A friend of ours is really struggling with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) lately. I’m intimately familiar with RA since my mother suffered with it the last years of her life (I don’t remember how many). Lots of medication. Lots of surgeries. Nothing worked. What concerns me is that as an active person, our friend is unable to do all the things she’s used to doing and…she’s angry about it.

My immediate thought was, “I’m pretty sure that being angry exacerbates arthritis.” To check I Googled a paraphrase of something the famous black pitcher Satchel Paige said about fried foods: “Anger riles up the blood.” Here’s what Google’s AI reported:

The phrase “anger riles up the blood” is a figure of speech that has a basis in real physiological responses to anger.

While anger doesn’t literally boil your blood, it triggers the body’s “fight or flight” response, leading to a cascade of effects that impact the cardiovascular system. 

Here is a breakdown of the physical effects:

• Increased heart rate and blood pressure: The adrenal glands release stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, causing the heart to beat faster and blood pressure to rise.
• Redirected blood flow: Blood is shunted away from the gut and toward the muscles, preparing the body for physical exertion. This can create a flushed sensation in the face and ears, contributing to the “hot-headed” feeling associated with anger.
• Blood vessel impairment: A brief episode of anger can cause blood vessels to constrict and impair their ability to dilate for up to 40 minutes. This phenomenon is not seen with other negative emotions like sadness or anxiety. Over time, repeated insults to the blood vessels from chronic anger can increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.
• Inflammation: Research has found that higher levels of anger are associated with higher levels of inflammation in the body, which is a risk factor for chronic illnesses.
• Increased heart attack risk: Intense anger outbursts can trigger heart attacks in the hours following an incident. This is particularly risky for individuals who already have cardiovascular issues. 

For these reasons, chronic, uncontrolled anger can have serious long-term consequences for your health. – Google’s AI response, emphasis mine

There it is “Inflammation.” My friend would do well not to be angry. RA management techniques include stress management to reduce inflammation. Look it up.

As usual, the Bible is ahead:

Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger… (Ephesians 4.17, ESV)

Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city. (Proverbs 16.32, ESV)

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry? (Jonah 4.1 – 4, ESV)

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. (James 1.19, 20, ESV)

I often get words of wisdom from Seth Godin’s daily marketing blogs. A persistent theme of his is that we shouldn’t wait to be “chosen.” He wrote on September 6, 2025:

If you’re waiting to get picked by a famous college or a big company or the music industry, you might end up waiting a very long time. Of course, that’s what schooling taught you to do. The lessons run deep.

What’s the solution? Seth continues:

You can build your own system.

…There are plenty of examples of committed students who took a gap year (or two or six) and built something that mattered.

Non-profit leaders who refuse to succumb to galas or mass appeal can build projects of significance with a surprisingly small base of supporters.

…You’re probably not going to end up with a million followers by adhering to the rules of the algorithm. But that’s okay, because you don’t need a million followers to make a difference. – Seth Godin, September 6, 2025

Jesus built “projects of significance with a surprisingly small base of supporters.” He invested heavily in 12, and there were 120 in the Upper Room in Acts 1. And they started a Spirit-empowered movement that changed the world.

Indeed, “…you don’t need a million followers to make a difference.”

You don’t need to be a pastor, on church staff, or a missionary with a Christian organization, either. You do need to engage where you are. In Seth’s words, “Build your own system.”

A young man called me once and said he wanted to be a Navigator. The conversation went like this:

• Caller: “How can I become Navigator staff?”
• Bob: “What ministry are you doing now? Whom are you investing in?”
• Caller: “I’m not doing any ministry now.”
• Bob: “If you’re not doing anything now, why would that change if you became a Navigator?”

As always, we do what we can, where we are, with what we have.

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. (John 15.16, ESV)

With respect to yesterday’s post on God-given rights and the idea that those in government should recognize a mandate from God to govern justly, I read a challenging article: Is Christ the Lord of New York City? by David Mitzenmacher, published on September 9, 2025, by World Magazine. It opens:

The Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City is a devout Muslim and an avowed socialist. Zohran Kwame Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman from Queens, has never hidden his religious identity. Born in Uganda and raised in New York, he fasts publicly during Ramadan… He frames housing and labor reform not as abstract technocratic aims, but as matters of justice rooted in divine obligation. Even his socialist protest actions are carried out in the name of moral duty. His faith does not merely accompany his politics; it animates them.

To secular progressives, this may appear a triumph of pluralism. To many conservatives, it may serve as another sign of America’s political decay. But for those with theological discernment, the imagery is striking: Islam, a religion of totalizing claims, does not hesitate to govern. It enters the public square with confidence, armed with an all-encompassing worldview and an unapologetic moral vision. It rejects the myth of neutrality and understands that law is never merely procedural but is always inherently theological.

