Cecil Taylor Ministries

Freewheeling Blog: Worst Days and Aftermaths

Perched at the very top of a hackberry tree during last year's Hill Country flood, Aaron Parsley wondered if he would get out alive and if his loved ones would survive. Within just a few moments, he and six family members had been ripped out of their vacation dwelling by raging waters. Everyone survived except his 20-month-old nephew, Clay.

Parsley wrote a Pulitzer-prize winning article for Texas Monthly about his harrowing experience. This month, he has updated the magazine's readers with a piece titled, "After the Flood," about his family's journey since that worst day of their lives.

His article caused me to think about aftermaths. Sara and I pray periodically for the ones whose lives have been devastated, but the news cycle moves on to new tragedies. Yet these earlier tragedies - from earthquakes, fires, war, accidents - either continue or take years from which to recover. People experience the worst days of their lives; the rest of us feel brief sorrow and carry on.

To observe Memorial Day, Sara and I visited the Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas. The most striking thing to me was how Medal of Honor winners see their heroic days very differently than we do. To them, the action occurred on the worst day of their lives. They lost friends and colleagues; their stress level rose to the level of long-term trauma; they often were compelled to take many other lives in order to save their own. The medal winners remember those things more than their warrior glory.

In the aftermath, many struggled with PTSD, survivor guilt, and depression. Being awarded the Medal of Honor vividly resurrected the memory of their worst day.

The prophet Jeremiah envisioned his worst day, the fall of Jerusalem, before it happened. He wrote in Jeremiah 8:21 (NIV):

===Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me.===

Yet in the destruction's aftermath, Jeremiah retained hope in the Lord, writing in Lamentations 3:22 (NIV):

===Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.===

Sara and I experienced adjacent worst days of our lives. My worst day was realizing that Sara's ambulance-summoning medical issue of the night before was actually her first su***de attempt; I was compelled to take her from ER straight to a psychiatric ward. For Sara, her worst day was the day before, when decades of internal anguish and depression forcefully came to light. The aftermath has continued for 23 years now.

That story starts my book, "The Next Thing: A Christian Model for Dealing with Crisis in Personal Life." Deeper in the book, in a section on grief, I share how to deal with aftermaths, using the model of trees.

You see, we never fully recover from a crisis; we are fundamentally changed. Trees innately realize this. When wounded, the tree uses a process called compartmentalization to deal with the injury.

Looking at the damaged tree in the accompanying picture, the injured tissue is not repaired. Trees do not heal; they seal. If you examine an old tree wound, you will notice it does not "heal" from the inside out. Eventually, the tree covers the opening by forming specialized "callus" tissue around the edges of the wound. New wood growing around the wound forms a protective boundary preventing infection or decay from spreading into new tissue.

Compartmentalization allows trees to continue to grow and develop, even if they always carry the wound with them.

This strategy can be usefully applied to aftermaths. While we may never heal, or can feel guilty about healing as we mourn loved ones, new growth can continue. The wound is still there. It will always be there. But like the tree, with God's help, we are able to seal the damage and bear its mark while growing in new directions.

===If you're curious about my Christian Indie Award-winning book and small group video series, "The Next Thing," you can learn more by visiting CecilTaylorMinistries dot com and selecting Books&Videos.===

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Worship Where You Are

Where is God for you? Or a better way to put it, where do you experience God?

Many of us have found a place or activity where we experience God. It might be during worship service at a church building. A lot of people might respond how they experience God in nature or creation, even during the creative process. Some feel God's presence in prayer or meditation. Some will say they have experienced God in their worst moments: in a hospital room, during a dark night of the soul, in the midst of pain, despair, or anger.

St. Ignatius of Loyola is quoted as saying, "Whatever you are doing, that which makes you feel the most alive...that is where God is."

In a beautiful way, that makes sense. God gave life to each of us. If we are feeling alive, it stands to reason God is near.

