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One of the more frustrating moments of modern life is to start your computer to find the following message: Your password has expired. Click ‘Change password’ to change your password. For most, it is another adventure into the tension of remembering another word. It happened to Mauricio Estrella one morning. And it hit her on a morning in the middle of a bad year when everything had gone wrong. She decided to choose a password that would change her life. She entered a new password: “Forgive@h3r.” When she started her workday, or when returning from lunch, she typed the characters. It reminded her to “forgive herself” and move on. The way she found to deal with life’s challenges was to remember to forgive herself. Jesus met a lot of people looking for forgiveness. But the truth is that the most difficult person to forgive is the one that looks back at you in the mirror each morning. If God’s forgiveness means anything, it means we must also forgive ourselves. Paul knew. His life had turned from the jailing of Christians to proclaim the Christ he had persecuted. He would call himself “the chief of sinners.” He also knew what forgiveness meant. He told Timothy: “But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:16) Forgiveness from God must include forgiveness from self. Then, forgiveness is complete.The next time God forgives you, don’t forget to do a little forgiving of your own. -Robert G. Taylor-    

Arthur Miller is celebrated as one of the top writers in the 20th Century. His credits are vast. They include The Death of a Salesman, A View From the Bridge, and The Crucible. Critics showered him with awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. And yet, with all the fame and acclaim, a hole pierced his life. He stopped believing in God as a teenager and went on to his stellar career. He had all what it seemed life could offer him. Listen to how he reflected on his life decades later: I feel like I’ve carried around this sense of judgment. I could not escape it. I still felt like I needed to prove myself to others: to have somebody tell me that I was okay, that I was acceptable, that I was approved of. As someone has said, Miller made a bad bargain. He exchanged the God of Christians with the “god” of audience approval. And with all the applause, he never felt accepted. It remains a familiar feeling among rich and poor. Something is missing. Today, social media amplifies the loneliness when we compare our “likes” and “thumbs up” to others. We, like Miller, pursue the god of approval. Jesus met people with holes in them. They all asked, “what else do I need?” A young man came to him in Matthew 19. His question was simple. “I’ve done well, but something is missing. What do I lack?” Rather than a pat on the head, Jesus gave him a direction. “Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Matthew 19:21) Jesus tells him that he is so full of himself that he needs to pour it out on the ground. Then, come, follow, and find a life filled with purpose. What do you do with a void? Don’t fill it with more of what you don’t need. Christ can put the only thing that fits into your life--God’s will. What’s goes in your void? -Robert G. Taylor-  

The cross is so well-known, it looks like people would know what it represents. Apparently, no all understand. Franciscan University in Ohio decided to advertise on its Facebook page. It paid the fee and submitted the artwork. To their surprise, Facebook rejected it. Facebook informed the institution that they found the pictures of the cross “shocking, sensational, and excessively violent.” Such it is with the cross. The image doesn’t provoke the same sense for Christians like everyone else. And we are not the first. Paul preached “Christ and him crucified.” It was not always a popular message. He told the Corinthians: “but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,” (1 Corinthians 1:23) A secular society misses the grace, the lavish love of the cross. They see it as the first-century world did. It was taboo, not mentioned or considered. Yet, through all opposition, the cross remains the supreme symbol of how much God will do to reclaim man, including you and me. Whatever Facebook believes, the cross remains as the avenue of salvation. We continue to preach it. -Robert G. Taylor-  

Denis Waitley missed his plane by a few minutes. And it changed his life. On May 29, 1979 Waitley sprinted to his gate to catch the Los Angeles bound American flight 191. He got there and they had closed the jetway. He begged and pleaded to no avail. Irritated, he marched to customer service counters to register his irritation. While standing there, the loudspeaker crackled with tragedy. Flight 191 had crashed shortly after takeoff. Investigators discovered the left engine came off of the wing which caused the plane to roll. It flipped over and the crash claimed all 271 on board. It was the deadliest accident in aviation history. Waitley stopped his complaining, realizing how close he had come to death. It would change his life. He saved the unused ticket and mounted it on his office wall. It would remind him of each day he lived beyond that moment. We ignore our lives, thinking we have others. We are wrong. Each day is fragile. James heard the boasting of future events which seemed so certain. He reminds us: “yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”” (James 4:14–15) Days come and go. That means every day we draw breath is a gift of God. Do you treat God’s precious gift with a shrug? Denis Waitley had his difficult days. All it took was a glance at the unused ticket hanging on the way to remind him that every day is a gift. Do you see today as God’s gift to you? -Robert G. Taylor-    

Victor Frankl witnessed the worst of humanity. After surviving a Nazi concentration camp, he wrote about what suffering taught him about living. He lived as the consumer society was arriving at full speed. He watched people do whatever their hearts desired to give them pleasure. Some ate large amounts. Others spent on trinkets. He commented on this pursuit of pleasure: Let us imagine a man who has been sentenced to death and, a few hours before his execution, has been told he is free to decide on the menu for his last meal. The guard comes into his cell and asks him what he wants to eat, offers him all kinds of delicacies; but the man rejects all his suggestions. He thinks to himself that it is quite irrelevant whether he stuffs good food into the stomach of his organism or not, as in a few hours it will be a corpse. And even the feelings of pleasure that could still be felt in the organism's cerebral ganglia seem pointless in view of the fact that in two hours they will be destroyed forever. But the whole of life stands in the face of death, and if this man had been right, then our whole lives would also be meaningless, were we only to strive for pleasure and nothing else—preferably the most pleasure and the highest degree of pleasure possible. Pleasure in itself cannot give our existence meaning; thus, the lack of pleasure cannot take away meaning from life, which now seems obvious to us. It is not new, only rediscovered truth. Solomon conducted a grand experiment on life. He dove into unlimited pleasure. "I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself." But behold, this also was vanity. I said of laughter, "It is mad," and of pleasure, "What use is it?" (Ecclesiastes 2:1–2). After searching and sifting, he arrived at a conclusion. "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13) Society can get us caught in the whirlpool of things and events that provide a cotton candy life. It tastes good and then is gone. Life contains more than our goods, our feelings, and our excitement. Unless built on something lasting, it crumbles. The word Solomon used was "meaningless." Investigate your life. Is it worth anything lasting? -Robert G. Taylor-  

Tony Campolo posed a question all should answer. While teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, he asked a sleepy student, “Young man, how long have you lived?” The boy quickly spit out his age. “No, no, no. That’s how long your heart has pumped blood. That’s not how long you lived,” replied Campolo. He then told of a time as a 4th-grade student in 1944. He went to the Empire State Building on a school field trip. The elevator took him to the observation deck of the then tallest building in the world. It overlooked all that he could see. He stood still. Reflecting on that moment, he told the students, “In one mystical, magical moment I took in the city. If I live a million years, that moment will still be part of my consciousness, because I was fully alive when I lived it.” He returned to the student. “Now, let me ask you again. How long have you lived?” The student hung his head and said, “When you say it that way, maybe an hour, maybe a minute, maybe two minutes.” We send so much time focused on a Facebook post or the worries of the day. We are distracted. The wise man said: Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. (Proverbs 4:25-27) When we focus on living to please the Lord, we find out when live as we never have before. It is that day that you start living. Now, how long have you lived? -Robert G. Taylor-  

Scott Thompson's family has farmed the Wisconsin soil for over 70 years. He usually plants strawberries. Then, in the fall, he grows raspberries and pumpkins. This year, his crop looked different. He planted joy. You can't plant joy, but you can plant sunflowers. Thompson planted 22 acres of sunflowers. Thompson Strawberry Farm attracted families who picnic, wander fields of florals, and take home a dozen sunflowers. Thompson said, "We just did it ... and we just kept building. As the season went on, the pandemic never went anywhere ... and we thought people might be looking for something to do, and what a great way to social distance and ... smile, basically." Those sunflowers did something for people. He said, "One of the things that's so cool about this is everyone is so happy. We get all these comments on Facebook, or if I'm out in the field, everybody is like, 'Thanks for doing this,' (and) 'This is what I needed.' People are so happy to be out there and have a place to go." Here is a man who knows how to sow joy. He lifts the spirits of others, gives them a different picture of their world. Don't we all need to enjoy that kind of picture rather than the bickering, long lines, and death counts? We need some joy. The question is not what you need. It is what do you need to do in your life to sow enough joy to lift the spirits of others. So, what do you plan to plant in your acre of the world today? -Robert G. Taylor-  

