A Holy Pursuit

Reading isn't one of Jordan's hobbies, so I'm going to try and keep this short. Today is my big brother's 26th birthday. I've been blessed enough to know him 24 1/2 of those years. Ever since I can remember he's been one of my best friends.  We did everything together from building forts, swinging on our swingset (my favorite was the butterfly... If you don't know what that is, you really missed out), and playing some very realistic versions of "Cowboys and Indians". Those were the good days.  Then mom entered us in a speech class together. We both pretty much hated that together, but we got through it. As a result, I found something I really enjoyed, and Jordan found something he really did not enjoy.  Jordan has been one of the most influential people to teach me the value of hard work. We used to go play back in the woods with our cousins (who had a couple of 4-wheelers) and every evening when we would have to walk back ho...

I love taking my puppy for walks, and he probably loves it even more than I. Recently, we have started incorporating some jogging into our morning walks. Some day Riggins will be my running partner, so I thought I should start training him in that direction. Something I noticed early on in our training was that when he was running next to me and not trying to bite the leash, or chase something, I would praise him and tell him what a good puppy he was and he would speed up a little, bouncing along happily. As we jogged along together, that scenario happened again and again. Riggins would be running alongside me very well, so I would praise him and he would happily speed up a little, as he expressed his pleasure in my approval. His reaction got me thinking about the effect of praise in our lives. This brought three things to mind: 1) The book of Psalms is chock-full of examples of the psalmist praising the Lord. It is important in our Christian walk to not only express our...