So, the opposite must be true: if you want to experience God, then live your life to the fullest.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean going on vacation. You might experience life to the fullest in the hospital room, either in the bed or by the bed. Life may be fully experienced in the depths of the soul's dark night as well as on the heights of the literal or figurative mountain you just climbed. Life, with all its joy and pain, can be deeply experienced in the healthy sonogram or in the cancer diagnosis.

We experience God in the midst of fully embracing whatever life gives us or throws at us. In fact, you might consider such experience as worship. As Paul writes in Romans 12:1 (NIV):

===Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.===

My friend Rev. Jerome Hobbs gives this benediction in his church in Mexia, Texas: "Now, go out and worship!" He is telling his congregation that worship service in a church building is one thing, but worship continues in the way we live out our seven-day practical faith.

Let's go out and worship today!

===My Practical Faith Game Plan helps you to "worship" each day. It is my free gift to you for registering for my ministry newsletters. This game plan proposes a framework for living your faith every day of the week. It's useful for both new believers and for anyone wondering how to improve their faith journey. Meanwhile, my ministry newsletters offer faith tips, ministry updates, and fun, meaningful, and useful information. Sign up to receive the game plan and my newsletters now at CecilTaylorMinistries dot com, either via the pop-up box or in the sign-up section near the bottom of the home page.===

Podcast Blog: Practical Faith Academy - Season 6, Episode 3 - Ralph Estep, Jr., How Faith and Finances Affect Each Other

A spiritual chicken-and-egg question is how faith and finances intertwine. Do we grow our faith by giving our finances over to God? In allowing God to watch over and drive our saving and spending, do we become more faithful?

The answer, of course, is yes and yes. On this episode of the Selah-award winning Practical Faith Academy podcast, my guest is Ralph Estep, Jr. Estep is a public accountant turned podcaster who focused on stewardship in multiple realms. His primary theme is giving control of your finances and your life to God, living your journey with wisdom, purpose, and faith.

In this podcast, Estep discusses the intertwining of faith and finances and how one impacts the other. He delves into specific situations, such as marriage or church finances, to show the benefit of mixing God’s wisdom and support with sound financial principles. He emphasizes letting God guide your life and trusting God will provide what you need, not necessarily what you want.

For a topic that may seem dry, challenging, or even irritating, Estep brings a positive, fresh approach. He explores a great truth; when we turn over our finances to God's service (since God gave us the money and ability to make money in the first place), then we find we can trust God in other areas of our lives in an upward spiral of faith.

Highlights of the podcast:
3:00 What a seven-day practical faith means to Estep
5:00 How should your faith influence your financial decisions?
8:18 How to merge faith and fear as a couple in a marriage, and what family financial framework should be put in place
11:24 How does financial stewardship impact your spiritual growth?
13:17 Provision follows obedience
19:55 What God desires of us in terms of financial stewardship
21:59 How people can be content, even when digging themselves out of a financial hole
26:37 Advice for people working in church finance
30:16 The hardest part about putting faith into practice
32:47 Estep’s best tip for developing and maintaining a seven-day practical faith
35:03 How to find Estep’s podcast, financial services, and more

The Practical Faith Academy podcast can be played directly on the Cecil Taylor Ministries website at https://www.CecilTaylorMinistries.com/podcast. While on the site, please check out everything Cecil Taylor Ministries offers, including our Instant Content books and video studies for individual learners, small groups, and churches.

The episode is also available on major podcast platforms (Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and others) and hosted on Podbean. Search on each platform for "Practical Faith Academy."

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Let Whatever You Do Today Be Enough

I have a sign - actually, a painted wooden block - that sits on my desk. My wife Sara gave it to me, knowing how I try to cram something into each of my 24 hours every day. A Type A never has enough time on their hands.

Since she gave it to me, when I lay my head on my pillow at night, I often think of the saying on this wood block. It's time to not only lay down my head but to lay down my expectations and my anxieties. The day is gone. Another one awaits, and I need to rest up for it.

