What happens after the excitement of God's call wears off—and you're still there? Recently, someone asked me about a question in Soul Weathered. It comes out of one of the devotions dealing with staying with God when He calls us into something. The question was: How do you stay present with God in the middle of it? He wanted to know what I meant by that. I've been thinking about the question again, because I know exactly why I wrote it. There have been things in my life that

Sometimes the greatest comfort isn't an explanation. It's knowing you're not alone. There are moments in life that never leave you. One of those moments for me happened in a children's hospital. Our oldest daughter had been battling Crohn's disease. It seemed like one setback after another. Every time we thought she was getting better, something else happened. This day was especially hard. She was sixteen years old, fully aware of what was happening, and the doctors needed to

Everything abandoned to God will be returned to us, either in this lifetime or in eternity. One of the devotions in Soul Weathered is called Abandoned to God. In it, I make a statement that someone recently asked me about. I wrote: "Everything abandoned to God will be returned to us, either in this lifetime or in eternity." Do I really believe that? Absolutely. Recently I had lunch with a friend I've known for several years. Twenty-six months ago, he made a decision that most

“Sometimes faith is walking away from the throne without an answer, knowing the question is safe with God” Why some questions must be carried with God before they can be answered Soul Weathered contains fifty-two devotions. One for every week of the year. There's a reason for that. It isn't simply because men don't like to read. It isn't because I thought people couldn't handle more. It's because I've learned something over the years about walking with God. Sometimes it take

Adventure taught me how to be a guide. God taught me how to be a man. If you've been reading Soul Weathered for very long, you may have noticed that I write a lot about the heart. About grace. About fear. Joy. Fatherhood. Walking with God. Sometimes I wonder if someone reading these reflections might think, "This guy writes a lot about feelings." And they'd be partly right. But I also want you to know something about me. I've been an adventurer all my life. From the time I wa

One of the things I wrestle with in Soul Weathered is mystery. Not because I enjoy unanswered questions. But because there are questions that simply don't have easy answers. Sometimes I wonder about the person who might pick up Soul Weathered—the agnostic, the atheist, or simply the person who has been deeply wounded—and think, This doesn't answer my questions. Honestly, I understand. Because I've asked many of those same questions myself. In my early thirties, I went through