Our Journey to Hope

Send us Fan Mail Have you ever wondered why most images of Calvary show three crosses when truly only one cross is important?  I thought about that recently and came to understand the symbolism of not only our Lord's cross, but also the relevancy to remember the other two. In this episode I share with you my thoughts on why it is important to remember all three crosses.  I hope you listen to...

Send us Fan Mail When we hear that hospice has been called in to assist someone, we often think the person is at the end of their life, that there remains no more hope for living.  This is not always true.  Hospice does so much more for a person and his or her family.   In this episode I speak two new friends and representatives of Enhabit Home Health & Hospice of Montgomery, Alabama.  They ar...

Send us Fan Mail It is exciting to find someone living their passion in life. My guest on this episode is Dr. Steve Wages, Director of the Cloverdale Center for Youth and Family. You can hear the passion in his voice for his work with families as he has made it the focus of his life. I challenge you to listen for it as well. Steve uses the word legacy in his comments. It is a wonderful goal for us...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I have the honor of discussing true and lasting hope with Kyle Johnson, minister at the Lafayette Church of Christ in Ballwin, Missouri.  We have a detailed discussion about the concept of hope and how we bring it to those with whom we come into contact.  I encourage you to listen to the calm confidence and conviction he expresses as he explains very clearly how he...

Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode I have the joy of interviewing my dear friend Madolyn Lewis and my new friend Eddie.  They are associated with the Christian Student Center in Moorhead, Mississippi.  Their efforts are significant in introducing students and the community to lasting hope found in our Lord and helping them remain faithful. The student center was a life-long dream and mission and...

Send us Fan Mail Among the things I enjoy as a podcaster is meeting fascinating individuals and making friends.  Such is the case in this podcast as I am chatting with someone who is also a fellow podcaster, a fascinating guest, and a new friend.  I hope you’ll listen as Phil Rizzo and I discuss his podcast, his thoughts on hope, and how he helps others discover, sustain, or regain hope.  I invite...

Send us Fan Mail In my continued searching for deeper understanding about hope I come across many excellent thoughts from a wide variety of sources.  Recently I read a poem by Jan Richardson from the book, "The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief."  I hope you'll join me as I read this poem and speak to some of the perspectives she brings. Support the show If tod...

Send us Fan Mail Please forgive this as a rebroadcast of a previous episode from 2023.  I felt it would be a good idea to reach back and revisit foundational information on the concept of hope.  In this episode I offer an explanation of what hope is and the various stages we journey through as we go from hope sparked to hope sensed, and finally hope seen. Over the past two years of this podcast I&...

Send us Fan Mail A question that often comes up is whether something is according to God's will.  It is certainly a good idea to seek God's will in everything.  However, sometimes we might feel that it is difficult to determine exactly what God's will is.  And sometimes a person might hesitate in making a decision for fear of going against God's will.   In this episode I look a...

Send us Fan Mail As the title states, it is easy to draw conclusions based on how something or someone looks.  An initial look at my guest Bradley McGlothlin may cause some to outright reject him as a hopeless case and certainly someone who we would not be able to help in their journey to hope.  But thankfully someone came into Bradley's life at the moment that was right and guided him to tru...

Send us Fan Mail One of the wonderful things about being a fellow believer in our Lord is the life-time relationships we enjoy.  Such is the case with my guest in this episode.  I have a conversation with Dr. Bill Allen.  Bill and I have known each other since 1980 when I was a young NCO in the Air Force stationed at Lackland Air Force Base.  Bill was our pulpit minister at the Lackland Terrace Ch...

Send us Fan Mail All of us have faced challenges to our hope, perhaps even to our life.  And as we've overcome those challenges we now are in a position where we can help others.  It is one of the best ways to strengthen our own hope.   In this episode I give some insights into how we can help others when their hope is challenged.  We may not have all the answers, but we can be there. Support...

Send us Fan Mail In this series of discussions we've looked at Satan's overal strategies of trying to prevent us from being a child of God, or to weaken or destroy our faith and influence.  In doing so, he seeks to seperate us from God therefor hurting God.  We also stated that he uses a variety of tactics to achieve these strategies.  We've looked at three primary tactics, pride, d...

