On The Trail

Happy Four Years of Podcasting!! See the links below for an epic giveaway.   We were born into the middle of a great, cosmic conflict that affects every area of life. As Christians, we really only have three options. We can live in fear, in ignorance, or we can learn to fight.   Where in the Bible does it say, “Ignore the devil, and he will leave you alone”? Nowhere! It warns us repeat...

Could the monster in the closet be real? How can we help children who see scary things? How does our worldview inform what we believe is possible? Today we’re continuing our prequel discussion of spiritual warfare before launching our next book study. Last episode we addressed the reality of so many Christians who think spiritual warfare is not something to concern everyday believers. And it’s und...

Is spiritual warfare an elective for advanced Christians? Maybe you hear “spiritual warfare” and think “paranormal activity.” Maybe you’ve been a Christian for a long time and haven’t had to deal with spiritual warfare. How important is it really? Many Christians feel like they see no evidence of spiritual warfare around them. They might undersand that cosmic realitie...

“Christianity is not a religion. It’s a relationship.” What does this adage actually mean? John 15 gives a picture of this when Jesus describes our relationship to Him as branches attached to a vine. Relationships are attachments. Christianity is about forming an attachment with Jesus Christ, then spending the rest of our lives walking deeper with Him. And if we want to be relati...

Does it ever look “awfully peopley out there”? Community is one of the great gifts of being human, but it comes with its share of hurt and problems… Belonging is a transformation agent crucial for cultivating emotional resilience. In this On the Trail episode, we discuss Building Bounce Chapter Seven: Connecting with People, where we talk about relationships in the Bible, vulnera...

Did you know your brain has its own propaganda department? The left side of your brain can be thought of as your narrative engine. Part of its job is to explain life. Our beliefs can have a profound impact on our bodies, our emotions, and our behavior. It is no wonder that the Bible has so much to say about meditating on God’s Word, renewing the mind, repenting, thinking about what is true, practi...

Learning how to let yourself enter into the feeling of appreciation for five minutes or more helps your body relax and your mind quiet. For Christians, appreciation goes beyond only a brain exercise. It's an act of connection with God.  With that in mind, in this On the Trail episode, we discuss Building Bounce Chapter Five: Appreciation, where we unpack the joy-building tool G.A.M.E.S. for p...

The number one predictor of good emotional health is the ability to quiet. Quieting is about learning how to calm our bodies and minds once triggered and about learning how to practice being quiet without the regular need for distraction.  With that in mind, in this On the Trail episode, we discuss Building Bounce Chapter Four: Quieting, where we unpack tools such as the acrostics B.E.S.T. for qui...

Time to pop the hood and get a look at our wiring! What has brain science to do with emotional resilience? God has designed our brains to run on the fuel of joy, and joy is what is crucial to resilience. So, understanding how God designed our brains to operate helps us understand what we should develop in order to be as resilient as possible. With that in mind, in this On the Trail episode, we dis...

Your emotional capacity is determined by how much emotional weight you can carry. Good news! You have the ability to grow this capacity, and your worth is not tied to your capacity.  In this On the Trail episode, we discuss Chapter Two: How Much Weight Can You Handle? This chapter unpacks an overview of A & B Trauma, Life Model's Stages of Maturity as they relate to handling emotional cap...

Life is hard. We all get overwhelmed at times. But some people seem to bounce back from their upset emotions faster than most. Are they just born happy? Or is there a secret to building emotional resilience that anyone can learn? It's time for our next book study! While many topics we cover on this podcast are about repair, this topic could be thought of as construction.  Building Bounce expl...

Jesus Christ takes our sin and gives us His righteousness. This great exchange is the foundation of the Christian life.  He erases our debt, and fills our spiritual bank account. We die to a life that ends in death, and we are raised to a life that endures for eternity.  In this episode, we talk about the exchanged life, what it is, how to walk it out, and how to enter into it if you are ready to...

Over and over throughout Holy Week, we see Jesus doing the hard thing because He loves us.  Jesus Christ was never bolder or more clear about His true identity than in the final days before His death on the cross. He loves us enough to get in our face and call us out when we are on a path that is heading to destruction. The words and actions of Jesus may seem harsh, but in reality they were loving...

Palm Sunday wasn't just marketing for Jesus. It was an offer to accept Jesus Christ as King.  Our Messiah—our King—is one to whom we swear allegiance because we trust Him. To be saved by faith is not just accepting the gift of eternal life. It is trusting Jesus Christ enough to follow Him and obey even when we don’t understand where He is taking us and why the journey is so hard.  This doesn’...

We don't interact with people as they are. We interact with people as we imagine them to be.  How does the devil want you to see your situation? How does God want you to see your situation?  To close our Jumpstart Your Prayer Life series, we're looking at The Word Picture Approach as a means of exposing the devil's lies and attuning to God's perspective. This approach was inspi...