Silver Cup Blessing

There are a lot of inspiring stories available to us of people who have given their lives to a cause or to a work or to a calling. We celebrate their sacrifices and we admire their accomplishments. These stories can give us courage to get up and do something. They can show us how to live purposefully. But sometimes, they can also make us feel like a failure. It has always been easy to enter the comparison game, but the world of social media has certainly held up a standard of excellence that too few of us feel like we are able to reach. Everyone’s story is different, and I do not claim to know how those who have had great successes and achievements live their lives. What I do know is that a dedication to a single great end is not the calling of all lives. I, for one, have sensed that God’s calling on my life is not a single calling, but a multitude of callings. I am called to be engaged and purposeful, as a follower of Christ, in being a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a contribut...

We live in a world of rhetoric, where people tend to look for words that will win an argument even if the words play a bit loose with truth. We see this every day and it is done in often seemingly harmless but sometimes rather harmful ways. This approach makes sense in a world that values winning above all other values. To be “successful” and to “win” are, for many at least, the ultimate goals. Those who call themselves Christians – Christ-followers – cannot accept this way of operating. We are called to the highest of virtues. In particular today I am concerned with the ways that I see those who are Christ-followers handling truth in careless ways. Lately where this has struck me the most is in all of the discussions about the newly revised USDS (now United States DOGE Services). One of the ways that people have played the rhetoric game is by comparing what DOGE is doing to a bank audit. The move here is clear. Everyone would agree that it is good to check the bank books to make sure ...