When I was younger my father took me skiing in Colorado every year.  One year he wore snow boots that were too small for him, and he developed ingrown toenails.  He had to have some procedures on his toes, and his toenails on his big toes never looked the same.  He also said it was extremely painful.  So basically I grew up with a fear of ingrown toenails.  Ever since, I’ve always been careful about my shoe sizes and about trimming my toenails.  But even with this fear and preventative efforts, I’ve had a couple times where I’ve had to get the nail tools and dig out the side of my big toenail.  If any of you have had to do that, you know it’s not fun.     The other morning I woke up about 5:30 to take my dogs out.   As I started to walk I felt the worst ingrown toenail pain I have ever felt.   The pain was shooting all through my toe.   This made no sense because I hadn’t done anything recently to cause it, but there it ...

Hello everyone and let me start this message by thanking those of you who have reached out to me about previous messages.  I’ve been thinking about it because five people reached out to me over the past week, and that really blessed me.  So thank you all for reading or listening to these messages, and I always love to hear your feedback.  If these messages have helped you in any way, please consider sharing them or forwarding them on to your friends and loved ones. I really don’t consider myself an expert in any of the matters we discuss here (except maybe healing) but, when approaching a topic, one question I ask myself is whether I can help someone.  Of course, I always want to get my topics from God, but I really want the details I share to be practical and helpful to your daily lives.  Even if I’m not an expert on something, if I think I can be God’s instrument to help you, then I guess I should talk about it. Today we are going to talk about marriage, a...

Today I’m going to talk about dealing with difficult people, and let me start by making three points.  First, we all have to deal with difficult people.  Second, sometimes we are the difficult people that others must deal with.  Third, as Christians we are called to deal with other people on a higher level, if you will, and we must always keep that in mind.  I think if we can recognize those three truths, and start to live by them, it will greatly help us in our interactions with others. Let me briefly tell you some of my personal history and why I think about this subject so much.  I dedicated my life to Christ after my second year of law school, and I was ready to quit law school and go full time in the ministry.  But as I prayed about it I really felt like God wanted me to finish law school, so that’s what I did.  I had no intention of practicing law.  My father had a small church back home, and I wanted to help him expand his ministry. ...