Faith Venture

Are You Lying To Yourself?

July 6, 2026

I picked this bit of research off the Arnold Schwarzenegger Pump Club newsletter:

A few years ago, researchers took a big, nationally representative group of American adults and asked: Are you active enough? Sixty-two percent said yes. Then they strapped motion trackers to those same people and let the devices ride along for a full week. The verdict? Only 9% were hitting the guidelines. And the raw minutes would be funny if they weren’t so familiar. People reported around 324 minutes of moderate activity a week. The devices caught about 45. The participants didn’t miss by a hair. They overshot their own lives by nearly seven to one. The trackers aren’t perfect. But nothing shrinks a gap that size down to a comfortable size. We believe we’re doing more, and we mean it. Same as the kid with the pegs. Same as me while sleep-deprived. There’s a reason we’re wired this way, and it isn’t stupidity. Psychologists describe something like an immune system for the ego. When a fact threatens the picture we hold of ourselves, the mind mounts a defense as automatic as your body fighting off a bug. It blames the timing. It argues with whoever delivered the news. It hunts for the one flattering number and clamps down on it instead. In the moment, it protects you. Over the years, it walls you off from the exact truth you needed most.

How much physical movement do you really get in a day?

How much Bible study, spiritual reading, other reading do you really do in a day? Wait. Are you reading or just have the book open?

Are you really focused on God and others as you “pray?” Or does your mind drift as a leaf in a stream?

How much service work to you actually do versus what you tell yourself you do?

We are half through this year. Is it time to take a true evaluation of this year? No, really. Where can I pick up even just one new activity to move forward?

Posted in Disciplines, Habits | Leave a Comment »

Freedom

July 4, 2026

I traditionally write about freedom and suggest reading (hopefully rereading) the actual Declaration of Independence on July 4. I also suggest reading The Federalist Papers. It helps to stay grounded.

This year, I saw this from Seth Godin. Given one of my annoyances is provoked by comments that imply freedom means lack of responsibility, I love his thought.

Freedom is responsibility with a sexier name.

250 years in, democracy still matters. Click to upvote the ones that resonate and please share.

Posted in Freedom, responsibility | Leave a Comment »

Two Types of Disagreeable

July 3, 2026

Some people dominate at meeting. We can acquiesce and get out. We can risk an argument.

Some people dominate by disagreeing with every suggestion.

Success comes through the leader who draws a variety of opinions assembling a simmering stew melding flavors—and ideas.

Posted in Leadership | Leave a Comment »

Anyone Can Draw Attention To Themselves

July 2, 2026

Our pastor recently taught from the story where Jesus is invited to dinner by a prominent Pharisee. As all the guests are arranged around the table, a woman enters the area, kneels at the feet of Jesus, wets his feet with her tears, wipe his feet with her hair, then massages them with expensive oil.

The story often focuses on the woman. Let’s take a broader look at the scene.

The story does not take place in someone’s home. This is a desert climate. These dinners at this level of society were set up in a courtyard facing the street. The scene was arranged with care such that everyone in the village would walk past to gawk. The importance of the dinner guests reflected on the importance of the host.

Jesus was displayed as a sign of the importance of the Pharisee. We know who was designated as the most important person in the story by how Jesus was treated.

The Pharisee was upset that his carefully staged dinner party was upstaged. He complained about the woman’s actions. Jesus, remarking on the expected hospitality of the culture, reprimanded him by noting that the host neither washed his feet nor anointed him with oil.

The Pharisee staged an event designed to draw attention to himself. Instead, the woman drew attention to Jesus.

I wonder how often we stage scenes designed to draw attention to ourselves? It could be the temper tantrum of a two-year-old (or an adult acting out like one). It could be interrupting a conversation with a cutting remark.

Better are those who listen and connect with others.

Posted in Attitude, Humility | Leave a Comment »

Feelings of Loss

July 1, 2026

I suppose there’s a cosmic justice. I’ve been leading grief support groups for some time. This meant learning the experiences of grief in order to guide others.

Then it strikes home.

Around the turn of the century, I changed careers into trade magazine media then quickly adapted into blogging (and podcasting and the like). The early 00’s era witnessed a number of Silicon Valley tech bloggers. I was Midwestern Industrial tech, so orders of magnitude smaller market than the people who became my remote mentors.

