ODJ: not about me
How much money does a person have to make to be a success? How many awards must an individual receive in order to be deemed successful? According to New York Times columnist David Brooks, even if you achieve Hall of Fame success status like some great athletes, it might not be enough. Brooks said some athletes simply can’t see past themselves:Self-preoccupied people have trouble see
ODJ: restored
Austin Hatch survived two plane crashes before his 20th birthday! In 2003, a private plane went down, killing his mother and siblings. In 2011, another small plane crashed, and he lost his father and stepmother. After this second tragedy, Austin was in a coma for 2 months.Only a week before the 2011 crash, Austin had agreed to play basketball for a large university. Hatch’s docto
ODJ: leading example
The pastor of a megachurch quit providing content through social media—declaring his return to his original calling of pastoring his local church. He felt that the distraction of his popular online communications were detracting from His primary calling. Pastors and all of us struggle at times with our priorities.The Scriptures reveal the importance of testing the teaching and priorities of
ODJ: tests and gifts
Those quirky internet tests can be fun to take. Answer a few questions, and you learn which superhero or character from a popular film you best resemble, or which country best fits your personality. People take these tests and then post on social media: “I got Batman!” “I’m Napoleon!” “I should live in Shangri-La!”Sometimes we treat spiritual gifts in the
ODJ: rejection and success
My colleagues and I were eating dinner with an author when she posed this question: “What do you like least about your job?” I had been working in publishing for several years, and instantly I knew my answer. “I don’t like crushing people’s dreams,” I said. “I don’t like telling them that their manuscript ‘doesn’t meet our needs.’
ODJ: nothing lasts forever
A friend wrote, “As I reflect on the past four semesters of student life, so many things have changed . . . It is scary, really scary. Nothing lasts forever . . . Things just changed without much notification or maybe I just wasn’t aware.”Indeed, many things can be altered in 2 years, like a career change, newfound friendship, illness, death—you name it. Life altering exp
ODJ: the fear of Easter
Growing up, Easter Sunday was always a day of joy and celebration. The rich worship at church and wonderful feast at home made for one happy day. But recently I’ve been reflecting on the fact that Resurrection Sunday once elicited a very different emotion: fear.When the angel of the Lord appeared at the tomb, the guards were overcome by fear and “fell into a dead faint”
ODJ: balance
In Surprised by Hope, N. T. Wright points out the imbalance of spending 40 days observing Lent while spending one day celebrating Easter. He suggests, “If Lent is a time to give things up, Easter ought to be a time to take things up.”Wright then proposes that the “forty days of Easter season, until the ascension, ought to be a time to balance out Lent by . . . some new task or ve
ODJ: home with Jesus
Marcus was a convicted criminal on death row. He had previously apologised to the family of the teenager he raped and murdered. Now, just before he was executed by lethal injection, he said, “I’m going home to be with Jesus.” Apparently, during his time in prison he had received Jesus as his Saviour. His words remind me of a certain criminal who died next to Jesus 2,000 years ag