Sooner or later you make a choice. Do you think you’re the center of the world, or can you give those around you the benefit of the doubt, imagine sympathetically the challenges they may face, and emphasize and identify with them rather than see them as opponents or obstacles? I know that sounds like an easy choice, but as David Foster Wallace says, we are faced with this choice on numerous occasion nearly every day of our lives, and all too often we settle for the default setting where we assume our challenges are greater than those faced by others, our frustrations more valid and vexing, our excuses more understandable, our priorities...

Today is Ascension Day. Truth be told, even though I did a podcast about preaching on Ascension Day two weeks ago, I almost forgot that. In fact, if I hadn’t called my parents today and heard them mention the Ascension Day retired pastors’ luncheon they’d gone to earlier, I’m pretty sure I would have forgotten about it all together. Ascension Day is one of the more overlooked holidays of the Christian calendar. It doesn’t fall on a Sunday; there are no disciplines of preparation ahead of time or rites of celebration on the day to usher it in. Fewer and fewer churches remember it, let alone hold Thursday services. It’s no...