August was designated “birthday month” by our daughters many, many years ago. August is their birthday month; August 15, the day. (Which makes February 15 their half-birthday, which they never successfully managed to officially get recognized as a gift-receiving day.) It started like this:

At 3:15 a.m. on August 15, Dorothy woke up to announce a baby seemed ready to be born. After some profound questions like “Are you sure?” and “Really?” I got up, got dressed, and took her to the car. We leisurely arrived at the hospital with plenty of time for our baby to be born.  Dorothy and I were somewhat surprised that her on-call doctor was her friend Saundra’s husband, who had recently joined the partnership of Dorothy’s obstetrician. Dorothy had known Saundra and Charles since their high school days. After the brief awkwardness passed, they settled down to business and Donelle was born at 11:55 a.m. Charles could not wait to call Saundra and tell her the news.

At 3:15 a.m. on August 15, Dorothy woke up to announce a baby seemed ready to be born. After some profound questions like “Are you sure?” and “Really?” I got up, got dressed, picked up Donelle, carried her to the car, and then got Dorothy. On the way to drop Donelle off with a church family, Donelle prophesied, “I’m going to have a pink birthday.” This was before the days of ultrasounds. When we arrived at the hospital every labor room was occupied and other women in labor were waiting on gurneys in the hallway. Dorothy bumped to the head of that line, and was quickly placed in a delivery room that was still being cleaned up. The nurse asked her to wait a few minutes until the doctor arrived, but she respectfully declined. The doctor appeared just as he was needed and Dayna was born at 6:14 a.m. Donelle celebrated her third birthday that evening with a “pink party.”

Do you know your birth story? We all have one. If you do not know, ask someone who might remember. You just might be surprised at what you learn about yourself. Our birth stories have the power to demonstrate just how strong, inside, we really are. What about your other birth story? The one about the time you were born into God’s eternal family? What do you remember? What has it shown you about yourself? How do you celebrate it?

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Celebrate your new birth. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

This is a rerun from the time of Covid.

As the designated adventurer at our house, I am the grocery shopper for more than a year now. I have learned that pimentos are never located on the olive aisle and that Velveeta cheese is located wherever the last tired stocker set them down because it is not a cheese. I have learned to eat my shopping mistakes. Try as I might, apparently chocolate-dipped ice-cream bars do not qualify as a shopping mistake. The actual worst of my grocery mistakes was just a few weeks ago. My assignment was to get a can of old-fashioned quick-cooking steel-cut oatmeal. I honestly thought I did. But I didn’t. I got old-fashioned steel-cut Irish Oatmeal in a can, 1 pound and 12 ounces net weight. It did not say quick-cooking or fast-cooking or 10-minute quick oatmeal. Dorothy noticed immediately. It was decided that we would press ahead. There was a winter storm in the forecast.

Upon reading the fine print on the back of the can, we learned that the shortcut method was to boil water in a pot, add the oatmeal, stir and boil for 5 minutes. Cover the pot and store it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, put the pot back on the stove, bring it to a boil and stir it for another 9-12 minutes. By my estimation, the shortcut method takes about 25 hours. We opted for the traditional method—30 minutes on the range. I also noticed that the recipe kept referring to this as porridge. I remember porridge as something Little Orphan Annie had to eat, with a big frown on her face. Porridge is oatmeal, flax and other bird seeds boiled in a big pot, which is stirred constantly until you are done. It suggests you add buttermilk or honey and brown sugar suitable to taste. Our pot of porridge lasted for days. We tried syrup and apple sauce with cinnamon on it and we tried smothering it with various flavored yogurts. Our final attempt was to use a large amount of pumpkin pie filling. That actually tasted best. By the way, porridge diluted to a thin, watery state is called gruel. It was used to help the sick get well. It tastes worse than it sounds.

