If you’re new to Life Compass, on Sundays I write on Spirituality, Faith and Ethics. Here’s why.

Something interesting happens when you know you’re dying.

Suddenly, some things that you thought were very important, are now totally unimportant.  And you have incredible clarity about what things truly are most important to you.

These are some reflections I had on Saturday, after visiting a friend from my church who had just moved to a hospice care home.

She has cancer, and there’s nothing more the doctors can do for her except to make her as comfortable as possible as she prepares to pass from this life to the next.

She is probably just a few years older than me, and has two teenage sons, whom she will soon leave behind.  This was very sobering for me, as the father of five children ages 4-13.  One day, my time will be up too.

During my visit, I read from Psalm 139, which beautifully expresses God’s watchful eye over us, his design and plan for our lives before we were even born, and his control over the number of our days.  “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,” [Read more...]

Happy Father’s Day to my fellow Dads of the world.  I ran across this prayer by General Douglas MacArthur several years ago.  Since I have three sons (along with two daughters), it seemed like a great prayer to take to heart on Father’s Day 2010.

A Father’s Prayer

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble, and gentle in victory.

Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee – and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.  Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here, let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those that fail.

Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goal will be high, a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men, one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.

And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.

Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain.”