My first visit to a health club was in the 1970s. Health clubs were new. My friend Frank told me he had a membership and that I could come with him as his guest for a workout.

When I met Frank at the club, we went into a room filled with weight machines. I'd never seen these things before in my life. Frank called it "the circuit." The idea was to spend a few minutes on each machine, exercising all ...

Kung Fu Panda is the story of a flabby, out-of-shape panda bear named Po who longs to learn the ancient art of kung fu. Amazingly, Po is selected by the village leaders to become the Dragon Warrior—the greatest kung fu master of all time. But in spite of his new status, Po is still a lumbering oaf. This reality is a source of constant consternation to Master Shifu, who has been charged with ...

Spiritual hunger is a precondition to God's blessing. The problem is, we are in denial about our condition—or we are taught to be in denial. When I was growing up, my mom would occasionally take me with her when she visited friends. Sitting on the couch next to her with my hands folded in my lap, listening to conversation that was meaningless to me as a small boy, was an excruciatingly dull ...

Picking, choosing, and deciding which sins are trivial and which are the biggies is a completely human tendency. A young man once told me, "It's like a heavenly bank account. As long as I make more deposits than withdrawals, I'm in good shape."

I shared the biblical reality with him: the very first time he made a withdrawal, the account was emptied and closed forever. He thought that was a bit harsh. ...

Texts: Assorted texts from the Passion accounts of the Gospels and Isaiah 52:13–53:12

Principle: The weight of the sins we have committed and the sins committed against us have been placed on Christ.

Objects: Multiple bricks, multiple notecards, a copy of Frank Warren's Post Secret, a wheelbarrow, and a tall wooden or metal cross

Experience: A number of bricks are piled on one side of the stage. ...

In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien writes about a kingdom called Gondor which for many years has had no king. While waiting for the rightful heir to come and claim his throne, a series of stewards has been placed in charge of the land. The steward in charge at the time of the events described in the book is named Denethor. He has two sons, Boromir and Faramir, both of whom figure prominently in the ...

What one sees depends on where one sets up one's shop. Mine is at the entrance of the empty tomb.

—W. Paul Jones, Roman Catholic priest

Many years ago, my wife and I were having a marital "moral discourse," and I was becoming increasingly agitated. In my fury, I yelled at her and aimed my fist at a section of the dining room wall. Unfortunately, the Holy Spirit failed to guide my hand between the studs, as he usually had done, and instead I hit a stud right on. I broke a knuckle.

A deathly silence settled in the room. While I came ...

Someone dear to me once gave me a little cross adorned with roses. It bears the inscription, "Hope raises no dust." I looked at that phrase and tried my best to penetrate its mystery. I didn't want to look stupid, so I didn't say anything. After pondering it for a little while, I just had to get to the bottom of what it meant. It had been written on a cross, so it had to mean something! When I typed ...

Years ago, Bill Hybels shared how he had seen a newscast about a big Vietnam veterans parade in Chicago. Part of the commemoration was a mobile version of the Vietnam Wall. Like the original, it bore the names of all the soldiers who had died in Vietnam. Hybels said one newscaster asked a vet why he had come all the way to Chicago to visit this memorial and to participate in the parade. The soldier ...