Send us Fan Mail Satan employs three foundational tactics to cause us to sin and seperate us from God.  We've looked at two of these, pride and deception.  In this episode I look at how Satan uses doubt as the third element of the triad of tactics. We'll look at what doubt is and how Satan knows that if he can cause us to doubt then we are well on our way to rejecting our Lord. We'l...

Send us Fan Mail Someone once said that a half-truth is a whole lie.  We hear a lot of lies and half-truths, especially when it comes to spiritual things. In this episode I continue to look at how Satan attacks us with various tactics.  When he does, he is robbing us of true and lasting hope.  I'm looking at how Satan uses deception to get us to believe lies and half-truths. Support the show...

Send us Fan Mail One of my favorite hymns is, “My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less.”  This hymn was written by Edward Mote in 1834.  It is a joyful hymn expressing how our true and lasting hope is found in our Lord, Jesus the Christ.  In this episode I’m speaking with Mike Wison, Dean of Online Studies for the Sunset International Bible Institute.  Mike and I speak to the concept of how we find true...

Send us Fan Mail Does your life seem to be up and down, inside and out?  Well, you are not experiencing something all by yourself.  All of us have experienced life, as my guest describes it, as living on a pogo stick.  It goes up and down and doesn’t seem to be moving forward very much.  And sometimes it feels like we loose balance and fall off. All of us face challenges to hope.  One major challe...

Send us Fan Mail One of the most difficult issues facing many families, not only in our culture, but in other’s as well is the issue of transgenderism.  It has the potential and has all too often ripped apart the fabric of families. As a minimum it adds stress to the development of a person and their continued relationships.  It also has the effect of causing a sense of hopelessness for families a...

Send us Fan Mail All of us express pride in some way.  Sometimes this is not a harmful or bad thing.  But pride can also be harmful.   In this episode I continue talking about how Satan uses various tactics to seperate us from God by causing us to sin.  A common way he does this is through our pride.  We must be careful to not let our focus on self come between us and God. We will look at what pri...

Send us Fan Mail Sometimes challenges to our hope discourage us from continuing to try.  Sometimes they even interfere with our desire to find and do God's will.   As we face these challenges to our hope, we must remember that the source of our challenges is not our Lord, rather it is Satan.    In this episode I want to speak about three strategies Satan uses against us and how we can stand s...

Send us Fan Mail It is a wonderful thing when we discover the passion for our life.  So many times folks will flounder around looking for purpose and meaning in their life.  This is not so with Bill and Kathy Hardy.  They not only discovered their purpose and meaning in their life, they are living it every day.   Bill and Kathy are part of a ministry called the "Gospel Sharing Ministries.&quo...

Send us Fan Mail We've stated many times in the episodes of this podcast that all of us face challenges to our hope.  Some folks may perhaps be facing a significant challenge for the first time in their life.  Others have faced various challenges and have learned to deal with them as life moves on.  As we do face challenges and learn from them, we usually can't help but look around for o...

Send us Fan Mail The English language, and perhaps other languages as well has many words that have different meanings.  One such word is the word apologetics.  To many folks, the word suggests the idea of apologizing for something we’ve done wrong.  But this word has a much deeper meaning, especially in relation to looking to discover, sustain, or regain hope. In this episode I am speaking with E...

Send us Fan Mail Whenever I’m speaking with someone who is facing challenges to their hope, that they are not alone.  We are together in our journey to hope.  Quite frequently there are those whose environment, situations in life, and their singular efforts can lead to challenges in their hope. In this episode I’m speaking with Clayton Johnson, a gospel preacher for the Carbon Valley Church of Chr...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode I am speaking with a young man who was facing a lot in his life that could lead to hopelessness.  It may not have been conscious on his part, but this young man was a seeker.  One thing I know for certain is that the Holy Spirit will always bring the seeker and teacher together.  We may not realize it in the moment.  And we might not even realize it until much late...