In contrast, modern evangelicalism has grown timid. What was once a public religion rooted in the lordship of Christ over all creation has been largely reduced to personal piety. Christianity, in many quarters, no longer seeks to form cultures or shape law. It contents itself with managing personal anxieties and securing individual conversions. Modern Christianity asks to be tolerated, not to be heeded.

“Modern Christianity asks to be tolerated, not to be heeded.” Ouch. He goes on:

But the gospel is not a private experience; it is a royal announcement. The Jesus we proclaim is not a lifestyle guru—He is the risen and reigning King. The New Testament declares that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Him (Matthew 28:18). The Church has always confessed this. The tragedy is that there are so many self-proclaimed Christians who no longer act as if they believe it.

The article goes on. I recommend it to you in its entirety. He closes with:

The question is not whether religion will influence the public square. The question is: which one? Either we recognize that Christ is Lord of New York City, or others will try to give that title to someone else. – David Mitzenmacher, September 9, 2025

Jesus is Lord. Do we live that way? And what would that look like? I confess, I don’t know the whole answer to that question. Should we be public in our faith as Vice President Pence was in 2020? Or should we be focused on making a difference where we are? I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow.

Jesus is Lord. Maybe we should ask him what he wants us to do and listen for his guidance.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord… (Romans 10.9, ESV)

So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above…” (John 19.10, 11, ESV)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me…” (Matthew 28.18, ESV)

While I’m meditating on God being in charge, not our governmental leaders, here’s a positively scary story about a sitting senator who explicitly denies government’s role to respect God-given rights. In his view, government creates rights. Here’s the relevant portion of an editorial by Al Mohler about a Senate committee meeting and remarks by Senator Tim Kaine, D-VA :

The session was largely uneventful until Sen. Kaine addressed one of the nominees, complaining about a quotation from Secretary of State Marco Rubio about human rights that was included in the nominee’s opening statement. Secretary Rubio had stated that “all men are created equal because our rights come from God, our creator, not from our laws, not from our governments.” Secretary Rubio’s point has immediate application to American foreign policy, because Rubio’s main point was that the human rights America would defend around the world—the very rights denied by many repressive regimes—are pre-political and universal, precisely because they are given to all men and women by the creator.

Kaine energetically denied such a basis for human rights and called the idea of rights as given by God is “what the Iranian government believes.” Kaine openly asserted that the claim that rights come from God amounts to theocracy. He went…back to say, “the notion that our rights do not come from our laws or our government should make people very, very nervous,” and he claimed that an acknowledgement of natural rights given by God demeaned both law and government. Kaine openly claimed that our rights come from laws and governments, not from God.

The senator was reminded that it was none other than Thomas Jefferson, another Virginian, who affirmed in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This is a serious problem. Mohler continues:

The acknowledgement that natural rights are endowed by our Creator means that these natural rights are real. They exist because the Creator made them to exist. They were not just assertions and claims declared by a bunch of rebels meeting in Philadelphia. No, they existed before human beings knew to articulate them and before human governments were assigned to respect them.

Sen. Tim Kaine’s argument was stunning. I was in the room when he uttered those words. If I had not seen and heard him make this argument, I would scarcely have believed a U.S. senator could say such things. Furthermore, his intentional passion made clear that he meant what he said. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas responded that he had nearly fallen out of his chair when he heard Sen. Kaine’s comments, because what Kaine had called radical and dangerous “is literally the founding principle upon which the United States of America was created.”

We’re back to little-g gods that I wrote about yesterday. When government says, essentially, we can pass any law we want and create any rights we want (or deny any rights we want), government is acting as a little-g god.

By contrast, when Martin Luther King in “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” talked about “just laws” and “unjust laws,” he was really appealing to the reality of God-given rights and a God-given standard. It’s beyond disappointing that we have government leaders who deny that reality.

The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord GOD: “Because your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods..,’ yet you are but a man, and no god, though you make your heart like the heart of a god….” (Ezekiel 28.1, 2, ESV)

The LORD reigns; Let the earth rejoice; Let the multitude of isles be glad!…You, LORD, are most high above all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods. (Psalm 97.1, 9, NKJV)

I don’t often get into current events, especially when they are political in nature, but there are lessons to be learned in President Trump’s relocating US Space Command Headquarters from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

First, let me make a couple of things clear:

• Huntsville is a fine place for anything space-related. They’ve been in the space business for decades.
• That said, a headquarters can be anywhere, and right now it’s in Colorado Springs. Moving it will be costly and time consuming.
• Therefore, there ought to be a good reason for moving it.

