I Want to Walk on the Water

(pronounced TAH-lih-kwah) I woke up this morning thinking about the grieving mama orca, Tahlequah. You may remember her highly publicized “Tour of Grief” in 2018. Heartbroken, she carried her dead baby girl, Tali, more than 1,000 miles over seventeen days. This story of raw grief is not uncommon in wildlife. In the same year, I read about a mother chimpanzee who also carried her stillborn baby for three days (“ Stillborn ”, The Journey blog). Over the years, I have read of two other chimps who did the same – one for three months and the other for seven. The thought of Tahlequah this morning drew me into a self-reflective mood. What is God saying through this powerful, yet sensitive, grieving mother? Am I still mourning a loss, or perhaps I am still bearing the weight of dead things? Does the internal work ever end? When I researched the biblical numerology in these sorrowful accounts, I found some remarkable and even uplifting insights. 🎺For the seventeen  days of mourning, we ...

There is an old saying: “A fish always begins to stink at the head.”   In business, it is often used to mean leadership is the root of dysfunction and failure. Many times, that is true—not only in companies, but in nations, communities, churches, and homes. When the head is out of alignment, the rest of the body eventually follows. But let us go deeper. This truth does not only apply to organizations. It applies to each of us personally. If the head is not aligned with the Father, the whole life becomes disordered. Have you ever heard the phrase stink’n think’n ? That also begins at the head. If our thoughts are not aligned with the Lord’s thoughts, our emotions, decisions, habits, and relationships soon drift out of sync. Chaos in life often begins with disorder in the mind. Why It Matters What We Think King David wrote: “O Lord, You have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying...