There’s nothing quite like working your problems out in words.

I had lunch with an old friend today, but it was more than lunch with an old friend. He told me about his brother who has a brain tumor, and the brother is trying to make it to his daughter’s high school graduation. He took me on a short summary over the past two years when they found out about the tumor to now. They went to Duke University for treatment, and I had to think about my daughter wanting to go to school there. I’ve not liked Duke for the reasons most people don’t like Duke, but when I found out my daughter wants to go to school there my mind softened. It softened even more today when I learned they helped my friend’s brother.

Life is excruciatingly hard. It’s harder when you develop a bad attitude. I understand better than most that life knocks you down, and a bad attitude is inevitable, but it’s a paradox as you keep getting back up from the defeats.

Like my friend I’ve lived a charmed life. I’ve lived several lives that have culminated into the life I have now with a wife and daughter. There was a season when I was training to be a youth pastor, but since a teen’s parent challenged me to a fist fight for sending his son home from a youth rally I decided to go in a different direction. I’ve never done well with fist fights, and when I’ve had angry outbursts they always go south fast. I went down front at church yesterday for prayer that this intense battle with anger and hate the last 19 years would end, but today I flipped a lady off for pulling out in front of me. I know it’s not going to change over night, but it’s still frustrating.

Each one of us is more than a single episode in our lives, and sadly in this broken world it takes a millions positives to overcome one negative, but I sincerely believe every single one of us has before us a power that can string positives together.

The human experience has chapters, but it’s amazing to me how those chapters come back into view later in life.

It’s not hard to see how a thousand years is like a day to our Father. The space-time continuum is not a Back To The Future film we saw in junior high, but the reality of the non-fiction involved is brighter than any super nova NASA can photograph. His presence deletes any brokenness, and anytime we face the giant of mis-justice to deliver the oppressed and silenced we engage in what the messianic promise makes possible.

Jesus can ultimately be ignored, but when wrong is set right as it was in the book of Esther God’s name doesn’t have to be mentioned for people to be saved.