Abraham Walker moved from Virginia to New Orleans to give his children a sense of “normal.” Walker’s brother had been murdered. He did not want his children’s lives colored with the loss of friends and family as “normal.” Once he settled, he visited a community Facebook page. He decided to ask, “What are some positive things that have happened to you because of COVID-19?” Here’s what came back: I have been having the BEST time with my 4-year-old. I never thought of myself as a good mother, but this isolation has brought us so close together. I successfully grew a tomato. We have a swing set in our yard now. Before COVID, I just got up late, ran around in a panic, usually in a bad mood or at least sad, endured a road rage-filled commute, and arrived at the office late. ... Now I wake up and think, “Oh, I woke up again” and then I go out to my balcony amidst the pine trees and the chirping birds and rising sun. Walker concluded that, After challenging times, there will always be “afterward.” It’s easy, after almost a year of pandemic, to see the worst. The virus touched, affected, and stretched all. None would choose what has happened. But can you see the good in it? You have to choose that perspective. As Paul languished in prison, halted by the Roman justice system. His life’s plans ended. Yet, he took a new view. He saw the positive amid the prison. “Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.” (Philippians 1:12–14) All experience life, but not all see it the same. Paul saw beyond shackles and had freedom. He saw the good that happened. So, what do you see? What are your pandemic positives? -Robert G. Taylor-  

How do you translate the Bible? When Emily McGowin taught high school English, she assigned her 9th-graders to translate the Beatitudes in their own words. They rendered the verses in which Jesus blesses the “unblessable.” What some of them wrote speaks to how they see the world. Blessed are drug addicts and felons, people who try everything but still buckle under the pressure of their past lives and can never get back on their feet, for even they belong in the Kingdom of God. Blessed are the orphans and foster children of the world because they are exactly who God wants in his Kingdom. Blessed are the homeless because the Kingdom of God belongs to them too. One came from a child who was removed from a home due abuse by a parent. He wrote: Blessed are the abusers who take out their anger on the weak, for even they can repent and receive the Kingdom of God. While they are not the Beatitudes, they speak of how you translate the Bible into something alive in your own life. It’s not about words but the friction that scripture creates in your own soul. While some see church as “respectable,” that translation may twist into something different. Listen to what Jesus did. “When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” (Luke 19:5–7) The translation of the crowd did not exactly match the gospel of which Jesus spoke. To bring people to Jesus, our translation of the mission must match what Jesus’ intentions are. How well do you translate Jesus in your life and thinking? -Robert G. Taylor-  

America has all the conditions to improve the happiness of its inhabitants. In 2019, the average household income was higher than ever. Homes are larger than ever, with an average house almost 1000 square feet over the previous average. More people have easy access to the internet than ever. Then, what’s the problem? We are not happier. A survey started in 1988 to measure people’s mood shows dissatisfaction with life has continued its 32-year rise. It is no wonder. We pursue things that we can measure, but that doesn’t matter. We want to be technologically savvy, wealthier, and more mobile. But it only covers a gnawing sense of emptiness. Jesus met a man who demanded a referee in a family estate squabble. He demanded Jesus tell his brother to split the family fortune with him. Jesus refused. Instead, he gave the man a first-grade lesson in life. “Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15) When we attempt to use earthly goods to plug spiritual holes, the void remains.  It is not about the money, but the purpose of life. When it is anything other than pleasing the God who created us, we find ourselves thirsty. What are you chasing? And…are you happy? -Robert G. Taylor-