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The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People changed my life 30 years ago. I read the book in two days on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, 1992-1993. Before that, I had made meager attempts at setting goals. But starting that Friday, January 1, 1993, I became very serious about it. I set four lifetime goals, about a dozen long-term goals (10 years), and another dozen 1 year goals. And my life was changed in a significant way.

I can hear Andy Williams’ voice from childhood, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” It was that for me. It was the one time of the year when our whole family would be together (until my teen years), and my parents got along. So I associated Christmas with happiness.

There’s a meme flying around on social media picturing a man staring off into the distance with the words: “Wondering how I can get my wife the perfect Christmas gift when she already has me.”

Every December I get questions from parents asking for my opinion on Santa: “Did you tell your kids about Santa?” Some Christians are very adamant: “Santa Claus is a replacement of Jesus in this secularized society and just another way of spreading materialism.” Others see the fable as a harmless, delightful fantasy: “I believed in Santa when I was a kid and it didn’t hurt me! It’s just a fun way to give the kids a little magical spark.”

The only reason Christians celebrated Jesus’ birth on December 25 was because the Romans had a pagan celebration on that day and Christians took it over. Right?

You should’ve skipped Thanksgiving this year if you’re grumbling and complaining today. After all, you were just being a hypocrite. Why would you celebrate a day that you don't believe in? If your modus operandi is to look for what you think is wrong and then voice it, why did you even celebrate Thanksgiving? Everyone was looking at you like, “What’s he doing here?”

“It is to one’s honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel” (Proverbs 20:3 NIV).

Years ago, the city of Pittsburgh constructed a large, new post office that cost millions of dollars. On the day of its opening, the governor made a speech, the bands played, and the people cheered. It was quite a celebration. But when the first man entered to mail a letter, to the embarrassment of the engineers, it was discovered that they had omitted the letter drop in their rush to meet the deadline. Here was a costly new post office, with no place to mail a letter! This s

Wednesday was All Saints’ Day, or officially, All Hallows' Day. We actually get “Halloween” from this holiday as the night before was called “Hallowed Evening,” and then shortened to Halloween. No, Halloween is not Satan’s birthday…Satan wouldn’t have a birthday, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog.

Carlos met Nicole at a local hangout at the University of Calgary and they hit it off. He asked for her number and she gave it to him. But he wrote it down wrong, so when he tried to call her later that evening, the number was rejected. He was heartbroken. But Carlos wouldn’t give up. He pulled up his school directory and emailed every Nicole he could find (247 of them) in a mass email, with the subject line, “Nicole from last night.”

I get it. You need a change of scenery. Maybe a move across town…or better yet, to a different state. Maybe it’s time for a job change. You just know that it’s time for change.

I’m getting a lot of questions about what is happening in Israel. The fighting in the Middle East has been going on for thousands of years, and the problem will not be solved until Jesus ends it with His return.

Mark Twain once quipped, “A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” And Mark Twain never even lived to see the internet!

I read a study a few years ago that highlighted the difference between those who bounce back after adversity and those who don’t. Bounce-back people see challenges in trouble and maintain a “can do” attitude, while remaining focused on those things in life that are bigger than them. People who don’t bounce back tend to be self-focused and negative thinkers.

Joseph was a script flipper. His brothers sold him into slavery and a few years after, they were bowing before him to serve him. He later told them, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).

How thick is your skin? I know, there’s a lot of talk about victims and snowflakes. But I’m not writing this post for you to point fingers.

Our airplane was grounded last week. We had a bad magneto, which is pretty important. A magneto is a simple but vital aircraft engine component, that is driven by the spinning engine and uses magnets to produce pulses of electricity for the spark plugs. Airplanes have two for redundancy, so even with one bad magneto, I was able to keep flying and landed safely.

Labor Day weekend was a lot of things to a lot of people. To former pastor Alexander Lang of Arlington Heights, it was the weekend his article, “Why I Left The Church”, went viral. It was eaten up by multitudes of mostly millennials and some Gen-Zers who hail from evangelical backgrounds, though Rev. Lang himself is not an evangelical.

In 1830, George Wilson killed a government employee who caught him in the act of robbing the mail. He was tried and sentenced to be hanged. However, then President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, sent him a pardon. But Wilson did a strange thing. He refused to accept the pardon and no one seemed to know what to do.

In his book None of These Diseases, S. I. McMillen tells a story of a young woman who wanted to go to college, but her heart sank when she read the question on her application that asked, “Are you a leader?” Being both honest and conscientious, she wrote, “No,” and submitted the application, expecting the worst. To her surprise, she received this letter from the college: “Dear Applicant: A study of the application forms reveals that this year our college will have 1,452 new l