That same dictionary defines the term excess as: the state or instance of surpassing usual, proper, or specified limits; undue or immoderate indulgence; to an amount or degree beyond.

As I do some Spring-cleaning this year, what I am wondering is why excess always seem to be so much more excessive in Spring?

In Spring it feels like all that extra stuff is choking me and I can’t get rid of it fast enough. But at other times of the year (when I am busy accumulating all that stuff) it seems so special and important and comforting.

Setting aside issues of greed and self-indulgence, my theory is that “excess” somehow satisfies our “nesting” needs.

But that being the case, how come we don’t do our nest-building in Spring, like most birds do?

Maybe we should get rid of our excess in Fall, when trees shed their leaves, and then spend Winter appreciating what we have.

According to the study, “Emotions linked to our moral sense awaken slowly in the mind.” Admiration for virtue or skill and compassion for another person’s physical or social pain were cited as specific examples of emotions that the brain needs more time to process than other kinds of information.

What are the implications of this study on children? Given their widespread use of digital media tools that encourage high speed communication, snippets and sound bites, fast reactions, and multi-tasking, are we inadvertently leading their young, developing minds into moral attention-deficit-disorder?

No one, that is, except Jesus Christ. Luke 22:44 says of Him, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” Such was the depth of anguish Jesus felt just before He went to the cross on our behalf.

Isaiah 53:3-6 tells us: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

Earlier this week Fox News Online posted a story called “ ‘Crown of Thorns’ Galaxy Photographed in Space”. Check it out for an amazing photo taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. It is a vivid reminder of one tiny part of the pain that Jesus bore for us — when a crown of thorns was painfully pounded against His skull.  His pain was our gain.

Yet during this week as we celebrate the free gift of salvation, could that image in the Heavens signify something more than our Savior’s death on our behalf?

In Matthew 24, Jesus’ disciples asked Him what would be the indications of His coming again and of “the end of the age”, which today we often call “the End Times.” He replied:

“At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.” (Matthew 24:30, emphasis added)

Could this image captured by the Hubble Telescope be intended to tell us that this is in fact the “end of the age” and that the Lord’s return is indeed drawing near?

A lesson in swearing??? Teaching kids to shout obscenities??? What on earth was that teacher thinking?!!!

The article went on to cite a parent who said, “This is a total disgrace. Our children go to school to gain an education, not qualifications in swear words. Most kids had no idea what the words meant and were forced to grow up faster than their parents want. Heads should roll for this.”

The idea of teaching young kids to shout obscenities is absurd, outrageous, and infuriating. That is not the kind of “free speech” teachers should be encouraging.

Don’t get me wrong. We believe in encouraging kids not to “stuff” their emotions inside. In fact, one of the novels we publish is called Violet’s Hidden Doubts, a story about a Victorian teenager who struggles with troubling doubts and fears that she feels she can reveal to no one. (She wrongly believes she is responsible for her father’s accidental death.) When Violet eventually reveals her feelings to her mother, she finally gets the relief she’s long been seeking. In this book, we model for young girls the importance of expressing their inner struggles with parents, trusted friends, and godly advisors. But not through swearing.

When I was about twelve years old, I picked up some nasty language from my peers at school. Like most bad habits, it caught on easily. My mother warned me that she was going to “wash my mouth out with soap” if I didn’t stop “talking like a guttermouth.” One day, which I vividly remember all these decades later, she actually made me stick a bar of soap in my mouth. Guess what? It worked! In that very instant, I learned the virtue of self-control. That was the end of my swearing, and the only “lesson in swearing” that I ever needed.

I am not advocating washing your child’s mouth out with soap. What I am advocating is taking a real hard look at where education is going. Just this week we watched as violence, window-smashing, and fires erupted in London during the G-20 Summit. You can bet that a lot of those violent protestors were shouting obscenities. Perhaps if as children they had been taught self-control, we would not be witnessing such lawlessness.

I was editing something at the computer along with our youngest staff member, who is 23 years old and a computer whiz compared to me. I asked her to fix the formatting of something. Normally a very quick responder, she hesitated a moment, as if not sure how to do it. I said, “Just hit a carriage return.” She looked at me like I was from another planet. Then she asked, “What’s a carriage return?”

I was totally aghast! How could she, college-educated computer genius that she is, not have a clue that a “carriage return” is the “enter” button on the keyboard? I later asked a 28-year old member of our team what a carriage return was, and she did not know either.

This was a huge reality check for me. Frankly, it still boggles my mind. Yet it taught me a very important lesson: we may not have anywhere near the amount of “shared understanding” with others that we think we do.

According to Dictionary.com, “common sense” means “sound practical judgment that is independent of specialized knowledge, training, or the like; normal native intelligence.” It defines “common” as, among other things, “belonging equally to, or shared alike by, two or more or all in question,” or “pertaining or belonging equally to an entire community, nation, or culture.”

Who knew that understanding of the phrase “carriage return” was so far removed from our present day culture as to be virtually never even heard of by the under 30 crowd?! Wow!

I guess I should not be shocked. I grew up in a world where there seemed to be shared understanding about a whole lot of things that are missing today—things like good and evil, right and wrong. Not that it was so clear exactly what was good or evil, or right or wrong, or precisely where their boundaries fell in a given circumstance. But there was a common belief that there was good and evil, right and wrong—a shared understanding that each of those things existed.