But the thought is to not just give up on the day but to make peace with the day. I must accept whatever happened, whatever got done and didn't get done, wherever I fell short, the tasks that linger, the outcomes that remain unsettled. It's enough to have had the gift of this day and to now release it.

Not only do we need to let go of our stress but to let go of something larger: our fear. Fear may be expressed in a lot of ways, from anger to perfectionism. Maybe we just fear the sand is running out on the hourglass of our lives.

Rachel Jobe writes in her book, "Let Go!":

===One of the great misunderstandings that seems to permeate every branch of Christianity is that of how to achieve excellence: excellence at work, excellence in relationships, excellence in parenting, excellence in marriage, excellence in ministry, excellence in life. . .as it turns out, perfectionism is a cheap counterfeit to true excellence. Perfectionism is rooted in fear—a fear of failure—and diseased roots produce diseased fruits. . .As we look at Scripture, we see that our Lord’s emphasis for us is actually not on doing, but on being. We need to be people through whom the Holy Spirit of God can flow freely.===

My Type A core quivers at such writing, such blasphemy to the importance of doing. Yet my core also realizes I should finish reading Jobe's book, where most of the chapter titles begin with the word "Surrender."

Look at my wood block again. The words "do" and "be" are both present. As I stare at the phrase, something transforms. Something merges about my doing joining my being, and both representing "enough." I am enough. You are enough.

I'm not going to come to any brilliant conclusion here. I'm simply here for the struggle, and the struggle is real.

But I am also here for the punch line, as I repeat perhaps the oldest non-knock-knock joke I know.

"To be is to do." - Socrates

"To do is to be." - Jean-Paul Sartre

"Do be do be do." - Frank Sinatra

===I do a lot of stuff in my ministry. Is it enough? For this day, let's say yes. You can find everything I offer, free and requiring payment, by starting at CecilTaylorMinistries. com.===

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Sin and the Forgiveness Cycle

When President Abraham Lincoln attended a church service in Washington, D.C., a reporter breathlessly ran up to him afterward. He asked Lincoln, "What was the sermon about?"

Lincoln replied, "Sin."

The reporter persisted. "What did the preacher say about sin?"

Lincoln answered, "He was against it."

I love Lincoln's straightforward answer. But the truth is, we humans have an interesting relationship with sin. If you asked us what would we say about sin, we would also answer that we are against it. But our actions don't always match our words.

We can all relate to Paul's lament about sin in Romans 7. I've excerpted verses 14-15, 17, 19, 21, and 24-25.

===We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. . .As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. . .For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. . .So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. . .What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.===

Paul says our will is not enough, our knowledge of right and wrong is not enough, and our experience is not enough. None of those advantages stand up to the hostile nature of sin.

That's why we need a Savior, Jesus Christ.

That's why Jesus tells us not to judge others. We are sinful creatures without the right perspective to judge others; we each have enough sin struggles of our own.

That's why we need forgiveness from God, over and over and over in a forgiveness cycle. Jesus instructed Peter to forgive not seven times, but seventy-seven (or more, depending on the gospel writer). So, we know God forgives in the same way. We must regularly request and receive absolution and cleansing.

Once, when I was frustrated with my repeated failed attempts to live without sin, God gave me the image of taking a shower to wash myself clean. I bathe so my skin is clean. I ask for God to wash me so my sinful nature is cleansed.

Are we against sin? Most assuredly.

Do we still sin? Most assuredly.

Does God offer forgiveness and a fresh start, forgiving too many times to count? Most assuredly.

===For a more in-depth look at God's love and forgiveness and how to live as a loved, forgiven person, please check out my Oasis Award-winning book and video series, "Live Like You're Loved." Visit CecilTaylorMinistries .com and click on "Books & Videos." It's also available from major booksellers.===

Podcast Blog: Season 6, Episode 2 - David Gregory, How God Makes Faith Easy

I've had a lot of guests on the Practical Faith Academy podcast talk about how hard it can be to practice your faith each day. But I'm not sure anyone before David Gregory has been so confident that daily faith practice can be easy.

