Allow a full day for this experience. Then there is the Creation Museum just north of the Ark in Petersburg, Kentucky. And the Kings Island Amusement Park is in near-by Mason, Ohio, for some more family fun.

Family trips make for wonderful memories. It is also important to make lifetime memories with

Who or what has had the biggest influence on your life up to this point? Was it a positive influence or a negative one, meaning did it provide clarity for your life or introduce confusion? A family situation that has dad and mom in the home establishing biblically grounded faith and values provides one type of influence while a home impacted by divorce or addiction has a different type of influence.

One young man grew up in a home in which he was ...read on

What constitutes spiritual warfare? Maybe the first question should be, ‘What is spiritual warfare?’ Wikipedia suggests it is, “the concept of fighting against the work of preternatural evil forces.” Biblically, we first see it at work with the serpent’s lies in the Garden of Eden, Genesis 3:4-5. The conflict between forces of darkness and the Light has been present since the beginning.

C.S. Lewis depicts the battle well in ...read on