Nowadays it seems to me that the biggest gap in our culture is not the generation gap, the Republican verses Democrat gap, or even the liberal verses conservative gap—though each of those gaps are colossal and critically important. Even greater and more fundamental is the gap between those in our culture who believe that good and evil and right and wrong exist, and those who believe they do not.

Could that be the real reason why it feels like each half of our population is looking at the other half and thinking “what planet are you from?”

That annoying, persistent sound has been going on for days. It’s the sound of a bird (a robin) smashing into our front windows, over and over again. After some research I learned that this strange behavior is quite common for certain breeds of birds, particularly robins in springtime. Apparently, the bird sees its own reflection in the window and mistakenly perceives it as another bird (a threat). In forcefully striking the window, the bird is aggressively attempting to defend its territory from the perceived intruder–in this case, its own reflection. These are known as “territorial window strikes” and they are an irritating, messy, and dangerous behavior. Birds may be seriously injured (fractured bones or bills, head trauma, internal bleeding) or killed by this practice. For homeowners experiencing this problem, there are a number of remedies, the goal being to dull, break up, or otherwise eliminate the reflection on the exterior surface of the window. I am going to try “frosting” our windows. 

In the meantime, I think there are a few good principles to be learned here. 

First of all, we humans are as capable of destructive, dangerous, and hostile “territorial” behavior as our little robin. In situations which trigger the desire to defend our “territory,” we need to tread very carefully and seek wisdom and Godly counsel from those we respect before undertaking aggressive actions.

Second, “reality” is not always what it seems. We must be very careful to find out if threats that we perceive are true, or just a figment of our imagination (or self-projection).

Third, in our efforts to fight off a threat, if we find ourselves “beating our heads against a wall,” we ought to reassess the situation sooner rather than later. It could be that our perspective is way off; either that or our strategy may be dead wrong.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Could it be that those in our culture who are so hostile toward God (thinking He is a threat to them, when instead He loves them) are fighting against their own reflections?

If your head is now spinning like mine was, the best thing you can do is pray. The second best thing I found is this: buy a bag of M&M’s and eat them in color order. Something about eating all the green ones first, then all the red ones, then the yellows, etc., will make you feel (albeit temporarily) a sense of order and control.

P.S. M&M’s is a registered trademark of Mars, Inc.

Technology did not suddenly explode onto the scene like a runaway freight train. It was a slow train coming.

We’ve all seen the amazing innovations in consumer electronics over the past decades. Who can even remember the world before personal computers, cell phones, ipods, ebooks, and so forth.  

But behind the scenes technology has been bringing both great expansion and innovation, as well as massive devastation to the businesses that have formed the foundation of our economy for decades. Technology, like the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill, has been silently but steadily rolling along, developing traction, gaining steam and momentum, forming its platforms, expanding its presence, spreading out to the right and to the left, increasing in forcefulness, gobbling up everything in its path. Like an army that destroys a city as it moves through it, leaving rubble in its wake, technology has left untold numbers of traditional businesses in ruin.  

Perhaps more significantly, technology has left traditional business models in ruin. Few industries have been left untouched. Overlay that on top of the nation’s banking and housing troubles, and you can understand why we are now seeing such widespread economic calamity.  

We will survive, and we will thrive. The benefits that technology brings us are truly awe-inspiring, Once our heads stop spinning and we all adjust to the brave new digital world, things will settle down and we will be grateful to have made this transition.   

In the meantime, I think I’ll go curl up with my new Kindle.

Isaiah 43:18-19 – “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

But who’s the one really being deceived? 

The Bible says that all things that are hidden will be revealed. It also clearly states that we will reap what we sow.  

Sow deception and, rest assured, one day you will reap deception. Sow deception and, no matter how smooth or shrewd or “well-intentioned” you may be, one day you will reap what you sowed. Proverbs 16:25 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” 

Deception is never a work of God. It is the tool of God’s enemy, the devil. When we deceive others, we partner with Satan in his scheme to bring division and destruction. 

Deception, in the end, always has a high cost. As surely as day leads to night, deception leads to broken trust and broken hearts, neither of which can be easily restored apart from a divine work of God. 

Deception destroys the very foundations of relationships. To go on with a relationship after a betrayal requires having to literally start over with the fundamentals. Deception bankrupts relationships by emptying the “bank account” of positive “deposits” made over the years. In business, one act of deception can destroy decades of hard and fruitful work by scores of good people who built a solid partnership. 

Deception also destroys reputations. Proverbs 22:1 says, “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.” Besides causing resentment, bitterness, and temptation to retaliate, deception ushers in lost loyalty, lost respect for your authority, and lost confidence in your integrity and sincerity. It converts your once trusted name to a question mark, at best. 

Let’s face it, even people like the accused master swindler Bernie Madoff probably did not become a crook all at once. Like the proverbial frog in the kettle, he most likely deceived people a little bit here, a little bit there, until pretty soon it became natural. 

We tell kids these days, “Just say no to drugs.” Perhaps we need to also teach them, “Just say no to deception.”