I learned the hard way how easy it is to breach a dam. When I was fourteen, my dad hired a contractor to enlarge a stock pond on our ranch by building a dam. It was ten feet high and thirty feet thick at its base. As the pond filled, we discovered that the dirt around...
Do you want to learn how to connect with people? Really connect? To touch others heart-to-heart, life-to-life? To convince them you understand and care about them? To move them toward actions that are right and good and pleasing to God? Then learn how to connect with...
She was working the early shift at a small Starbucks counter in Dulles Airport. The young barista had probably been up since 4 or 5 a.m., and she already looked worn out. After placing my order with the cashier I stood by the counter while the barista finished the...
This is an awareness test. It takes only 50 seconds … but it could change your life (if video screen does not appear below, click here). Debrief If you missed the moon walking bear, you experienced a process known as “selective perception,†which is the...
Years ago I completed a particularly sad divorce mediation. The husband had tried for years to meet his wife’s expectations, but she was adept at finding fault with everything he did. Shortly after our final meeting, I read an article in Country Magazine in which...
This is a test. Watch the following two minute video clip and decide which person you sympathize with the most.
Would you like to improve your relational skills? Better yet, would you like the people around you to join with you in developing relational wisdom? If so, you can be the trigger for such growth. How? Host a Seminar First, you could host a Discovering Relational...
Cindy and Alicia, both seventeen, walked out of the mall after a fun afternoon of shopping. Just as they reached Cindy’s car in the parking lot, two young men drove by on motorcycles. One of them knew Cindy from school, so they stopped to talk. After a few minutes...
A devastating tornado and a shocking murder. The last things any of us would ever want to experience. And yet as the following video clip illustrates, it was in the midst of such great suffering that a family from Iowa demonstrated astonishing love. I pray that God...
I have dozens of passports, and I need to renew them constantly. No, I’m not James Bond or Jason Bourne. I don’t fly from country to country using alternative identities to evade the NSA, CIA, or MI6. I just love people. I enjoy meeting, understanding, encouraging,...
It’s pretty hard to find a good confession in a modern movie … but here’s a great one. This clip comes from the movie Fireproof. Kirk Cameron plays a young fireman whose marriage is falling apart due to his selfishness, insensitivity, addiction to pornography,...
Today’s film clip is taken from the movie To End All Wars. Based on a book by the same title, this movie chronicles the suffering and spiritual transformation of a British soldier named Ernest Gordon. Captured by the Japanese just months after the attack on Pearl...
What is the greatest legacy you could pass on to your children? Money? Property? Investments? Family name? Social or business connections? Nope. None of these items is guaranteed to bless your children. In fact, all of them could become a snare or a stumbling block if...
We all know the Golden Rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.†But do you know the Golden Result? It’s a direct corollary to the Golden Rule: “Other people will usually treat you the way you treat them.†Not always, but usually. Because...
If you want to make a confession utterly worthless, use one of these three phrases. “I’m sorry if I’ve done something to upset you.†When you use these words, what people hear is, “I don’t know that I’ve done anything wrong, but since you’re obviously...
“The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude.†So wrote Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, living through the deprivation and horrors of both Auschwitz and Dachau. Consider the background for his...
This Thursday I’m launching a new companion blog that will use short clips from popular movies to teach relational wisdom. As a prelude to the first post, I’d like to describe the classic formula for great stories and explain how we can learn life-changing...
Do you know an impulsive teenager? A frustrated wife? A detached husband? A resentful employee? A relationally clumsy pastor? If so, read on. Six years ago I developed a relational tool called “the SOG plan†as an alternative to selling my teenage daughter. When...
Three months before graduating from law school, I decided I did not want to be a lawyer. Two years of interning for a plaintiff’s attorney had shown me that the adversarial system brought out my worst characteristics: pride, aggressiveness, and a compulsive desire...
How can you stop gossip and other critical talk in its tracks? Always be ready to ask three simple questions. If someone begins to share confidential or unfavorable information or opinions about another person, and you are not part of the problem or its solution,...
Last week I posted a story on my blog entitled “Time to Let Go.†In that post I included this statement: “Sometimes [letting go] will call for … accepting a divorce to preserve some measure of cooperative parenting rather than dragging a legal battle out for...
When I was in college, I tried to impress a young lady by taking her canoeing on a rapidly flowing stream. I chose a bad stretch of water, and within fifteen minutes we hit rapids that threw us against a large rock in the middle of the stream. In an instant, the canoe...
Chocolate is nice, but there’s another kind of Easter egg that is infinitely better. It’s called an “Evidence of God’s Grace,†or more simply, an “EGG.†EGGs are everywhere, and yet most people, even Christians, are astonishingly blind to them. Do you...
My two-year-old grandson has major idolatry issues … and you may have a similar problem. When he wakes from a nap, his first word is, “Vroom!†When he finishes a meal, he asks, “Vroom?†If we say, “Not now,†he whimpers and softly repeats “Vroomâ€...
She stood in line quietly crying, holding onto a metal sign to steady herself. I’d just arrived at the airport gate, ready to catch my flight back to Billings yesterday. As I waited for my zone to be called, I noticed her wiping the tears from her cheeks. She was a...
Indulging in bitterness is one of the most stupid things we ever do. How stupid is it? Well, think about it this way. Imagine that someone stabbed you in the arm with a knife, leaving it there. After he flees, you stare in horror at the knife, then in agony take the...
If you tune into Focus on the Family today and tomorrow (or visit their web site), you can listen to two conversations I recently had with Jim Daly about strengthening and preserving relationships in the home. The interview focuses in part on a book I published...