We make mistakes. We try to hide them, own them, or make up for them. The best policy is to admit them, deal with them, and learn from them. We still have a pound or so of the oatmeal left in the can. It will keep.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Press ahead.  And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

We have now lived long enough to witness the age of robots learning how to think, and cars learning how to fly. At the local gas station chain, a Roomba-like box cleans the floors. It politely moves out of the way when someone’s path is blocked. At the University of Tulsa, similar timed devices mow the acres of campus grass only stopping to plug themselves-in and recharge. On the campus sidewalks, ice-chest-sized containers deliver meals or supplies to individual students, classrooms, dorms and apartments. The robots are learning how to make decisions. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is really programed learning. Teaching a computer to make wise, safe, and ethical decisions at lightning speed is now a moral dilemma for this generation. Good decision-making is very difficult for real people with actual intelligence. People need God’s help with that.

An actual flying car landed at the airport’s Air and Space Museum to be a part of the Route 66 Centennial Classic Car Show. It did not participate in the 3,596-car Guiness Book of World Records Classic Car Parade (and traffic jam) that day. The flying car is a modified piloted Drone, like a large radio-controlled model airplane. 

This week’s news held an announcement of a drone delivery service, Manna Air Delivery, soon to be operating out of nearly 20 locations across the Tulsa metropolitan area.  This drone delivery service is a necessary first step for people to pioneer personal flying cars.  According to the Tulsa World of July 21, 2026, Manna Air Delivery has made over 400,000 accident-free deliveries from their home bases in Ireland. They will deliver shoe-box-sized packages of restaurant meals and other things. The drone will hover 50 feet above the destination, lower the package on a cord to the ground, let it go and return to its base. Cameras, radar, and real people are to guide everything. I suspect that prayer may become a part of the process also. Welcome to the future!

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Keep looking up. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

As a teen I had a pastor share with me a simple formula for discerning the will of God: Step one, ask what is not the will of God in this situation? (You already know many things that are not what God desires, ever.) Step two, ask what is the right and loving thing to do? Step three, do the right and loving thing.

I grew up when a popular question to ask yourself was what would Jesus do?  This question assumes people already know the stories of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. The reality of today’s world is that children and teenagers are not exposed to the Bible at home or most anywhere else.  The Bible is more available now to anyone than in any other generation. It is available in any form of media, in any language, yet the biblical question asked by Paul is still just as true as in ancient days, …‘Everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved.’ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? (See Romans 10) Paul reminds us here that saving faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Moral training comes through conversations reflecting the teachings of the Bible. Intentional discipleship is the imperative of the Great Commission. So, who are the influencers of right and wrong today? Are you?

The early chapters of the book of Proverbs are lessons on righteous living addressed to young people. Chapter 6 contains a brief list of detestable things that today’s leaders and influencers display openly as glorified examples for all to admire. The Bible says, There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil,a false witness who pours out lies, and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.  What are the right and loving things that Christian influencers model?

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Do the next right thing. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.

A trillion of anything is more than we can really imagine. After Elon Musk surpassed the one trillion-dollar mark in estimated wealth, many compared it to the Gross National Product (GNP) of the nations of the world. Or how high a stack of money that would make. Or spending a million dollars a day would take 2,740 years to spend a trillion dollars. But the article I read that helped me the most was comparing it to seconds. One thousand seconds was 16 minutes and 40 seconds ago. One million seconds was 11 and a half days ago. A million to a billion is a mighty big jump. One billion seconds was 31 years and 8 months ago. Some of us can remember 1994. One trillion seconds was 31,710 years ago, also known as prehistoric times. Inconceivable.

And yet the inconceivable is all around us. Every day we wake up in the morning, eat, work, or play, not even aware of how many times we breathe in an hour, or blink, or react to something automatically. Unless something breaks down somewhere, or a pain cries out, we sleep or laugh or digest our food oblivious to the work of the 35 trillion cells in an adult body. Look at a thunderstorm, a peach tree, a sunbeam through the window. What do you see? How does your eyeball show you what you see? 

The Psalmist sang, When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful him, or the son of man that you care for him? …O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! (Psalm 8) We worship the Creator of the unfathomable, the Conceiver of the inconceivable, the Lover of our soul.

Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. See the incredible. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.