Month: March 2026

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Time Waits for no Man…Unless That Man is Chuck Norris

I was a teenager when I took part in my first bible study focusing on the book of Revelation. I was excited about it; at that point I only had a no-frills bible that only included the scripture’s text, no notes to help understand context, no maps, none of that stuff that explains what gets lost in translation from the original Greek. If you’re a teenager, and you’re reading Revelation without the benefit of any of that additional context, you can easily be confused and even discouraged.

This was probably 30 years ago now, and the world has changed a lot since then. While sure, people were still mean and there were still bullies, the general hate and vitriol we’re accustomed to today wasn’t nearly as prevalent back then. “Right” and “wrong” were still largely universal, nobody argued over the difference between male and female, people were still generally respectful of their elders, and if you mouthed off at school, you either got suspended or expelled.

In Revelation chapter 11 we encounter some strange things. After the Rapture has occurred (when the Lord collects His still-living followers, prior to a period of chaos and disaster at the hands of the antichrist the world hasn’t seen before), God still gives everybody a chance. He still makes sure everybody who’s left has the opportunity to hear the truth and repent of their sins. The Lord places two invincible “witnesses” on the earth to testify for three and a half years. They speak the truth in a way that cannot be censored. Even when people try to physically harm, or even kill, these witnesses, their testimony won’t be stopped. In fact, people who try to harm the two witnesses are themselves killed (Revelation 11:5). Cancel culture has no effect on them, and it will drive people absolutely insane to hear the unadulterated truth they don’t want to acknowledge.

At the end of those three and a half years, the antichrist is permitted to put an end to the testimony by killing these two witnesses. As a teenager, I was floored by what came next. People are so relieved by the death of these two that not only do they disrespect the witnesses by refusing to bury them, but they also celebrate by giving gifts to one another to commemorate their deaths.

I couldn’t fathom such a thing. Maybe I just hadn’t been exposed to enough of the world’s troubles by that point, but aside from Adolf Hitler and some other dictators, it seemed like some impossibly dark future where people celebrate someone’s death because they disagreed with them.

Fast forward to today. Last week we lost an American legend, Chuck Norris. This guy was about as wholesome as you could get. I remember watching “Walker, Texas Ranger” often when I was younger, and I still find myself stopping and watching for a bit as I’m flipping through channels and come across an old episode. Yes, the plots and bad guys (including their mullets) were often cheesy, but good always triumphed over bad. Later, Chuck Norris was invited to be in the action movie “The Expendables 2,” and agreed to do so on one condition: that the vulgar dialogue be removed.

I realize and accept that the genre he’s known for isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m pretty irritated that people would celebrate his passing. That tells me quite a bit about their character. They seem to have lost respect for the value of human life.

That’s not the only example, though. Charlie Kirk’s passing last year was a more prominent example of the callous disrespect for human life people can hold. Opponents openly celebrated his death in ways I can’t understand. The fact that Kirk made a name for himself by promoting biblical beliefs makes it easier to relate to Revelation 11. Thirty years ago the End Times seemed distant; today at least some of those obstacles have fallen.

(To be fair, the disrespect for human life is not just on one side of the political spectrum. This week President Trump expressed his gladness for the fact that Robert Mueller, who had been in charge of investigating Trump, had passed. He didn’t say it with nearly the level of vitriol and hate that came from those celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, but he holds a much higher position and platform. I can only imagine the crude things that will be said when President Trump eventually passes.)

I encourage you to keep reading more in Revelation. It turns out those two witnesses don’t stay dead for very long. The people of the earth gloat and celebrate for three and a half days over the death of their tormentors, only to be struck with terror as God raises them to life, and then ascend to Heaven in full view of everyone when God tells them “come up here.” Wow!

I don’t know that it was that particular night of the bible study, but I distinctly remember my youth leader saying something to the effect of “maybe not in my lifetime, but probably in yours,” the events of Revelation would come to pass. Based on how quickly things have gone downhill, it’s getting tough to argue.

