A friend sent me this quote yesterday. While I don’t usually turn to Johnny Depp for wisdom, he said a mouthful in a recent Larry King Special. Money doesn’t change anybody, it reveals them. Same with success.” I know it often looks to us like people change whenever they come into money or some measure [...]
I don’t put YouTube videos on my blog very often. If memory serves me well, I think I’ve only done it twice. And I’m probably very late to this one since it has been viewed over three and half milliont times But this one touched me very deeply. Yes, you have to sit through a [...]
Last week Sara and I went to see the new Narnia movie, The Voyage of The Dawn Treader. The book it is based on is my favorite in the series, especially for Reepicheep’s humorous, sometimes reckless, but indomitable spirit. I was looking forward to this movie and overall I was not disappointed. It’s beautifully shot, [...]
Sara and I are back from Pennsylvania, and a weekend with a bunch of Presbyterians. We had an amazing time with some amazing conversations about living loved and how all the religious noise can get in the way of that. We were there for a marriage retreat, with Sara and I sharing a couple of [...]
I’m off to Brazil in the morning for a week of conferences down there. Never been to South America before, so this will be all new. Thought I’d leave you with this. I always enjoy finding powerful words and thoughts in unlikely places. Recently professional golfing legend Lee Trevino was asked what is the greatest [...]
As I was getting dressed this morning the news was playing in the background that included a story about last night’s Country Music Association Awards. One of the things that absolutely confounds me is our celebrity culture’s infatuation with itself. I know it is in part it is driven by the publishers, agents and producers [...]
Give honor to whom honor is due. Today is Veteran’s Day in the United States, where we honor those who have served in the military in defense of freedom and against those who would do great harm in the world. I want to pause today on this blog to do exactly that. Though our military [...]
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The Declaration of Independence is truly one of the most amazing documents ever penned by humankind. To think that 56 [...]
It is so simple. It crosses theological, ethnic and cultural lines. Just treat others the way you want to be treated. Whether or not they treat you that way in return, really isn’t the issue. This comes up today because of some recent conflict on The God Journey forum. It always disheartens me that people [...]
THE SHACK will reach 23 different translations in the next couple of months, expanding the audience for that little book. Most of the publishers overseas are secular publishers, many of them doing books about other philosophies and religions. When many of our overseas friends find that out, they write us concerned that a company that [...]
Today the Jacobsen family is celebrating Thanksgiving. Our kids and grandkids went elsewhere yesterday to other celebrations, so they are all coming over today for turkey and hanging out. Sara and I have so much to be thankful for this year and we are overwhelmed with gratitude at all that God has done in our [...]
Yes, I did. Both Sara and I voted for Barak Obama. I know that won’t sit easy with many of my evangelical friends. I’ve received scores of emails the last few days warning me that this election was pivotal for America and that God wanted McCain to win. One even sent me a dream he [...]
Three years ago when I was working on rewrites of The Shack with Paul and Brad, I wasn’t even sure we’d be able to find a publisher for that book, much less an audience for it. And, as many of you know, we couldn’t find a publisher who would take the risk. This has been [...]
A friend sent me this link today and it is an eye-opening view of the statistics of health, mortality, income, and family size throughout the entire world. With humor and animated graphics Hans Rosling, of Gapminder.org provides statistics as you’ve never seen them presented before. There’s no spiritual take-away here from the presenter, but for [...]
A friend of mine attended two days of the recent National Religious Broadcaster’s Convention in Orlando, Florida. This brings together all the media people who seek to address the Christian audience. I guess they are as religious as their name portends. This was my friends report after walking around at the exhibits and listening to [...]
I don’t know how you fared last night. I was exhasted from a recent trip and not real excited about having our doorbell ring all night with trick or treaters from the neighborhood. But we put our game faces on and passed out candy anyway as we greeted the scads of kids that came to [...]
Last week a local university hosted a Hunger Banquet in association with Oxfam America, a nonprofit international development and relief organization with the mission of creating lasting solutions to global poverty, hunger and social injustice. Only a handful of those who attended came away well-fed. Most went home hungry and that’s exactly what the organizers [...]
In a comment on my blog about Christian Magazines, Eric left a comment thinking I’d been a bit rough on the industry and painted with too broad a brush. I thought his comments had some validity, so I want to try to clarify that previous blog here: Eric, Thanks for writing. I love you’re perspective [...]
I often think Christianity Today misses the important realities of what God does in the world, so when they hit one out of the park I’m not only surprised, I want to share it. In the March 2006 issue of Christianity Today, they printed an article on the influence of believers on culture entitled, Loving [...]