It's a Long Story... Part 2

 If you haven't read part 1, you might head there first...

I had never had a CT scan before. Basically they put you on a hard bed ("bed" is a pretty generous word for it) and the bed moves through a giant donut a number of times. The picture on the right is what the CT machine looks like, although this is not the one I was on. The hope of doing the CT scans was to verify that the tumor was limited to my esophagus and had not spread to the rest of my body. We waited patiently for the results to appear in the hospital poral, and when we got them, I shared them with my son, who is well on his way to a biology degree so he knows a little bit and can look up even more, and then we showed it to my sister-in-law, who worked as an RN for many years.

Unfortunately, the results showed more stuff we didn't want to see. In addition to the tumor in my esophagus, the reports pointed out areas of concern in part of my lungs, liver, and adrenal glands. But there was also a lot of "this appeared normal, that was unremarkable" stuff that you want to see (if it's unremarkable, that means it's healthy). A CT scan is not very deterministic when it comes to cancer - it just points out what to look at more closely - and my sister-in-law said that it was possible that some of those things were not cancer, but some other problem (leftovers from having COVID, for example). But we would have to wait and see what our oncologist said in our appointment the next Monday. She predicted that he would order a PET scan (she was right, he did) because that gives a pretty clear indicator of what is cancerous and what is not.

Meanwhile, she had some Bible Scripture for me. "Whenever I think about this, I keep thinking about the Bible passage about making the crooked places straight. Where is that?" We got our phones out and started researching it - she was probably remembering Luke 3:5 where this is applied to John the Baptist, but we found the source of that quote first, Isaiah 40:4. But we also found another similar passage in Isaiah: Isaiah 45:2-3.

I will go before you
   and level the exalted places,
I will break in pieces the doors of bronze
   and cut through the bars of iron,
I will give you the treasures of darkness
   and the hoards in secret places,
that you may know that it is I, the LORD,
   the God of Israel, who call you by your name.

That passage really seemed to speak to me directly - of course in context God was talking to the future king Cyrus, but I believe that God can use Scripture to speak to us in a lot of different contexts. "Level the exalted places" (some translations say "level the mountains") seemed to me to be God saying, I'll make things work out for you through this. Getting immediately referred to the very busy oncologist we would have wanted to have seemed like the first indication that this was happening. "Breaking in pieces doors of brass and bars of iron" seemed to me to be a metaphor for destruction of the blockage in my throat. And the part about God working in me (and Cyrus) to show us something great about Himself seemed amazing to me!

I didn't really know what the part about "treasures" and "hoards" (or "riches") meant, and actually I'm still looking forward to what treasures might come out of this situation, but I do know that my faith and confidence in God has grown by leaps and bounds through this so far, and that has been riches of incomparable value for me. I'll tell you more about what good stuff I expect to come out of this in upcoming posts!

It's a Long Story... Part 1

It was May 15, and I had an appointment to see my doctor. Nothing serious, really... it was a checkup to make sure the blood pressure medicine he had prescribed for me was working well, and because I had been checking it daily, I knew it was. There was also something I had forgotten to mention to him at my last visit, several months before, but I did remember it this time. I told him had been having a little bit of trouble swallowing when I ate too fast. I could eat just fine - I just needed to slow down and chew and not suck down my meal like a starving wolf who just caught a rabbit. He recommended that I go to a GI specialist and get scoped, so he gave me a referral and everything got set up.

Three weeks later I woke up from the scope procedure and my wife was in the room. This was unusual, because usually they just tell the person you came with to come pick you up at the door and they wheel you out to your car in a wheelchair so you don't fall down from the sedation. We figured there must be something important they wanted to tell us.

And we knew we had guessed right when the doctor himself walked in. He very professionally and gently told us that he had found an obstruction that looked to him like cancer, and he had taken a biopsy to send to the lab. We would hear back soon. And we certainly did hear back - it definitely was cancerous. The procedure was on a Thursday, and the next Tuesday I was in a CT scan machine, finding out how good I was at lying still while the bed moved underneath me!