David Gregory is a New York Times best-selling author of award-winning books. In this podcast, Gregory shares his view on how faith can be easy when we realize the truth of Jesus’s statement, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Gregory explains how the Father, Son, and Spirit all offer pathways to easy faith. He also shares insights into his latest book, "One of Us," and into how the church can address the next generation.

I came away from this podcast renewing my commitment to let Jesus live through me with the help of the Holy Spirit. Although Gregory and I didn't talk about Romans 8, I view that chapter as a high point of the Bible, because it shows how Father, Son, and Spirit actively reach out to bring us into relationship.

Highlights of the podcast:

3:25 Why Gregory thinks it’s important to put faith into practice

6:14 Why faith is easy because of something Jesus told us

10:08 Three factors that make for a life of faith

16:21 Why Gregory wrote his “One of Us” novel with Jesus originally coming to earth today as a Latino from South Texas

21:34 How his novel still mirrors the gospel

23:36 Would Gregory have written this 2024 book differently today given the clamor over immigration?

25:49 How fiction helps make key points difficult to make in nonfiction

28:20 What is the church today missing from the life of Jesus?

33:13 How our “new heart” enables us to be faithful

35:49 What the gospel offers to a new generation

38:32 How to find Gregory’s books and resources

The Practical Faith Academy podcast can be played directly on the Cecil Taylor Ministries website at https://www.CecilTaylorMinistries.com/podcast. While on the site, please check out everything Cecil Taylor Ministries offers, including our Instant Content books and video studies for individual learners, small groups, and churches.

The episode is also available on major podcast platforms (Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and others) and hosted on Podbean. Search on each platform for "Practical Faith Academy."

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Knowing the Truth

The United States Secret Service supervises the inspection of counterfeit money. They train their agents and share with merchants how to determine if a piece of currency is authentic.

For each bill, a set of characteristics makes it authentic. For example, all Federal Reserve notes, from the $5 bill on up, have a clear thread embedded vertically into the paper. The thread is inscribed with the denomination of the note and is visible only when held to the light.

The Secret Service's intent is to train people on how to determine the bill is real, not to determine how the bill could be fake. Studying the real characteristics helps one know the authenticity. An expert would know each bill so well they could readily identify fake ones.

As Jesus followers, we want to know what is authentic and what is not. We can best determine what is authentic by engaging with it so much that we know when something is true or not true. I'm thinking primarily of two examples: the Bible and the messaging of the Holy Spirit.

If we study the Bible and soak it in, we will know whether someone's usage of the Bible is accurate. Learning the overall narrative of the Bible as God's redemption of the world is useful. No, we won't know every verse. But we'll catch it if someone gives us an interpretation or an out-of-context verse that doesn't make sense against the whole.

Reading the Bible for ourselves is vital. I recently engaged with someone who held a lifelong interpretation of a subset of the Bible. By showing the four verses ahead of this subset, I was able to clearly prove their interpretation was the exact opposite of what scripture actually said. The person was stunned and shaken because they had always been told and taught the wrong interpretation.

When we are taught or told something from the Bible, we should look it up for ourselves. We should identify and read the exact book, chapter, and verse. We must be sure to read the verses before and after it so we understand the proper context. We should meditate on the scripture and what God intends to tell us. Only then can we determine the authenticity of both the message and the messenger.

Likewise, if we are engaged with the Holy Spirit, we become trained in what the voice or message sounds like. In my experience, Spirit messages are always wise, loving, patient, kind (even when forceful), and aligned with scripture. The Holy Spirit is not going to tell you to kill your children; that comes from a different voice or a mental illness.

