Most people in recovery would agree that a strong intimate relationship with God is important for overcoming addiction; however, many of the men I’ve worked with struggle with this.  This is often because they have a distorted image of God.  If your image of God leads you to fear him or be angry with him, it will be very difficult to trust him....

How can anyone know God? How can we plumb the depths or reach the heights of the Infinite? How do we respond to statements like, “See, God is great beyond our knowledge, the number of his years past searching out,” (Job 36:26)? To me, these types of questions and ideas can seem like the start of an intellectual exercise through which one can fi...

We were reminded on a recent Sunday of one of the greatest commandments from the Gospel of Mark: “You shall love the Lord your God with all you heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Men, this is difficult to truly embrace.  When you think about it realistically, there are so many things and people that w...

Folks that have had the fortune to find themselves sitting under the shade tree at my family’s farm might have a hard time explaining to those who haven’t what takes place there.  For those who have, they always come back. People I sat with as a child, now bring their grandkids there.  Out of state grandkids bring their grandparents (who are...

What is wonder? For me, it is the mystical essence, the underlying beauty of something grounded in the physical reality. It is a quality that transcends the five senses, and inspires an awe that cannot be owned. Wonder is not quantifiable, nor can it be reduced into rational components, as it transcends reason. It always inspires the imagination, a...

When I was laid off in 2009 it was devastating. My ego was severely bruised. I went from making a six-figure income at a prestigious law firm to zero in the blink of an eye. I worried about how my wife and I were going to raise two children and pay our mortgage. The next day my wife was off to work and even my children had things to do. They wen...

“You’re an idealist, and that’s a good thing, but an idealist is always suffering.”  A Priest whom I saw for spiritual direction in college once said this to me as we walked around campus together.  It was a profound moment for me because he articulated so simply and accurately what was so obvious from my experience, but what I could not ...

I enjoy history, and I am finding Graham Allison’s book, Destined For War, to be a decent read. The book presents a look into the power struggles between established and rising world powers from present day back to the Peloponnesian War. Allison focuses on these confrontations through consideration of Thucydides’s Trap, which is waiting to ensn...

Bishop Robert Barron and non-Catholic apologist William Lane Craig recently sat down with an audience to talk about apologetics, evangelization and the secular culture’s latest effort to eliminate faith from the culture. The event was recorded and provides an extremely valuable opportunity to hear the thoughts and advice of two of the most gifted...

When facing the difficulties of secular culture, we have two major options: to accommodate the culture or to hold fast to the truth. I think we now have enough evidence to certify that the first option leads to death. Literally, Christian churches are dying out because they have lost their faith and their commitment to the truth. When we as ind...