Month: January 2026

“‘Come, follow me,’ he said, ‘and I’ll show you how to fish for people.’” Mark 1:17 (Common English Bible)

Meeting and overcoming self-doubt and negativity can seem the most difficult thing to do in life. It doesn’t have to be. Someone once asked me, “What can you do, starting today, that will move you forward positively, that will make a difference in the direction of your life?”

In moments when everything has gone wrong, when your life seems to have derailed, and confidence has fled you, what one thing can you do? When your financial resources have stretched to the breaking point, you no longer feel well, and everything appears to be bitter, what can you do?

Two brothers, Simon and Andrew, were ordinary fishermen going about their vocation—throwing fishing nets into the sea. At this moment in Mark’s Gospel, we don’t know anything about their personal or professional life other than that they are fishermen. Then, Jesus passed alongside the Galilee Sea, saw them, and then said, “Come, follow me and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” Nothing is mentioned about their aptitude, their self-confidence—or lack of it—or their aspirations for the future. Jesus simply offers each of them an opportunity to move from the ordinary to the remarkable: “I’ll show you how to fish for people.” The promise for something greater is all in an invitation, an invitation to make a change and follow Jesus.

It is a captivating invitation. Jesus is promising to make them men who can impress and lead other people, to become the Dale Carnegie of the New Testament! In fact, the New Testament is teeming with story after story of people who fell under the influence of Jesus and began to experience the remarkable in their lives. It is utterly amazing what the presence of Christ in people’s lives can do for anyone who allows Christ to have his way with them.

When Christ becomes everything to a person—and that means that they trust in Jesus’ capacity to reach deep within them and draw out of them more than they ever thought was within them–Christ will remake you. Gifts, and abilities, and strength, are in every person that are now discovered and placed into the service of the man or woman. It is a matter of putting aside feelings of discouragement, and failure, and loss, looking to Jesus and asking, “What one thing can I do today?” If you don’t like the direction your life is going, change something. If something doesn’t suit you, or something doesn’t excite you, change it. You don’t have to be the same tomorrow as you are today. It really is that simple. Jesus only needs for you to follow him—and that begins by paying attention to him. It is then that the ordinary begins to become the remarkable in our lives.

Joy,

“The kingdom of heaven is like a man who was leaving on a trip. He called his servants and handed his possessions over to them.” Matthew 25:14 (Common English Bible)

Since I was a child I have collected—and adored—conch shells, more specifically, the queen conch variety. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. But once every two years my family vacationed in the Florida Keys. A family tradition that developed was a stop at Shell World located in the first key, Key Largo. It is a tradition I have now resumed with my wife each time we travel to the Keys. Whether for the day or a weekend, each trip to the Florida Keys includes a stop at Shell World. And, on most of those stops, I select and purchase a queen conch. It is a meaningful tradition and I now own dozens of these beautiful shells—six of them in my office! Each purchase connects me to a cherished childhood memory.

The queen conch is found off the coast of Florida and throughout the Caribbean. The shell is valued as a decorative souvenir and—historically—by Native Americans and indigenous Caribbean peoples to create various tools. The animal that lives within the shell, a marine mollusk, is enjoyed in a variety of seafood preparations. Though not an endangered species as a whole, the queen conch is now protected in Florida waters due to extreme overfishing. The queen conch shell sold by Shell World is responsibly sourced from various Caribbean islands where the conch populations are healthy.

As a child, I chose to collect the queen conch over other varieties of beautiful shells because of their affordability. There are other varieties of shells that many would consider more striking in their complexity and beauty than the queen conch. And they are much more expensive to purchase. But today, as an adult, I have found a deeper and richer appreciation for surrounding myself with this beautiful shell, in both my home and office. In some South Pacific cultures, a speaker holds a conch shell as a symbol of a temporary position of authority. “Leaders must understand who holds the conch—that is, who should be listened to and when,” writes Max De Pree.[1] As a follower of Jesus Christ, I also have been given temporary authority to declare God’s love for a hurting world.

In this rich passage from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus teaches this spiritual principle in a parable, commonly called the Parable of the Talents. In the story—or parable—a man is leaving on a trip. He calls his servants and distributes his possessions to them. What becomes clear in the larger story is that these possessions are not transferred property. The man who is leaving retains ownership. The possessions are simply entrusted for a period of time to the management of the servants. And upon the man’s return, the servants will be held accountable for their temporary responsibility with his possessions. The queen conch shells in my home and office remind me each day of the tremendous privilege—and responsibly—that has been entrusted to me to declare the depth of God’s love until the day Jesus returns.

Joy,

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[1] De Pree, Max, Leadership Is an Art, New York: Crown Business, 2024, 20.