Two and a half years before, my wife had had surgery after a long process of chemotherapy and radiation, and her cancer has been gone ever since then. We were looking forward to a day in the near future that we wouldn't have to see the inside of the cancer treatment center again... now it was looking like that day might be further in the future than we thought. The GI doctor had referred us to the same oncologist who had treated my wife; we were pretty excited, because he's a terrific doctor and we were really happy with the care he and his team had given her! The first time he walked into the room and she was sitting in the visitor chair and I was sitting on the exam bed, he did a double take. I told him "We aren't glad to NEED you, but we are sure glad to GET you!" He talked us through what he knew so far, prayed with us (doctors who pray are awesome!), and set me up for what felt like a million scans and tests and appointments (it was probably more like 5-6 in about a two week period). It was a pain the neck just to remember where to show up and when, but we made it!

Meanwhile, we started to tell a few people what was going on. The Sunday after we found out about it but before I even had my CT scans, we got to church and my wife chose a seat away from where we usually sit. When we sat down we noticed that we were sitting in front of an older couple that we've become friends with over the past year or so. As the service went on, I started to feel like I wanted to ask them to pray for us after the service, so when it ended, I said, "Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?" I knew they would pray for us, but what I didn't know is that God had brought us together that day for a reason. I was to have my test on Tuesday, but it turns out that the husband also had a medical test scheduled on Tuesday (not for cancer)... so we prayed for each other that Sunday! Their outcome was very positive - mine not as immediately positive as theirs, but to me it was clearly God saying, I'm going to make things happen for you through this!

To be continued...

Epiphany 2026

HOW did I miss Epiphany 2025? It was a great year!

This time I'm not going to go into great detail about what gifts I got for my family or what I said to them. I think I've created that model already - you can click the "Epiphany" label at the bottom of this post to see some examples. I'm just going to give a brief summary, because the things that the Holy Spirit has given me for family members have become increasingly targeted and personal over the years - I guess I've been learning better and better how to hear His voice in this situation. I need to start applying that skill all year round!

This year my youngest turned 18. She's about to graduate from high school, and she's really been blossoming this year. In 2025 her word was "create" and she's been creating amazing stuff all year... visual art and music have been all around her in 2025. But there have been a few goals in those areas that, although she worked really hard, she either barely reached, or barely didn't reach. Her word for 2026 is "launch". As in, Peter said "Lord, we've fished all night and didn't catch anything, but if you say so we'll launch out and try again." And you know what happened! I gave her a shirt that says "Jesus said, go fishing!"

My oldest is about to graduate from college. His word this year is "up". I feel like he's started to grow out of some of his kid and young man ways and emerge as someone who is on the way upward, as in, upward toward the prize of the high call of God. I gave him a metal sign that is a picture of a river with part of that verse on it.

My wife, after her battle with cancer, has just now started to show signs that she's ready to do pretty much anything that God calls her to do again. I think she's been a little bit afraid of getting sick again. her word is "confidence" - as in, your confidence is in the Lord! (I got her a gold bracelet with an encouraging word on it.)

I found out a week or two ago that my youngest is keeping all of her cards (this is the third year that I've printed out cards with a word and a Scripture on them for the year). My wife still has all three of hers on the refrigerator. (I haven't asked my son if he's keeping his.) All three of them have said that the words and Scriptures have been valuable to them throughout the year. If you're not doing something like this for your family, Epiphany is a great opportunity! The first week of the new year is a perfect time to get off on the right foot!

Cooper Stuff and Your Sins

"He who tolerates sin in himself, or excuses it in others, is not the friend of holiness, and therefore not the friend of Christ."

I watched the below video today, and wept through about half of it. But it may not be the half you would think.

I heard about the Michael Tait allegations pretty soon after the first exposé article came out. I was shocked, and disappointed, and worried. Shocked that Michael Tait, who had always seemed like a nice, friendly, safe guy and solid representative of Christ (literally, in one case), could do those things and somehow think it was OK to continue to do them for so long. Disappointed, because I've always liked the guy and enjoyed his work in Christian music. Worried that young (and even older) fans might turn away from Christ when they learned that this musician they looked up to had allegedly committed a long series not only immoral, but blatantly criminal acts. On that day I cried for the alleged victims of his abuses. And on that day I cried for the fans. That's who the first half of this podcast is about. I still have the same emotions for those people, but I've cried those tears already.