One passed away far too soon last week. I read Om Malik’s work for decades. He was an innovator, thoughtful, generous. I’m still digesting the news.

I became involved with an association of suppliers of industrial software about the same time. I had work with that software in a previous career. I devoted hours of time and effort as part of the organization. The organization grew vibrant and inevitably diminished. Some of the supporting companies went out of business. Others lost interest in supporting an industry association. Today news came that the association closed. Another slice of my life gone.

It’s not the same as losing family or friends. But today I feel a bit at a loss.

Posted in emotions | Leave a Comment »

Work For Understanding

June 30, 2026

Sometimes the answer came too quickly.

Maybe it was to a math problem.

But I didn’t think it through.

I didn’t understand the process. The relationships of the factors.

I read a difficult story from Jesus. Instead of thinking it through, I grab an answer.

The test…

Can I explain it to someone?

Put a little work into understanding.

Posted in Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Antifragile

June 29, 2026

When I was a kid, I puzzled over the predominant attitude I felt in my rural village—fear of communism. Some of the farmers expected a Soviet invasion. Many church-goers lived in fear of atheist communists wiping out the church.

I was perhaps ten and ignorant (some things have failed to improve with age), but I remember wondering why we felt our beliefs and way of life to be so fragile.

Nassim Taleb coined a term “antifragile.” Fragile things break when confronted with stress. Antifragile ones grow stronger.

Children grow stronger into adulthood through the stresses of living.

Our ideas and beliefs should grow stronger and more resilient through confronting new ideas and challenges.

It’s OK to confront change and test our wings like the emergent butterfly that must beat its new wings against the cocoon in order to get the strength to fly. Or as I will be leaving my office after posting this thought to see if I can lift 6,000 lbs. of dumbbells 20 lbs. at a time and add strength to my body. Or thinking this through to add strength to my mind. Or spending 20 minutes in silence strengthening my spirit.

Push against the constraint. Become antifragile.

Posted in Wisdom | Leave a Comment »

Human or Product?

June 26, 2026

I have spent much of this week at a trade show with about 1,000 exhibits and maybe 50,000 of my closest friends all about industrial automation, robotics, and the like. Rich Dixon brought this thought from Pope Leo to mind this week, which seemed appropriate.

When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, people are tempted to see themselves as products to be optimized rather than persons called to relationship and communion.

I hope by now we all realize that when we use social media we are the product. Do not think for even a second that the developers of those tools think of us as humans. We are products served to advertisers who write huge checks to fill the pockets of billionaires.

Let us consider an even more intimate level. How are we treating other human beings with whom we interact?

Do we treat others in even our most mundane projects as tools to be manipulated or as fellow humans with whom we work together?

When we talk with others are we really talking at objects or with someone with whom to seek understanding?

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Posted in Attitude, Ethics | Leave a Comment »

Only Love

June 25, 2026

“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”— Claude Monet

Does Jesus also confuse us this way?

We dissect every word, phrase, action. We wonder why the stories about Samaritans. Who were they, anyway?

We complicate everything. Every thought. We complicate so much that we miss the point.

Like Monet said, “It is simply necessary to love.”

Posted in Love, simplicity | Leave a Comment »

Smiling Faces, Tell Lies

June 24, 2026

I pondered yesterday about plastic love. Plastic smiles.

“Smiling Faces Sometimes,” a pop song from 1971 told it—Smiling faces, tell lies…

A young man told me when I was also a young man that everyone has a mask. He endeavored at every meeting to remove the other’s mask.

I wondered if our smiles were only a plastic ornament when we greet someone.

What if our smiles, rather than superficial, attempt to mask deeper emotions? Contempt? Despair? Anxiety? Insecurity?

The song continued—The eyes tell the truth.

I’m not so cynical as to think everyone I meet is masking something. I do think that every person needs the respect of our focus and attention. And those times we sense something deeper, perhaps a kind word will work a miracle.

Perhaps we also need to pay attention to our own smiling faces. What are we masking that must be dealt with?

Posted in Attitude, Compassion, emotions | Leave a Comment »