My old training as a life coach came in useful. I gave my son and his partner an exercise. I had them begin defining and articulating their Non-Negotiable Core Values.
Non-Negotiable Core Values are the things in your life that you will fight and die over. Beliefs about yourself, your family & friends, and your world that you will not compromise on under any circumstances.
Read more "You will not compromise"One of the more interesting things that has come out of my relationship so far is the realization that I’m the artsy fartsy one in the relationship. When I told my ex-wife that via text she responded “you’ve always been the artsy fartsy one.”
Read more "I Love That About Myself"I realized that my Baptist/Bible Church theology was too narrow. I watched God use Lutheran missionaries just as much as he used me. God spoke through my Evangelical Free friends and my Methodist coworkers. There was room for all of us underneath the canopy of God’s love yet we often bickered over our differences instead of celebrating the fact that God’s love went beyond those differences.
Read more "上帝"I’ve had a lot of great pastors in my life. Three of them have published books and another should have. Most of them have spoken at leadership seminars for other pastors. However, none of them taught me more about God’s love than Michael Subialdea… and Michael did it without ever saying a word to me.
Read more "Restless"I don’t remember much of our time together, other than it feeling very cold and sterile in his office. However, he punched through my darkness with one question: “Dallas, do you think Jesus would be surprised if he walked into your bedroom and you were wearing women’s clothing?”
I relaxed internally as it hit me that an Omnipotent God wasn’t shocked or surprised. He knew. I could tell him all about “it” and he would listen because he already knew about “it”.
Read more "Tolerant"There isn’t a timeline to my jumbled childhood memories of spirituality. It’s a mosaic of wooden pews, Catholic statues, memorized prayers, Methodist hymnals, and religion classes, so that’s how you’ll have to read it.
Read more "Obligation"While most of us weren’t detoxing from a substance, we were all detoxing from our cell phones.
Read more "Be Hear"I was sitting in my car, wearing my corrective lenses for colorblindness that double as sunglasses. My kids had just gone inside and I let go as soon as the door to my old house closed. I sobbed. Tears ran down my face as I stared at the cows in the pasture. It had been […]
Read more "How Big an Impact"When I tell people I lived in China, they usually follow up with the question, “What was that like?” How do you sum up two years in another country? You simply can’t reduce a place like China to a one sentence answer. There is so much beautiful subtlety to their culture. There is so much […]
Read more "Beautiful Subtlety"I lived in Asia from 2001-2003. Just like in last week’s email/blog post, I lived in a country that didn’t allow missionaries. It’s the same country from last week… the one that we enjoy eating their food off of buffet lines. In my second year there I joined my wife on staff at an International […]
Read more "In the Middle of the Epidemic"
Dallas Begnaud 