I heard a good analogy from an upcoming podcast guest, Kevin Taylor. He described how in a store, he might become separated from his mother. But he knew when she was on the move because he recognized the rattling of her keys, even softly from a distance. Similarly, we learn the voice of our Shepherd through experience, proximity, and listening.

Authenticity is a valuable attribute. Let us be as shrewd as serpents and as innocent as doves, to paraphrase Jesus in Matthew 10:16, becoming astute and blameless as we seek God's authentic truths.

===I mentioned my Practical Faith Academy podcast above. It's been nominated as Best Interview Podcast by the Selah Awards, a prominent Christian content awards program. Selah will announce the winner next week. In the meantime, Season 6 of Practical Faith Academy is underway with an outstanding slate of guests talking about how to put faith into practice each day and in all your endeavors. Search for "Practical Faith Academy" on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube, and Podbean, or listen on CecilTaylorMinistries. com/podcast.===

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: How to Forgive Others

To wrap up this blog series on apologies, we need to turn the table and consider how to forgive others when we have been wronged. Specifically, how do we receive an apology?

Experts and culture have plenty of ideas on how to forgive others. While good ideas abound, let's stick with the biblical view.

First, it's clear we are supposed to have a forgiving nature. When Peter asked Jesus (Matthew 18:21-22) how many times we are supposed to forgive repeat offenders, as many as seven times, Jesus instead told him "seventy times seven." In other words, don't keep score but keep forgiving.

Of course, the reason is that God keeps forgiving us. As Paul says in Ephesians 4:32 (NIV):

+++ "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you."

But I don't interpret that we forgive without thinking. Truly, we may have been hurt by someone's actions. When Jesus gently restored Peter (in John 21:15-19) after Peter had denied him three times before Jesus's crucifixion, Jesus asked three questions of Peter. Jesus gave Peter three chances to make good by confirming how much Peter loved him. Jesus didn't just say, "Oh, Peter, that denial thing. Don't worry, it's all right, I forgive you." Peter did have to go through a process of remembering each denial and specifically answering for it.

When someone apologized to me in a blanket way for "anything I've done wrong to you," I told them we needed to discuss the specifics of how they had hurt me. They did not realize how much hurt I was carrying and why. In a sense, our discussion was similar to Peter's reinstatement. Once this person had realized specific hurts and had apologized for them, I forgave them and wiped the slate clean.

One story about forgiveness that is true but not exactly biblical is the idea that you forgive to heal yourself. Jesus didn't say, "Forgive seventy times seven so you feel better." Forgiveness intends to restore relationship.

However, we know some relationships may not be possible to be restored. We may be carrying hurt from someone who is now deceased, or doesn't want to recognize the harm they've done, or is toxic to us and should keep a distance. We may need to heal for our own sake, both because Jesus said to, and so we can abide by Paul's admonition in Ephesians 4:31 (right before his quoted verse above):

+++ Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.

In Paul's equation, cleansing ourselves of bitterness and its malicious cousins allows us to be kind and compassionate toward others.

Forgiving others is honestly one of the toughest things we'll do. But our singular thought should be that we forgive because God constantly forgives us, and we can allow such forgiveness to flow through us to others.

=== My new free gift, the Practical Faith Game Plan, will help you chart a path to living your faith seven days a week. Please register to receive it by visiting CecilTaylorMinistries. com and responding to the pop-up box.

Freewheeling Blog: Remember a Spiritual Mother

I have a mother, now deceased. I have a stepmom, still alive. And I have a number of spiritual mothers - women who poured into me and influenced my life. One spiritual mother is Susan Hoff.

Susan happened to be the wife of my middle school football coach, Ronnie, but more importantly, she was my middle school Sunday School teacher. In the tiny town of Runge, Texas, Susan was often my personal Sunday School teacher on the weeks when I was the only student.

I felt so bad for her on those weeks. Susan diligently prepared the lesson. Usually we would have two to four students. But at least once a month, the preacher's kid (me) was the only one who showed up.

