ODB: What Love Is

Years ago I asked a young man who was engaged to be married, “How do you know that you love her?” It was a loaded question, intended to help him look at his heart’s motives for the upcoming marriage. After several thoughtful moments, he responded, “I know I love her because I want to spend the rest of my life making her happy.”We discussed what that meant—and the price tag attached to

ODJ: work ethics

Every October the office where I work becomes extremely quiet. The leaders are away attending annual meetings in another country. So those of us who are left behind say to each other with a wink, “When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”
Jokes aside, when our bosses aren’t watching, do we continue to do our job well? The apostle Paul admonishes believers to work primarily for the Lor

ODB: Music And Megaphone

Christopher Locke buys old trumpets, trombones, and French horns and transforms them into acoustic amplifiers for iPhones and iPads. His creations are modeled on the trumpetlike speakers used in the first phonographs during the late 1800s. Music played through Christopher’s AnalogTelePhonographers has a “louder, cleaner, richer, deeper sound” than what is heard from the small speakers in the

ODJ: doing good

Edward Kimball was a Sunday school teacher determined to win his class to Christ. A young Dwight Moody would fall asleep during his lessons, but Kimball remained resolute and even met Moody at the shoe shop where he worked and urged him to give his life to Christ. Kimball left the shop thinking he’d failed miserably, but because of that encounter, Dwight Lyman Moody did commit his life to Christ

ODB: Shadowed

Someone was shadowing me. In a darkened hallway, I turned the corner to go up a flight of stairs and was alarmed by what I saw, stopping dead in my tracks. It happened again a few days later. I came around the back of a favorite coffee shop and saw the large shape of a person coming at me. Both incidents ended with a smile, however. I’d been frightened by my own shadow!The prophet Jeremiah talke

ODJ: smelling good

Quite a number of my friends wear fragrances. But before long, the fragrance wears off and they have to spray on more to continue to smell good!
What happens between two important dates in your life determines whether your name will be an alluring fragrance or a repulsive stench. The dates are your birth, when your parents named you, and your death, when your name will appear on a death certi

ODB: Working For The Wind

Howard Levitt lost his $200,000 Ferrari on a flooded Toronto highway. He had driven into what seemed like a puddle before realizing that the water was much deeper and rising quickly. When the water reached the Ferrari’s fenders, its 450-horsepower engine seized. Thankfully he was able to escape the car and get to high ground.Howard’s soggy sports car reminds me of Solomon’s observation that

ODJ: the big “i”

I recently attended a meeting of leaders that could have become contentious and disastrous. It could have resulted in more fireworks than Chinese New Year! Thankfully, however, difficult issues were addressed with honesty and transparency. The big “I”—integrity—led individuals to speak words of truth, love and forgiveness.
Micah would have been pleased.
Possess

ODB: New To The Family

While on a ministry trip with a Christian high school chorale to Jamaica, we witnessed an illustration of God’s love in action. On the day we visited an orphanage for disabled children and teens, we learned that Donald, one of the boys our kids had interacted with—a teen with cerebral palsy—was going to be adopted.When the adopting couple arrived at the “base” where we were staying, it w