Lord, I thank You for giving us the scriptures that help prepare us for the End Times, whether we live to see them or not. For those who will be alive to see it, I pray that you’d help them find their way to the truth, either through the pair of witnesses, biblical texts, the testimony of others, or through the unforeseen methods You excel at using. Prepare those people and help them withstand the incredibly tough times they’ll face, and may they seek You and cling to You in those difficult circumstances. These things I ask in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

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Hopefully a Little Something To Give You Some Encouragement

Did you ever hear what you needed to hear at just the right time?

My greatest hope for this blog is that it encourages believers to step into the role God’s made for them, regardless of how impossible it seems. I’d love if the entries bolster courage and resolve in its readers, and helps fuel them to swing for the fences and take the next step to do the things only God could empower them to do.

When it comes to this blog, the nature of the medium generally results in a lack of feedback from readers. Through a variety of means, people either drop in on the actual blog itself, view entries somewhere on social media, or receive emails, and after reading an entry they move on with life. Of course I’m curious about what people think of various entries, but I’ve come to accept that I simply won’t find out in most cases. That’s okay in the short- or medium term, but it gets harder to stay motivated in the long term.

Due to a combination of my spiritual gifts, my life experience, and the way my brain’s wired, I tend to keep plugging along on something I believe to be important when I believe many others would have lost interest or given up. In my mind, God led me to begin this project; He pointed to a spot beyond the horizon and said “now, go!” I continue because this is the task I believe I was given “until directed otherwise.”

That doesn’t mean, though, my determination is unflappable. That was seven and a half years ago.

Even though I work to please God and not people, every once in a while I do wonder if these entries are making any kind of difference. I fully accept that I won’t find out the true impact of my efforts until Heaven, but sometimes it feels like I’m just sending post after post into the electronic void. In fact sometimes I go so long without getting any feedback I start bringing it up in my prayers. I don’t mind continuing to do it if it’s what God would have me do, but every now and then I get to the point where I kinda ask “hey God? Could you please either, like, send me some encouragement to keep this going, or let me know I can shut it off?”

Well sometimes, He does send that encouragement, and it’s enough to keep me going.

One time I was wrestling with this problem, and I had been asking the Lord for a little pick-me-up, some kind of sign that I should either continue posting or start wrapping things up. Now it’s important to understand that I’m not the most outgoing guy. I’m usually pretty content hanging back in a crowd and I don’t usually go seeking out others to start a conversation. That weekend in church, though, a longtime supporter found me and we started talking. He let me know that he didn’t read each and every blog post I sent out (and that’s fine), but he still enjoyed the ones he read. We talked for a few minutes about past entries, and then as we closed the conversation, one of the last things he said to me was “keep doing what you’re doing.”

Sometimes God just shows up, man. He doesn’t forget about you. Somebody out there needs to hear this: God has not forgotten you. He sees your struggle, and He knows your heart. He knows you’re trying to do the right thing, and He knows you’re not perfect. I want to encourage you to keep going. Don’t give up. Keep doing what you’re doing.

But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded. -2 Chronicles 15:7

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Let There be no Mistake: Wimbledon This is not

In high school I played a couple years of tennis. It was a spring sport, so right around this time of year, when it went back and forth between snow and hot weather, we’d have practice in preparation for our first match.

I played doubles, so the strategy was a little different than for singles. In singles you’re responsible for the whole kit and caboodle: everything that comes over the net is something you need to get back to your opponent. It’s a little different in doubles, and you have to work as a team. Figuring out the way you want to move around the court, who’s got the better serve or backhand, which of your opponents was the weaker player from the baseline, and seeing if you could lure the guy at the net close enough to the center of the court to get it past him down the alley were all parts of the strategy you’d look at developing.

