The Thing God Says, “Don’t Touch,” Even If You Can Reach It

Tobias, our cat, is obsessed with the front yard. Every day, he’s meowing at the door like he pays the mortgage.So when I saw this couple online who filled a kiddie pool with real sod and put it inside for their cat… I thought: genius. 

The other day at a doctor’s appointment, my doctor asked if I was still waking up early for work. I told him I was, and he mentioned that he’d been trying to stay consistent with early morning workouts himself. He said thinking about someone else who gets up early helped him stick with it.I didn’t expect that. I hadn’t said anything to inspire him... I was just doing what I always do. But it reminded me that our daily choices speak, even when we’re not saying a word.

If I had a few million dollars lying around (and I don’t), I know exactly what I’d buy: a 54-pound rock from Mars.No, seriously. It’s going up for auction this week in New York.

A friend of mine recently started working out because she wanted to change how she looked. But after a few weeks, she wasn’t seeing big results... at least not on the outside.She told me it was hard at first, but everything shifted when she stopped focusing so much on the mirror and started paying attention to how she felt.

When I was growing up, my dog Callie was my best friend. You never forget the pets that loved you like that. So when I heard Nicole’s story, I just about cried.

There are moments in life that leave you wondering... Does God still care about me? I've had those thoughts too. Maybe you’re walking through something right now that feels heavy, and you're wondering if God still sees you, if He still hears your prayers.

When someone offends me, I usually want to talk about it. And by talk, I mean vent. To someone else. About that person.I know that’s not the right way to handle it... but it’s just the habit I fall into.But reading the book of Job recently gave me a better picture.

Sometimes I say things to encourage my kids... and then I realize I need to hear them too.

Baseball season and summer just go together, don’t they? The sounds, the snacks, and all the fun little traditions, like sometimes at smaller community games when they let everybody run the bases after the game.I saw this sweet story the other day about a woman named Gabrielle who went to a game with her 85-year-old grandpa. And when it came time to run the bases, he stood up and said, “I’m doing it.”

There’s something about kids that makes them want to grab anything within reach... especially when it’s not theirs. When our boys were little, I had to start every store visit with the same phrase: Don’t touch it. It doesn’t belong to you.I thought about that recently when I read Romans 12:19: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” And it struck me: God’s saying the same thing to us that I used to say to my kids.