The second half of this podcast is about me. It's also about you, and John Cooper, and your pastor, and Michael Tait, and your youth leader, and the lady who sits in the row in front of you in church. And you. And me.

"He who tolerates sin in himself, or excuses it in others, is not the friend of holiness, and therefore not the friend of Christ." 

You know what? From time to time I commit sins. But sometimes I cut myself some slack in my mind. "It didn't hurt anyone. Nobody knows about it but me and God, and God forgives me."

But that quote about sin haunts me. It's not from the Bible, but it's from a smart person who knew things (you can find the quote in the podcast video at about 33:55). And even though it's not a Bible quote, it tracks with what the Bible says.

It's a long-ish podcast episode, but it's well worth the time. See you on the other side:

"He who tolerates sin in himself, or excuses it in others, is not the friend of holiness, and therefore not the friend of Christ."

I don't commit sins that would get me arrested. I don't abuse people as the Tait allegations describe. I don't do illegal drugs. But at some point, if the allegations are true, Michael Tait crossed over from being a man of God who shared the Gospel through music, to being a man who does terrible, inexcusable things and keeps them hidden. He was a Christian leader, now disgraced. I'm by no means famous, but I do serve on the worship team at my church. I also volunteer teaching preschoolers in Sunday School. At some level I'm a Christian leader, and I can't imagine myself crossing that line. But I bet Tait wouldn't have imagined himself crossing it either.

There's an old joke that many a preacher has told. A baby monkey found himself falling out of his bed every single night. "Mommy, why do I keep falling out of bed?" the baby monkey cried. His mother answered, "Baby, it's because you stay too close to where you got in!" I do not happen to believe that a person can easily lose their salvation, but in less than a week Tait lost the career he spent decades building, the respect of fans all over the world, and if allegations prove true, he could even lose his physical freedom. On top of that, he took the Newsboys down with him (radio stations across the country pulled their music and they lost their recording contract), and possibly DC Talk too, even though his DC Talk days seem to predate the alleged abuses. He absolutely fell out of his monkey bed. He seems to have repented, and I believe God is able and willing to forgive even these horrible acts, but Tait will never again have what he once had. And I don't want to run the risk of being the next "that guy".

So I'm going to try to sleep a little further from the edge of my monkey mattress. I'm going to edge closer to the center of God's will for me. Sometimes it's tough to live the way I know God wants me to. But I want my own sin to become intolerable to me. Hot, like a stovetop that I avoid touching because I know it hurts. I want to creep toward personal holiness, because I know that I may never make it to the center of the bed, but the closer I get, the less chance this monkey will have of spending the night on the floor!

I have this card sitting on my desk right now. I was looking at it the other day, and something struck me about this verse. Did you notice that it does not say "Trust in the Lord, because you can't possibly have any understanding of what is going on"? No, it says that you will have understanding of your situation, but that shouldn't be your ultimate authority.

God did not make us a race of ignorant fools, unable to understand the world and situations around us. God gave us the gift of thought - we can take in information, process it, and draw logical conclusions. God didn't give us those abilities and expect us to ignore them! But He does expect us to trust Him, because sometimes our understanding doesn't get us all the way there. Sometimes there are factors we don't and can't know ahead of time. Sometimes our perception might be flawed - ask any scientist who studies memory whether the human mind is infallible at recalling important details! We can know a lot, but we can't know everything.

So the next time you are making a decision, try this: gather all the information you can, become informed about the subject or situation, make your best judgement (or narrow it down to several options that seem sensible), and then take it to God. Tell Him that you've done your best to understand the situation, but you want to lean on His understanding. I'm talking to myself here... I have to choose an electrician to look at something in my house today! Let's lean on God's understanding today, you and I. Let's make a great choice!

A Dog's Life

I saved a dog's life this morning!