Playing the net was my favorite part of doubles. Most of the time the two guys at the opposite baselines are slugging it out, but every now and then the guy on the other team would either flub the return or maybe underestimate the net guy’s reach, and allow the ball to get close enough for the net man to pounce on it and slam it back between the two opponents. Sometimes teams would get a little tricky and have the baseline and net guy switch sides of the court, which usually threw the other team off balance but also opened themselves up for an attack if they didn’t do it right.

Sometimes it would become painfully obvious that high school tennis players were not professionals. The net guy on one team would “intercept” the return and get it over the net, but the other net player would get to it fast enough to get it back over. The goal was for the net player to return the ball at a sharp enough angle that neither one of the other players could get to it in time.

I’m pretty tall, and I’ve got a pretty large wingspan. When I have a racket in my hand, my reach gets that much further. When I played at the net, I usually crouched and kept my arms tucked in, to try and mask my full reach. As the volleys continued, many times the opponents sort of got lulled into this sense that I wasn’t going to do anything unless the ball came very close to me. Once in awhile I’d even ignore a ball I may have been able to get to. They’d get less and less careful about keeping it away from me, and eventually I’d explode out of the crouch and either blast the ball somewhere onto their side or just barely tap it over the net to a spot they couldn’t reach fast enough.

That lurking, that patient waiting until just the right moment is a lot like one of the tactics our enemy uses. We, Christians, can get lazy or lose sight of the danger, and get lulled into a sense of complacency. We know we should stay away from the really bad stuff, but this smaller, less obvious version is probably okay, right?

It could be anything. Alcohol. Pornography. Racy novels. Gossip. Substance abuse. Gambling. Lying. “It’s not so bad,” we tell ourselves. There are no immediate repercussions. Then we wade a little deeper into whatever it is; we “allow the ball to get a little closer to the guy at the net.” We might even be a little excited about feeling like we’ve got things under control. Then one day, you suddenly and horribly realize you should have made different choices. That sudden realization can look very different depending on what kind of fire you’re playing with.

Then comes one of the enemy’s biggest and most effective tricks. Instead of coming clean and seeking help from someone you trust, he whispers in your ear “you’ll never recover from the shame if people find out. You’ll carry that stigma everywhere you go for the rest of your life. It’s better to just keep it hidden.”

Every one of those examples above are well-known problems among humanity. Admitting it to someone you can trust isn’t admitting you’re a failure, it’s admitting you’re human and you’re not perfect. Guess what? We already knew that. Sharing your struggle with someone and trying to get some help actually takes away most of the enemy’s power to bludgeon you with shame and regret. You have the choice of whether you want to remove a good portion of his power over you. Don’t pass up the opportunity to shed that fear and guilt. Christ didn’t die for you so you could live in shame. He died for you so you could experience the freedom of forgiveness, the wonder of His grace, and the joy of sharing this news with others.

Don’t let that amazing opportunity pass you by because you believe the lies whispered in your ear when you’re feeling vulnerable. There’s power in the name of Jesus, and He’s waiting for you to call on Him.

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It Looks Like Iran has Been in the News Lately

Lots of big stuff is happening in the news. I’m going to take a little time and just explain a bit about Iran. If you’re already familiar, my apologies, but I thought it would be good to just give a basic overview of the situation.

So, where to begin? The Iranian Government has been behind much (not all) of the turmoil of the Middle East over the past few decades. The Government which was in place a week or two ago hates two countries: Israel and the United States. Iran is the classic state sponsor of terrorism; if it can’t directly engage in war with its enemies, it funds terrorist groups that do. It funds Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Israel knows this, and every time it gets attacked by Hamas or Hezbollah, it knows Iran’s really behind it all.

For a long time, Iran has had a nuclear program, claiming it’s for peaceful purposes (power generation, nuclear medicine, etc.). The problem, though, is that it’s spent a lot of time and effort enriching Uranium to a very high level, and there’s no purpose to going through so much trouble other than for the construction of a nuclear device. A nuclear reactor used for generating electricity does not require such highly enriched fuel, and there’s no point in stockpiling so much Uranium for medicinal purposes. It’s bomb material, pure and simple. You can see how this, along with advancements to Iran’s ballistic missile program, makes Israel very nervous. Leaders in the U.S. and/or Israel may have received some intelligence about pending developments on this, prompting the recent action against Iran.

Strategically, Iran is physically located at a very important spot. It has the ability to shut down a maritime bottleneck (the Strait of Hormuz) through which a very large percentage of the world’s oil gets shipped. Tanker vessels carrying oil from Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, and others transit this bottleneck every day. Iran can try to shut down all traffic transiting the Strait and hold the oil hostage until it gets what it wants, or until somebody forces the Strait back open. Iran’s navy has taken a beating since hostilities commenced, but even without large vessels it can still launch missiles from shore at ships that try to transit the Strait. Incidentally, China needs a lot of oil, and it previously got a large percentage of its oil imports from Venezuela and from Iran at discounted rates. Now that both of those gravy trains have stopped flowing and nobody wants to send oil through the Strait of Hormuz, China’s going to start making a lot of noise about opening the Strait back up again.

The United States has a history of involvement in Iran’s internal affairs. In the 1950s the CIA helped pull off a coup that installed a leader friendly to the United States and its interests (mostly regarding oil and oil infrastructure). This led to an uprising among the younger generation a couple of decades later, when the U.S.-installed Shah was sidelined and Iran’s recent government model took power during the Islamic Revolution of 1979. It established a Theocracy, with an Ayatollah in charge of the nation. A president is also present, but the appointed-for-life Ayatollah makes the decisions.

Over time the demographics in Iran have worked against the Government. Although the religious enthusiasm of the revolutionaries in 1979 swept them into power, today’s under-45 population is much less interested in the morality police and would rather not deal with the crippling sanctions their government’s policies have incurred from the international community. Uprisings have sputtered to life, only to be put down by a sophisticated and brutal security apparatus. Networks of secret police, informants, morality police, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) put down uprisings through fear, violence, and intimidation.

President Trump is keenly aware of Americans’ distaste for another multi-decade conflict in the Middle East. He appears content to remove the nation’s current rulers to give the general population an opportunity to rise up and establish its own version of government. I don’t have insight into the President’s actual plan, but a major sticking point here is that everyday citizens in Iran do not have access to firearms, and that makes it very tricky for them to overthrow the armed security apparatus. In all likelihood, the theocratic element of Iran’s Government will come to an end (the role of Ayatollah and clerics will be greatly diminished), but the apparatus put in place to maintain the theocracy’s survival will likely take charge in some capacity. If that’s true, Iran will trade a religious authoritarian government for a secular authoritarian government. We’ll see just how willing President Trump is to continue remotely disrupting the power of the establishment in Iran. Eventually, the theory goes, they’ll have enough of the struggle, and they will surrender. An opposition must emerge somehow, either organically within Iran or the descendents of the Shah who was ousted in 1979.

This is a pretty fluid situation and I’m sure things will change by the time this entry gets posted, but President Trump said he expects this operation to last four or five weeks. War Secretary Pete Hegseth stated the objectives of the operation to be threefold: 1. destroy Iranian missiles/missile production, 2. destroy Iran’s navy and other security infrastructure, and 3. they will never have nuclear weapons. Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes. All three of those goals have been brought much closer to reality, but now we have an Iranian military and IRGC who are armed with missiles and are scared and/or motivated to take action. A lot of missiles seem like they’re getting launched, but there doesn’t seem to be much of a strategy behind the launches other than lashing out at anyone who doesn’t help them.

Like I said, it’s a highly fluid situation. There are a lot of articles and a lot of TV coverage about this story, but there’s not always a lot of information to report, so you’ll see and hear a lot of words that aren’t really telling you many concrete facts. Be on the lookout for how Russia and China play this one, what governments in neighboring nations do, and what kind of opposition groups start emerging as serious contenders to take part in a new government. Obviously, there’s much more to come on this topic, so keep an eye on big developments.