The most awkward moments were when Susan would ask a question to the class, which meant me. Sometimes I had an answer, sometimes not. She would try to guide me into the answer. I knew it was frustrating, but she kept her emotions mostly in check.

Susan taught good lessons, as I recall. But I was learning something else about faith every week. Susan's consistency demonstrated how we're not called to be successful but faithful.

Fast forward about 15 years. I was scheduled to lead a weekend youth lock-in at my Dallas church. Two years earlier, the youth experienced a Planned Famine, in which you locked in for 30 hours and mostly fasted (juice was allowed) while studying the problem of world hunger. It was well-attended, and our youth leaders were confident a repeat event would be as well. A lot of high schoolers and middle schoolers signed up. The youth pastor was going to be absent, so I would lead.

Well, only two middle school boys showed up. I was devastated. I took a break to pray in the sanctuary. While it was OK for me to be there with the two boys, it just seemed like a waste of time. I considered cancelling the event.

But while praying, God reminded me of Susan Hoff. What would Susan do? I knew what she did for me. She would keep going, knowing she was entrusted with the ones (or the one, in my case) who attended.

It turned into a wonderful weekend. I asked questions to a room of two, much like Susan. Through dedicated time together, the two boys and I built friendships that last to this day, decades later.

Whenever ventures look daunting and worthless, I think of my spiritual mother, Susan Hoff. I have no idea where she is or whether she is still alive. But her spirit has influenced me so many times. The lessons Susan taught are embedded in me, but her most important lesson is the one that often propels me.

Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: Introspection after Impact

When we do harm, even if unintentionally, our image of ourselves as a good person is threatened. As I mentioned earlier in this series on putting faith into practice by apologizing, we try to convince the other person - and ourselves - that our intent was not to harm or offend them. This is how we defend our precious view of ourselves.

But once we do the work of apologizing for our impact - not our intent - hard work remains. We must be introspective about why impact happened.

It's difficult to inspect ourselves until we redefine "good person." Typically, we see a "good person" as one who doesn't make mistakes, one who doesn't harm others. What if we redefine "good person" as one who acknowledges mistakes, rectifies them as much as possible, and analyzes what went wrong and how to prevent future mistakes?

After decades of driving, I had my first accident that impacted another person. At a slow speed, I struck a motorcyclist from behind. As vehicles lined up in an odd-angle right turn lane where you had to strain to look back for oncoming traffic, I had heard him gun his engine in front of me and thought he had left. In actuality, he had then hit the brakes, determining that he couldn't make it into the traffic flow. When I accelerated to get into an opening and turned my head forward, I was stunned to see him still there. I slammed on the brakes but couldn't come to a full stop before I bumped his vehicle and jarred him.

I evaluated why this had happened. I decided I needed a new procedure. After looking back into traffic, I needed to make one last check to the right to see if anything had changed since I last looked before accelerating.

Similarly, when we have offended or harmed someone, we need to evaluate how to prevent future occurrences.

Then when we inevitably harm someone again, we need a plan for recovering gracefully. We can pause and listen when corrected. We can respond with "thank you" rather than "I'm sorry you took it that way." Instead of defensively explaining our intent, we can say, "I'm going to sit with that."

Such an approach builds our stamina. We stay in the conversation even when it feels tense, awkward, or emotional.

This process helps when we revisit the apology series core passage from Matthew 5:23-24 (NIV), in which Jesus instructs us:

===“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift."===

Jesus gives the high-level command, but it is easy to see a lot of details are missing from a potentially messy conversation. We can make it less messy with introspection in advance and discipline in the moment.

===I'm so excited about season 6 of the Practical Faith Academy. Some great guests are coming aboard, with Art Wilson as the first. Even though he despised gang members, God called Wilson into ministering to them. We discuss his incredible, hazardous journey on Season 6, Episode 1, available now. You'll learn the amazing things God can do when you obey. Visit the podcast section of my website or search for "Practical Faith Academy" on my YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform.===