It was rush hour, and I was driving down a busy street, two lanes going both directions plus a turn lane in the middle. I was approaching what may well be the busiest intersection in our small town at that time of day (the intersection is within a mile of four schools that between them cover all grades from preschool through high school, and it was getting close to time for school to start), and there he was... a medium-sized brown dog, the kind that chases chickens around on a farm or Frisbees around in a dog park. I was in the left lane, and when I spotted him he was walking across right to left - which meant he had two lanes of traffic to cross, and if he didn't get across pretty quickly the light in front of me was going to change and he was going to have dozens of cars bearing down on him. I spotted him in plenty of time to miss him, but there was already one car coming the other way... in the lane the dog was about to walk across! What could I do to help him?

Only one thing. I hit my brakes and leaned on my horn. I didn't just give it a little "beep beep" - I made one long blast that lasted until Mr. Dog was completely out of the street. I could tell it startled him, which was exactly my intention. I wanted him out of the street, and I wanted him to think twice before ever crossing that street again. It also alerted the other driver that something was going on, and he avoided the dog by a wide margin too.

I imagine Mr. Dog was pretty scared by my horn... probably more scared than by my car. He may have thought someone or something was trying to hurt him. But that wasn't the case... in fact, my car and the other cars on the road were far more dangerouns to him than my horn was. My horn was scary, but the purpose of the horn was to save him from something that could potentially hurt or kill him. I wasn't being mean to Mr. Dog; I was showing him compassion and love by making a big scary noise so he would get out of danger.

Sometimes people read the Bible and find places where God said to His people things like "Follow the rules I'm giving you, or else this bad thing will happen to you," and we read that and perceive it as a threat. But if you read more and more of the Bible, you'll discover that God is the God of Love, not attack and retribution. When God says "do X or else Y will happen to you," He's not saying that He will punish you for your sins - He is saying that if you cling to your sins, something bad is going to happen to you because sin is destined for destruction. If you hang out in the street during rush hour, you're going to get flattened by a minivan. God is leaning on His horn, trying to get you to run from sin so you run from the consequences of that sin. If God blows a horn for you today, pay attention! It may save you from getting hurt like my horn saved that dog this morning.

"One Day" Lyric Video

I am a songwriter. I always have been, ever since I can remember. In 2008, I had an idea for a song about the life of Jesus. I wanted it to be in several parts to highlight the different parts of His life on Earth - actually, the first part would start in eternity before the world even began and overlap into His birth. The second part would be about his ministry time in the flesh. The third verse would be about what He did on the Cross. I wrote out the lyric and tried to record it.

Unfortunately, the tools I had at my disposal then weren't really up to creating the musical experience I had inside of my head. I kept the recording, but few people ever heard it because it wasn't really what I wanted it to be.

Fast forward to about three years ago. I had learned a lot about modern recording techniques by that time, and I was ready to tackle this song again. I started working on it, but I soon realized that because I wanted each verse to have a distinctly different feel, working on this song was like working on three songs at once! I worked on it for a few months, became discouraged and walked away for a bit, picked it back up again, became discouraged again... and finally, about a month ago - early July of 2014 - I finally finished it! This after an eleventh-hour complete re-arrangement of the music of the second half of the last verse! But I was super happy with the result!

Then came time to think about some kind of video release. I don't really have means to make a live-action music video, but the bar to making what's called a "lyric video" is much lower. If you haven't seen one before, a lyric video is exactly what it sounds like... it's a music video, but what you're seeing on the screen is the lyrics. Of course, it's dressed up a bit so it's not like watching the teleprompter at Karaoke night. Some lyrics videos are really cool!

And I had an idea to make mine even cooler. In this song, nearly every line is inspired by a specific quote from Scripture. My idea was to put the lyrics in the top half of the screen, and the Bible verse texts that inspired them in the bottom half of the screen. My only concern was that some of the Bible verses would go by so fast you might miss them... then I realized that people have a "pause" button and know how to use it!

Today we released the brand new lyric video of "One Day" ("The Word Go" is my artist name.) Take a look and tell me what you think!