Here I am….on my couch, curled up in my favorite blanket, watching one of my favorite TV shows. Normally, this would be a pleasant, relaxing, and restful experience. However, it’s not…because I have an ambiguous sickness that even a steroid shot to the booty could not overcome...

When I hear the word fire, two main things come to my mind: camping and destruction. If you think about it, aside from a campfire, bonfire, or cooking fire, almost every other kind of flame is involved in destruction. Forest fires, building explosions, kitchen fires...these are just three of the many ways in which fire can destroy and bring about pain, loss, and chaos...

What if someone offered you a $100 bill? Like no joke. What if today, a stranger approached you with $100 and said "I want you to have this and I am not leaving until you take it." What if it was just their opportunity to bless you...a random stranger?...

Let's do a quick exercise...Wherever you find yourself at, I want you to close your eyes and imagine yourself at a family dinner with your whoever you consider family (friends are most definitely included).

Distance in a relationship is never a fun thing. I can remember the dating years when Kate and I lived almost an hour away from each other. Communication was difficult, face-to-face time was minimal, and of course there was the monthly tension due to unmet expectations...

I am a cranky and clumsy person at nighttime. It does not matter how clean our room is or how much sleep I am getting...If I am awaken by a child - which happens more often than not - I will be cranky and I will trip and stub my toe on everything possible...

We are going to start this morning off with a little bit of Bible History 101. Now hear me out in this...I promise that it will help make sense of this Psalm. So first off...know that the Psalms, as a whole, are one big hymnal for the people of Israel. And the neat thing is that every Psalm - every song - has a story of its own...

Everybody wants peace. No, I am not talking about peace as the "opposite of war" or the 1970's "hippie" movement. Instead, I am talking about peace on an individual, familial, and personal level. Peace is the freedom from disturbance; completeness; safeness; and deliverance...

I am incredibly stunned by how beautiful today's Psalm is.

It is an earnest prayer from David, one that starts off in the first verse with him proclaiming that he is "poor and needy" - a phrase that he has used before in previous psalms...

Imagine standing in a wide, open field. The grains around you blow around in the wind. There are no trees or structures in sight.

However, you are not alone...