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Flying an airplane isn’t easy. I learned that quickly when I began flight training seven years ago. There’s so much to pay attention to, and there’s so much at risk. Then I started instrument training. Instrument flying is difficult on an entirely different level.

Sometimes trouble doesn't knock—it barges in. The diagnosis comes back the same week the car needs a new transmission. Your marriage hits a rough patch right as you get the call that a parent is in the hospital. One crisis doesn't even have room to finish before the next one shows up. You've heard the old line—when it rains, it pours—and right now it feels less like a saying and more like your life.

Work is good right now. The kids are back in school and it’s a happy time of life. You and your spouse have been getting along really well. The bills are paid, sometimes even a little ahead of schedule. You live in a nice home and drive reliable cars. Even your friendships are drama-free and enjoyable. Life, for once, isn't throwing anything at you.

When the type on his printer began to grow faint, Bob called a local repair shop, where a friendly clerk informed him the printer probably needed only to be cleaned. Because the store charged $50 for cleanings, he told Bob he might be better off reading the printer’s manual and trying the job himself. Surprised by his candor, Bob asked, “Does your boss know that you discourage business?”

I’ll admit, it used to make me feel uncomfortable. I’m sure some of you wonder why others in church lift their hands while singing, and it might bother you how people around you cheer and clap between songs. It wasn’t like that in the church I grew up in. But then again, I was bored to tears in the church I grew up in!

Reese (age 3 then) and Remy (6 mo. then) were in the car together. It was feeding time for Remy and she was getting fussy, trying to suck on everything within reach. Our daughter, Erica, had a bottle ready, but couldn’t give it to her while driving.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Paul’s words to the Philippians here were a theme of that epistle. And Paul wrote this from prison! “Rejoice” here is a command. Writing from very difficult circumstances, he repeatedly expressed joy and rejoicing, and commanded people experiencing trials and persecution to rejoice.

I was in a conversation with a woman in our church not long ago, and she brought up something her mom said decades ago when she was just a little girl. Very hurtful. And she quoted her verbatim. This woman admitted that she struggles remembering what she had for breakfast the day before, but she vividly remembers those hurtful words from her mom many years ago. She felt rejected.

I know a guy who prides himself on being shrewd. He makes wise financial decisions. He is respected at work. If I were looking for someone to oversee an investment portfolio, I’d call him.

Chicago native George Crane was a psychologist and popular syndicated columnist in the mid to late 20th century. He often wrote on marriage and relationships, and prided himself in giving “common horse sense.”

Everything in life flows from your thinking. You are what you think. Your thinking determines the things you do, your reactions to things done to you, the friends you make, and whether or not you enjoy the things around you. Thinking is everything in life. And all of that thinking comes from your brain.

“I wish God would just tell me!” He has with a lot of things. He’s given us His Word, and there are a lot of straightforward instructions in it. Like the Ten Commandments, for example. But the things specific to us: the daily things, switching jobs, which house to buy, who to marry, whether to have another kid. That’s where we struggle.