So what is President Trump’s reason (as he stated it)?

“The problem I have with Colorado … they do mail-in voting, they went to all-mail-in voting, so they have automatically crooked elections. And we can’t have that when a state is for mail-in voting — that means they want dishonest elections, because that’s what that means.”

— President Donald Trump, citing what he described as a “big factor” in his decision to move U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama. He has not provided evidence of wide-scale fraud tied to mail ballots.

In response, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports:

El Paso County and Huntsville’s home in Madison County, Ala., had nearly identical support for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Trump won El Paso County with 53.5% of the vote, slightly more than the 53.35% he received in Madison County.

Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said in a statement Tuesday afternoon that “it is deeply ironic that President Trump made a decision about the Space Force based on Colorado’s election model, yet moved it to Alabama, a state whose system provides neither the access nor the security that Colorado’s does.”

In 2013, Colorado’s county clerks — at the time, the vast majority of them Republicans — designed and championed the nation’s first modern mail ballot system, Crane added.

“Their work laid the foundation for what is now recognized as the most reliable, transparent, and accessible election model in the country.”

A biblical principle might apply here:

It is better to be a poor but wise youth than an old and foolish king who refuses all advice. (Ecclesiastes 4.13, NLT)

In the meantime, 1 Timothy 2.1, 2 certainly applies:

I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them. Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity. (NLT)

But the bottom line is this: President Trump is not in charge. God is. He is not to be worshiped, God is.

For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods. (Psalm 95.3, NKJV)

Oh, sing to the LORD a new song! Sing to the LORD, all the earth. Sing to the LORD, bless His name; Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples. For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. (Psalm 96.1 – 4, NKJV)

China just paraded its weapons for all to see. China’s leaders (and most leaders, for that matter, want to be gods (little-g). Putin from Russia and Kim from North Korea were there. A heavy occasion. But don’t forget:

Why do the nations rage, And the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. (Psalm 2.1 – 4, NKJV)

Let’s get our head straight:

For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the LORD made the heavens. (Psalm 96.4, 5, NKJV)

Oh, worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth. Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns; The world also is firmly established, It shall not be moved; He shall judge the peoples righteously.” (Psalm 96.9, 10, NKJV)

What’s the end?

For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth. (Psalm 96.13, NKJV)

A personal note…

If you’re a regular reader, you know that in early July we moved from our house of 19 years in Monument, Colorado, to a one-level townhouse in Colorado Springs, about 20 minutes south of where we were. Everything has gone well EXCEPT we’re still waiting to sell the Monument house.

We had an offer come in on July 30, but it was contingent on the buyer selling their house in the Phoenix area. September 12 was a go/no-go decision point. The Phoenix house has not sold so that offer is gone for now, and the Monument house is back on the active market effective yesterday.

We’ve been praying for:

• The right buyer
• The right price
• The right time

That prayer continues, and we wait, a common posture for God’s people. God acts on his timetable, not mine!

Hear my prayer, O LORD, And let my cry come to You. Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my trouble; Incline Your ear to me; In the day that I call, answer me speedily. (Psalm 102.1, 2, NKVJ)

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! (Psalm 27.13, 14, NKJV)

Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, waiting patiently for it until it receives the early and latter rain. You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. (James 5.7, 8, NKJV)

For you have need of patience, that, after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. (Hebrews 10.36, KJV)

After yesterday’s A Simple Gift feel good, holy moment story, I have to follow up with another one from an unlikely source: a stressed out lady who teaches de-stressing techniques for a living. Rebecca Heiss opens her story this way:

I was pacing the lobby of a Big Island hotel in flip-flops, panic rising in my chest like mercury in a thermometer. My luggage had vanished somewhere between the continental U.S. and Hawaii, and in less than 24 hours I was supposed to deliver a keynote speech to a room full of suits. The irony was not lost on me: Here I was, a stress physiologist who studies how humans handle pressure, completely undone by a missing suitcase. – Rebecca Heiss, I Study Stress. This Cure Surprised—and Helped—Me, Wall Street Journal, August 28, 2025

A hotel employee had a car take her to nearby shops which sold nothing but touristy stuff – no business suits. The story picks up:

Then in the last shop something extraordinary happened. The woman behind the counter listened to my predicament and chuckled, “Oh sweetie you aren’t going to find what you need here.” She handed me the keys to her brand-new BMW convertible and gave me directions to shops that sold business attire 40 minutes away. “Just bring it back when you’re done,” she said with a smile. 

