The Ascent - Part 3 I’m not a fan of heights. The Willis Tower in Chicago (it was the Sears Tower when I was a kid) has 103 stories. For people like me, each floor feels like another opportunity to meet Jesus early. Then there’s the glass Skydeck, where you can look straight down. That’s not sightseeing—that’s sanctification. And yet, for all our modern skyscrapers, one of the most terrifying “climbs” in history didn’t involve steel or glass. It involved a dad, a son, and a m

The Ascent - Part 2 Do you love working the yard? Green thumbs. Manicured edges. Better Homes & Gardens vibes. You yard hard. Or are you not a yard person? You live next to retirees whose lawns are emerald carpets, while yours is… fifty percent grass, fifty percent dandelion democracy. They shape their bushes; I let mine pursue a more “natural look.” Either way, we all know: a great lawn starts with soil. No one plants a golf course in the desert—unless you’re Vegas, which is

The Ascent - Part 1 Would you call yourself ambitious? Ambition is what gets us moving when the trail turns steep and the air gets thin. That’s why Sundays function like base camp: a place to gear up, check the map, and start climbing again. “Who may climb the mountain of the Lord?
Who may stand in His holy place?” — Psalm 24:3 Mountains are a fitting picture for the life of faith. Abraham on Moriah, Moses on Sinai, Elijah on Carmel, Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration—each

When "Treats" Turns into Tricks About 46% of Americans will dress up for Halloween and 20% will dress up their pets. 0% of pets will enjoy it. (There’s even a study: dogs hate costumes—check those eyes.) A seven-year-old told his dad, “I want to be you for Halloween.”
“Aww. How will you dress?”
“Easy. I’ll just look tired all the time.”
And that kid earned the coal of Halloween: candy-corn cookies. James 1:15 says desire conceives, then gives birth to sin, and sin—when full-g

When You Feel Like Candy Corn
 Be honest: candy corn—love it or “melted traffic cones”? It’s one of the most polarizing candies on earth. Some states cheer it on; others form support groups to avoid it. Either way, candy corn knows rejection. So do we. Jesus did too. John writes, “He came to his own, and his own did not receive him” (John 1:11). That stings. One Hebrew word for rejection, zanach, literally means “to stink.” When people pass us by, we start doing the sniff tes