One of our favorite sayings at Rooted: “nothing is ironic.” In early December my daily Bible reading had me in Psalm. When I got to Psalm I remember sighing a little and thought about skipping it. I was ready to get to Isaiah and Jeremiah because I love those books but I stayed on course. Little did I know at the time but God had me right where I needed to be. #Healwaysknows #nothingisironic Between December 25th and January 14th I walked through an extremely difficult season. Sickness had afflicted many in my family, my mother was battling pneumonia in the hospital, and words were spoken that know one ever…

Are we really being obedient to God? Think about it…is it lip service or a genuine giving up of our “self” when we serve and obey God? When our service to God is done only for our own self interest or to be seen…God knows. We can be “actively” serving God  but not have our hearts given over to Him. It is all about what’s going on inside of us! Ask Him to search your heart daily, we can’t hide from Him who knows and sees All.  Serving half heartedly as a Christian will NOT allow us to receive the full benefit of God’s plans for us. We are to…

Gossip.  It’s our human nature.  We crave little morsels of tales of scandal and deceit.  And we love hearing the juicy details about someone else’s failures. You may already be saying to yourself….”what? Not me! I am a Christian”  But friends, Christians are not immune to gossip.  The workplace and church are two of the largest platforms for gossip in my opinion.  Work cultures give way to competition.  And jealousy often breeds contentment even in the church.  In the Hebrew gossip is defined as revealing the secrets of others and a gossiper is one who goes about as a talebearer.  In the moment, gossip may seem justified and it may…

Does respect, humility, and servanthood characterize your attitude tone toward God and others?  Attitude determines so much as a Christian leader. If your attitude is in the hole, start looking up to God for a mind and heart check.  God will pull you out of your hole through the power of the Holy Spirit, but you have to go to Him. To build an attitude that reflects Christian character we need to do several things while at work – it does take action!! 1. We need to RESPECT God along with our teams. 2. Be HUMBLE to His Word and believe that each person has value. 3. Let the EGO…

A few weeks ago as I prepared to give the year in review with my department, I reflected beyond just the traditional business accomplishments and I started writing down the things we had learned.  2021 was quite a journey. For sure, we learned a lot about working together as a team when the days and weeks were extremely challenging. 2021 taught us to be agile and adaptive because even our best thought out plans and roadmaps often changed. We can pivot fast! But the biggest lesson from 2021 for me at least came from the fact that we lost some team members along the way. “Lord, remind me how brief…

The story of Elisha taking over as Elijah’s successor is one to talk about from 2 Kings. Elijah was a great and famous prophet for God. He was used by God to perform many miracles and represented God in mighty ways. He predicted the beginning and end of a three year drought among many other amazing things. Elijah was going to be taken away by the Lord and Elisha was able to ask him for something before this happened. …Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me what I can do for you before I am taken away.”  Elisha replied, “Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit and become…

One of my fondest childhood memories was spending time with my great grandfather. We called him Pap. In the summer when I was visiting my grandparents I’d walk the little mountain road up to Pap and Granny’s house. Granny would make me a grilled cheese sandwich any time of day on her woodstove. Pap, after a day of working his little farm, loved to sit on his back porch and talk about life, his experiences, and of course everything about me. Nothing brought Pap greater joy than to just be with his family, sitting on that porch, talking, and listening. “My heart has heard you say, ‘Come and talk with…

Is God in our hearts completely? He being total love and truth within…you would think we would speak from love and truth and hurtful words would not come past our lips. Well…we will speak what is in our hearts. Look what Jesus says… “But the words you speak come from the heart – that’s what defiles you.”  Matthew 15:18 If we speak words that hurt others, is God nestled completely in our hearts?  Let me define what speaking words of hurt means – yelling at someone in anger, whispering lies, slandering, bullying, texting about others (yup that counts too), or talking behind someone’s back. Ponder in prayer this above question…

Happy Monday!! Ignore the rain, ignore how tired you feel, ignore your current circumstances, and know that God is with you and loves you today and everyday!! His LOVE covers us through anything and everything!! If you get a chance read Ephesians 3:14-21 to start off your work week and New Year! This is a prayer from Paul about God’s immeasurable and inexhaustible love. Thank you Jesus!  “Because of Christ and our faith in Him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence.” Eph 3:12 We have all the fullness of God available to us – so go to Him and pray. God will empower us with inner…