Most of us grew up hearing the phrase, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” My friends, wherever that phrase came from, it is far from reality. The pain that words can cause is as deep as the deepest sea! Words can hurt and they can hurt deeply.

Think of how many conflicts you either have been a part of or have seen others engage in that were all about the words that were spoken. Wars have been started over words. People have been killed or physically hurt because of words. To say, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is simply not true.

Try as you may, you cannot avoid conflict in relationships. It is a natural part of our human existence. As such, you need to figure out how best to deal with it rather than avoid it.

When all you do is try to avoid conflict in a relationship, you are only allowing it to get worst. The longer you wait or the harder you try to avoid it, the worse the conflict will become.

The Lenten season serves to remind us of many things, including our humanity (really, our mortality!) and our dependence on God. For most of us though, we have the tendency to first rely on our humanity and only turn to God when we have exhausted our human options.

The story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness (Matt.4: Lk.4) is a good reminder to us that if we are going to have the victory over any temptation, we must learn to rely on God more than we rely on our own strength and resources.

Well, it’s that time again when we start thinking about what we are either going to give up or add to our lives for the next 40 days. For many, the Lenten season is a time of reflection and making life adjustments.

In thinking about the Lenten season, two words come to mind: grace and judgment. These two words are central to this season. Because amazing grace was shown to us through the suffering and death of God’s Son, Jesus, we may stand in the Day of Judgment and not be condemned for our sins.

Today we presented our first official deputation[1] service as we continue following God’s leading to South Africa. We are still trying to get our heads around the idea that God has opened the door for us to serve in the same institution He had called us to some 27 years ago. Although we did not make it to Nazarene Theological College South Africa (NTC-SA) back in 1991, here we are 27-plus years later, coming full circle to fulfill the call. At least we came in under Moses’ record by 13 years. It only took him 40 years before he was ready to answer the call to do a task that was way beyond anything he could have done on his own.