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I visited a couple of locations where television programs are taped for the History Channel. I was surprised both times. Television can be very deceiving. Some of it is due to the nature of camera lenses and TV screens, and the way our imagination fills in what is past the camera’s periphery. But a lot of it is intentional deception written into the director’s instructions to give a desired illusion. All in all, these two locations were entirely different from what I had expe

There are days, and sometimes weeks, when disappointing circumstances can seem overwhelming. You feel like you're barely keeping your emotional head above the water, and then you see a giant wave approaching. For some reason, hard times come in blasts, not trickles. A broken relationship, trouble at work, health issues, money problems…They seem to come at us all at once. You don’t know what is harder: disappointment, fear, shame, or rejection.

There’s a local story of a guy named Randy Reid, a 34-year-old construction worker welding on top of a water tower. He unhooked his safety harness to reach for some pipes when a metal cage slipped and bumped the scaffolding he stood on. The scaffolding tipped, and Reid lost his balance. He fell 110 feet, landing face down on a pile of dirt, barely missing rocks and construction debris. A coworker immediately called 911.

Hiking at Starved Rock, I was thrilled to see dozens of eagles and many nests in the high trees atop the rocky cliffs along the river. They’re fairly easy to spot in the wild from below. But I’ve never seen one from above except for those that had been preserved and relocated to a display case, like the visitor center at the state park.

Think about it: Work is life. Life is work. With the amount of time you spend on the job, if you don’t learn to love it and gain fulfillment from it, it’s going to be a miserable life. But it’s not about finding a job you love. It’s about working in a way that you love the people around you and you love to accomplish things and produce.

The Apostle Paul wrote, “We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things He planned for us long ago” (Ephesians 2:10 NLT). Did you catch that? You are God’s masterpiece! The original word Paul used for masterpiece in Greek was poema. We get our word “poem” from that word. That’s how God created you, as an intricately designed and carefully worded poem, put together just as He planned for you to be. His masterpiece.

Linda and I were in Romania a couple of weeks ago, and we visited a medieval castle where the vampire legend of Count Dracula was supposedly based.

Philosopher Walter Kaufmann wrote a book ironically titled, The Faith of a Heretic. After explaining our cosmic insignificance, he concluded: “What I want to do and would advise others to do is to make the most of life: put into it all you have got and live, and, if possible, die with some measure of nobility.”

A middle school student in Idaho won first prize in a project he did for his school’s science fair. He wanted to show how conditioned Americans have become to accept junk science without thinking through published studies or their conclusions. In his project, he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical "dihydrogen monoxide."

“Strength is a matter of the made-up mind.” – John Beecher If you want to get anything done, you have to start with a decision to do it.

I just learned that another friend of mine is dying. Without previous warning, he began to experience what he thought were mild symptoms that gave him concern and went for a check-up. Stage four liver cancer. A follow-up CAT scan revealed tumors in both his liver and his lungs. He is still unsure what he will do, but the prognosis offers no hope.

Remember the days before digital cameras and smartphone pictures? We used to buy film and then take the pictures to a lab to develop them before we could see them.