Jenga™ and Jesus

Alliteration is a great tool to get people to take notice but in this case putting Jesus and the popular game Jenga™ in the same sentence may do much more.  Because of this, I believe I should make a few things clear. I have not found any scriptures that lead me to believe that Jesus played Jenga™. I do not believe that Jesus has or ever will promote the game Jenga™. I do not believe that following Christ requires the playing of Jenga™. Lastly, and probably most important, just because I am using the name of the popular game Jenga™, doesn’t mean that I am promoting the game Jenga™, nor am I under any obligation to mention the game Jenga™, and I do not receive any money or other benefits from using the name of the popular game Jenga™ over and over again in this blog – but I should!

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I Never Really Looked At It This Way Before

I was signing a copy of my book Blueprint (shameless plug by me). The person I was signing the book for has been a window into a world I will never be able to fully comprehend. He is an African American and I am a white Canadian. As hard as I try I will never be able to fully grasp what he and other people of visible minority groups, especially black American males, have gone through and continue to go through. At best I can be understanding while never, no matter how hard I might try, fully understanding. When I started to personalize the inscription…

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It Seemed Like Nothing

He walked along the trail on a bright summer’s day. He noticed the little pebble wedged between the bottom of his foot and his sandal. It’s no big deal, just an annoyance. He kept walking, changing his gait every-so-often as he shook his foot in an attempt to dislodge the pebble. He never thought of stopping to take off his sandal and get rid of the irritant; that would interrupt his walk, and besides it seemed like nothing. It was quite the sight if you watched from a distance. A full grown man who can easily remove, clean out and put back on his sandal is now taking a few steps then shaking his foot, stumbling a bit, then doing his best to return to a normal gait. Even his normal gait between his stumbling, foot shaking routine had begun to include a slight limp. Still he soldiered on repeating his ritual of limp, shake foot, stumble, limp, shake foot, stumble…

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2020 – The Uncovering of the Illusion of Control

What a year! We have heard it over and over again, “This is the new normal.” We throw it around as if it has a set meaning but the truth is no one really knows what normal was and what the new normal will be. Life was never as predictable as our romanticized memories of the past would lead us to believe. However, in these COVID times when nothing seems to be “normal” the past calls out to us deceiving us into believing that life would be so much better if only things were like they once were.

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