“As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people urged them to speak about these things again on the next Sabbath.” Acts 13:42 (Common English Bible)

Tom Tewell shared with me that some years ago, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, preached a sermon that so captured the hearts and minds of the congregation that the governing board passed a resolution that on the anniversary of that sermon each year, the pastor was to preach it again. Some time ago I heard an interview with Robin Roberts, a host of the morning show, Good Morning America. She spoke candidly of her Christian faith and her morning time with God before going to work. She mentioned a favorite devotional guide that she used each morning—one that provided a meditation for each day of the year. On January 1 of the following year, she started through the same devotional again.

During my ministry in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, I was asked in one week to preach a Christian message of hope for two different families who were burying a loved one. Neither family had a church home or a pastor. Each service was in a different funeral home. A dear friend of mine, Bill, was close to both families and attended both services. In each service, I preached the same sermon. Though both families expressed gratitude to me for my message, each saying that the message was precisely what they needed to hear, Bill shared his disappointment with me following the second service. Bill’s complaint was that he had already heard that sermon earlier in the week. I simply reminded him that I was not preaching for him.

It has never been my practice to preach the same Sunday morning message twice in the same congregation. Yet, often I will reuse an illustration in other sermons. This is for two reasons: I believe that no other illustration has the same force to advance the message I wish to convey, and, the illustration embodies such truth within itself that I wish to impact more lives with its use. Worshipping communities are like streams—you never step into the same stream twice. The water from the first experience has now moved on. The second experience is always in new water. Likewise, the second telling of the illustration nearly always reaches persons not in attendance during the earlier usage. I’m not preaching to those who have already heard the illustration.

It is natural to grow tired of hearing most stories over and over again. But stories that capture some truth; stories that instruct and inspire do not grow old. That is because they stir something in us each time. Much like some who read Dickens’ A Christmas Carol each Christmas, the Bible and illustrations that open the truths of the Bible clearly and powerfully are not ones we grow tired of. Inspiration for living in difficult times leaks and must be refreshed. Reading a strong book of meditations that strengthens in one year can do the same the next year, just as Robin Roberts has experienced. So, as Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people urged them to speak about these things again on the next Sabbath.

Joy,

When Sara Roosevelt was asked if she ever imagined that her son, Franklin Roosevelt, might become president, she replied: “Never, no never! That was the last thing I should ever have imagined for him, or that he should be in public life of any sort.” Both she and her son, she insisted, shared a far simpler ambition – “The highest ideal – to grow to be like his father, straight and honorable, just and kind, an upstanding American.”ⁱ An only child, and with few playmates his own age, Franklin viewed his attentive and protective father as a companion and friend. Presidential biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin observes that Franklin’s optimistic spirit and general expectation that things would turn out happily is a testament to the self-confidence developed within the atmosphere of love and affection that enveloped him as a child.ⁱⁱ

The prevailing wisdom today—and embedded in many approaches to psychological counseling—is that all of life consists of two elements: first, the facts, and second, our way of looking at them. Few of us escape some disappointment, some physical or mental limitation, or some distressing circumstance. It is a fact of life. We have very little control over these facts. Yet, what is largely within our power is how we look at these facts. We may permit these facts to debilitate us, to ruin our temper, spoil our work, and hurt our relationships with others, or we can become masters over their influence. Any cursory examination of Franklin Roosevelt’s life reveals a good measure of challenges, disappointments, and loss. But Roosevelt remained a master over everyone, convinced that there was a larger purpose for his life and nothing would stop his pursuit of that purpose. A positive home environment and the knowledge that he bore a strong and respected family name directed Roosevelt’s outlook.

The Christian faith is a call to a new outlook—a call to a changed point of view on the facts of life. In this teaching from Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, Paul reminds us that we were once slaves and, consequently, of diminished value. And those who perceive themselves to have a diminished value as a person have a dim view of life. But now, in the person of Jesus Christ, we are no longer slaves but children of God. If children of God, then an heir. Our name has been connected, as was Roosevelt’s, to a strong and respected name. For Paul, this makes a profound difference in how we are to live. We live as members of a royal household.

The deep divergence that commonly separates those who move positively through life from those who don’t lies in their outlook. Jesus’ word for “repent” meant to “change your mind” or “look at things differently”. When Jesus called those who would become his disciples he didn’t ask them to join a church or subscribe to some creed. He asked them to look at the facts differently. The laws concerning the Sabbath were reconsidered. The place of children was elevated. For those caught in the very act of sin, grace prevailed over punishment. Jesus called for a radical shift in how life would be lived – a shift that now recognized that with God on our side any handicap could be overcome and every challenge met positively. When we get a new way of seeing things it is then that we find a new life.

Joy,

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ⁱ Doris Kearns Goodwin, Leadership In Turbulent Times (New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, New Delhi: Simon & Schuster, 2018), 50.

ⁱⁱ Goodwin, 43.