Sam Luce's Blog, page 2

You're Going to be OK

There are few things more difficult and few things more important than being with a family who recently lost someone they love. To be with someone who breathes their last is a trust and a responsibility we have with those we love. It’s a reminder that God issues our first breath and is with us when we breathe our last. I remember visiting a mother in the hospital who had recently received a terminal diagnosis, and she was struggling with fear. Because of the reality of her hope at that moment, I...

Billy Graham Had a Rule so Should You.

In the past year, mega-church pastors have been collapsing one after the other, but they aren’t alone. It’s happening in smaller churches too. While I can’t know what is happening inside their hearts and minds. I do know that sin never occurs in a vacuum. The great Bishop J.C. Ryle once said, “People fall in private, long before they fall in public. The tree falls with a great crash, but the secret decay which accounts for it is often not discovered until it is down on the ground.” If you walk t...

Raising Kids with Resolve

There are two types of people in this world: eat-to-live people and live-to-eat people. Norwegians, in general, and I fall into the eat-to-live category. Italians, on the other hand, are decidedly in the live-to-eat corner. I remember eating with my in-laws for the first time. I remember eating with my in-laws for the first time. Of everything offered to me, I refused nothing. Partly because I wanted to make a good first impression and partly because I couldn’t fully understand what my future in...

On turning 50

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAt fifty, I thought I would have more answers and fewer questions. At fifty, I thought I would cry less and laugh more. Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedAt fifty, I thought Life would get easier as I got olderAt fifty, I thoughtLife would get calmer the more I knewText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedGetting older, aging wellArt, wine, joyGetti...

The Flower by George Herbert

One of poetry's joys is its language's simplicity and compact nature, which seems to compound the emotion within each line. Poetry in our day has fallen out of favor, but if you are on Twitter and Facebook, you know that the emotions on Twitter seem to run hotter. I think that has to do with language restrictions that seem to compress and simultaneously compound the emotion.

Poems say in a few lines what pages of books and hundreds of pages only hint at. In the last few years, I have come to a d...

Top 10 Books of 2024

Each year, my reading list reflects who I am becoming. I believe that God in his providance guides us in our reading. The books we choose and those chosen for us shape us in a particular way. Each year, the books of the Bible I read have a profound impact on me. The books I read beyond the Bible are often prophetic in their guidance and comfort. This year was no different.

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This year in God’s providance I read more novels and non-fiction than I ever had before. I think that younger i...

Relinquishment.

Relinquish By Brenda Flannery

Life rarely turns out like we think. Leadership is not what we assume when we sign up. The goal of success is not accomplishment but relinquishment. We are told that we will gain what we desire if we do certain things. Leadership is about acquisition. The American church has primarily put all its chips in on the American dream, freedom, and success. We measure the wrong things, and we chase the wrong dreams.

“America is in conspicuous need of unselfing.”
Eugene Peters...

The Problem with 90s Purity Culture.

They say that you don’t know what the good ole days are until they are gone. I would say that is true of the 1980s and 1990s. They were the good ole days, and they are gone. Growing up in the good ole days we had real music and fashion that Millinaials took as their own, with no credit to those who created it. I remember seeing a millennial tight-rolling his jeans. I asked him about where he discovered how to do that. He looked at me and, with a straight face, told me he invented it. Wow.

Growin...

A Liturgy for Election Day

Heavenly Father, on this consequential day
Turn toward your people
Hear our prayer

We thank you that all wisdom is yours
We thank you that all power is yours
We thank you that you are slow to anger
And abounding in mercy

We have sinned as a nation
We have sought our own way
Our own solutions
Our own saviors

Forgive us.

We thank you that you are sovereign over all
You give us the leaders we need
Not the leaders we want
Help us to rest in your eternal wisdom

May our hearts be trained to trust
May our love be al...

Marking the Years in the Life of Your Child.

Kids today are growing up too fast and young adults today act like perpetual children. These two statements seem like contradictions, but they are not. Our kids growing up in an information age, in a phone-based childhood, are exposed to more sorrow, information, and entertainment than previous generations experienced in a lifetime. Yet, our adults today are stuck in a failure to launch. Afraid of the world. Afraid to fail. Both are true.

Because of the strength of the cultural tide, Christian k...