Opinions

Legendary actor and singer, the late Burl Ives, was the trusted voice in the 115-year-old folktale, “The Little Engine That Could,” about optimism and hard work, and a blue train that was motivated by saying, “I think I can.”

What does it mean to set your heart on something? And I’m not talking about something as simple as a little crush. I’m talking about the relentless pursuit of something. If you really set your heart on something, it means that you are going to dedicate your time, energy, and passion to making it happen.

Every day, whether here in Mexico or in the U.S., I take a walk. Walking in the morning would be nice, but that’s when I write, and so in the afternoon, I head out to see what the world looks like.

I approached the back door, and there they were: beautiful works of art, basking in the sun.

So, I got a cold. If you catch a cold in the winter, everyone is sympathetic. They tell you to drink hot tea and put on another sweater. A cold in the winter just seems like part of the season, and I can turn the thermostat up and wait it out.

We spoke last week about addictions that involve more people than we could imagine, and we should realize by now that personal problems happen whether one proclaims they are a Christian or not. We live in fleshly bodies with a default nature and its not a surprise that with our carnality having it’s own desires, we have difficulty staying on the straight and narrow. We mentioned that cognitive dissonance is when we know something is wrong and experience guilt from our lack of discipline, but we choose to do it anyway. Remorse is conviction and thankfully our compassionate God has provided the blood of Jesus as the way we can receive forgiveness when we fail to live up to the expectations of His standards.

It was years ago when the children and I went deep into our backyard to pick blackberries. The son asked the question of any child-picking-blackberries. “Why can’t we just eat them now?”