When One Door Closes

When One Door Closes

15 Apr , 2021 No Comments

The phrase “When one door closes, another opens” has become commonplace in our conversations whenever we experience life change. Many even think it’s a verse in the Bible. We often tweak it to say that “When God closes a door, He opens another.” It’s not actually in the Bible and as far as I can tell the earliest reference to this idea is from Miguel de Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote. Published in 1605, Cervantes wrote: “When one door is shut another is opened.”

Today most people attribute this phrase to Alexander Graham Bell. What we often miss when we quote this idea from Bell is that it was only the first part of his sentence. In 1935, after his passing, Bell was quoted in The Winona Times as saying:

“When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”

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Good Things Happen to Other People

07 Apr , 2021 No Comments

Do you ever have that feeling that good things only happen to other people? Your friends are the ones who take the cool vacations, your coworkers are the ones who get promoted, your neighbors seem to be getting new stuff all the time?

Much can be said about finding contentment in spite of all that, but have you ever noticed that we often read the Bible the same way? Good things happen to people in the Bible, not to us. Moses parts the sea, David conquers Goliath, Solomon gets to be the rich king, and Peter walks on water. Without realizing it, we can often read things and turn the whole story into a bit of a fairytale since nothing like that happens to us.

Consider the person of Abraham in the Old Testament. Along with Moses, he’s a big deal. Even today he is highly esteemed by Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. Abraham had his own lucky moment through an unbelievable promise God gave to him. It is repeated often in the text, but we first find it in Genesis chapter twelve.

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Your King is Coming (Easter Thoughts)

Your King is Coming (Easter Thoughts)

31 Mar , 2021 No Comments

This is the week we celebrate all the events leading up to Easter Sunday. It involves what is known as the “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem with Palm Sunday last weekend. Then we have Good Friday in a couple of days followed by Easter Sunday.

Let’s start with the events we celebrate last weekend. Here’s the reaction Jesus got coming into Jerusalem (take note that He was riding a donkey).

Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!  Blessings on the coming Kingdom of our ancestor David! Praise God in highest heaven!” (Mark 11:9-10)

Yet if you know the story, it won’t be long until this same crowd is chanting “crucify him!” (Mark 15:9-15). Which is confusing. How do we get such a swing in response in a matter of days?

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2021 Reading List – 1/4

2021 Reading List – 1/4

26 Mar , 2021 No Comments

It’s 2021 baby! We’re just about a fourth of the way through the new year and the world feels like it’s starting to come back to life. It finally feels as if more people are getting the vaccine than are getting Covid and we can start figuring out how to exist together again.

Here are the books I’ve read since January of 2021 with my rating for them (5 being the best) along with a brief review. Any book without a number rating has been given to me by the author or publisher.

In addition to this list, you might also check out:

Click on any of the titles below to get to a link to buy it. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I may earn commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.com).

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Life Axioms – Part 2

19 Mar , 2021 No Comments

Click here to see all posts in this series.

Earlier this year I read an entertaining book called “Living with a Seal” by Jesse Itzler where he literally hires a Navy Seal to privately train (and live with) him for a month. It’s a hilarious read to be sure. There’s an offhanded comment in the book about how Jesse only eats fruit till noon. I had never heard of this concept and was intrigued when I read it. He said he got it from a book he read almost three decades before.

That book is called “Fit for Life” by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. Of course, I then had to read that book as well (I love it when good books connect me to other good books!). The book is about nutrition and specifically how your body processes the food you eat. There’s a number of interesting concepts in the book (I don’t really follow the other ones) but the primary one is about only eating fruit in the morning. I decided to try it myself and this has since become an axiom I live by.

Life Axiom: Only eat fruit till noon.

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Life Axioms – Part 1

10 Mar , 2021 No Comments

I’m going to begin a new blog series on something I’ve been thinking about lately. We all have ideas that shape how we act and why. I’ve been trying to recognize what those are for me and put words to them. Once you recognize what they are in your life, you can decide if you like them as is or if they need to be refined.

I’m still working on my list, but I think they’ll make for an interesting blog series. These are in no particular order, and I’m not even sure how many I’ll ultimately have. Without further ado, here’s one for you.

Life Axiom: Talk to people in your home only when you can see them.

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