Wow. A holy moment (and I have no idea whether or not the store clerk is a believer).

The story continues with a remarkable insight on one way to overcome stress:

I returned hours later, outfit secured and overcome with gratitude. Through tears, I asked the woman—her name, it turned out, was Tani—why she had done this. “That’s how we take care of people here in Hawaii,” she answered.

Then she revealed something deeper. “I’ve been stressed lately,” she admitted. She was worried about her daughter, who had just moved back to the continental U.S.: “My hope is that somebody might do something similar for her if she was in the same circumstance.”

When I returned to the hotel, the hotelier was eager to hear how my trip had gone. As I recounted Tani’s extraordinary kindness, tears welled up in his eyes. Minutes later, an elaborate display of chocolates arrived at my room, accompanied by a two-page note. He explained that he’d been anxious about moving his family to Hawaii, but my story story had quieted his stress.

In the self-help field, we tend to promote the usual stress-management arsenal: meditation apps, massage therapy, breathing exercises, yoga classes. These aren’t wrong, but they rely on the individual to solve their own stress…A study of workplace interventions to reduce stress, published in Industrial Relations Journal in 2024, revealed a startling truth: Of the 90 different stress-reduction strategies tested in corporate settings, which included meditation, massage and breathing exercises, only one consistently mitigated the negative effects of stress: serving others.

My Hawaiian crisis had become an impromptu case study. People experiencing their own stress had all instinctively relieved this pressure by helping someone else…This helped me see how we’ve been approaching stress relief backward. Instead of turning inward with bespoke wellness practices, we do best when we turn outward—toward the needs of others…In a world obsessed with self-optimization and individual wellness solutions, the most radical act might be the simplest one: noticing when someone else needs help, and then providing it. – Rebecca Heiss, emphasis mine.

Wow. Where to start? “noticing when someone else needs help, and then providing it” sounds a lot like

• Be there
• Pay attention
• Do what you can…

Which I’ve written about before.

And the whole idea of helping others comes right out of Philippians. As usual, God (and the Apostle Paul) are ahead of the curve:

Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. (Philippians 2.4, NKJV)

I’ve just run across a holy moment that’s too good not to share. My friend Mateen Elass was Minister of Adult Education at First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs, back in the late 1990s. He went on to several different pastorates and returned to Colorado Springs in 2015 to work with Voice of Truth, an outreach ministry to Arabs. Why? Here’s the beginning of his bio:

What are the odds that a son born to a Muslim father, raised for more than a decade in Saudi Arabia, schooled in western philosophy and psychology, and then trained in eastern mysticism, should become a resolute Christian and ambassador of the gospel? Small odds indeed, when counted by human probability. But Dr. Mateen Elass sees this prelude to his  ministry as witness to the amazing power of God to find and call His children to service-regardless of the odds. – Read the rest of his bio here.

Anyway, here’s this brilliant guy with a degree from Stanford, two master’s degrees and a doctorate, and he’s the nicest, most humble man. Here’s his blog entry from May 7, 2025, a holy moment. He calls it “A Simple Gift.”

This last Monday, I was traveling to an Arab pastors conference in NC with coworkers and friends. On a shuttle from long-term parking to the Denver airport, we met a very friendly and talkative Ghanaian driver, Isaac. He couldn’t have been more polite or helpful. We were all quite impressed with his warmth and expression of faith.

Having my cell phone in hand, I decided to look up quickly how to say “thank you” in his mother tongue of Ashanti. Not sure how to pronounce “Meda wo ase”, I clicked on the audio and practiced a few times. As we arrived at the terminal, everyone started piling out and our driver helped offload bags with a ready smile. I was the last one off. I shook his hand and said, “Meda wo ase, Isaac!”

What happened next was like fireworks going off. His face lit up and his smile grew even bigger. Continuing to hold my hand, he slapped me on the chest and said excitedly, “You’ve been to Ghana before?”

“No, never,” I answered. “I just learned how to say thank you in your language because you’ve been so kind to us.”

“I can’t believe it. I never expected to hear my language from an American,” he said. “This is a great gift to me! Thank you for making my day.”

All from a simple gesture of thoughtful gratitude. We never know much we may impact a new acquaintance by taking a bit of time to find a bridge to connect with them in unexpected ways. I know that I always appreciate hearing English unexpectedly when in a foreign country.

What fun to bring joy to another’s day with a simple act of kindness. Perhaps you’ll find a way to bless someone else this day, and find your own joy doubled in the process!

Amen.

As he went along, he saw a man… (John 9.1, NIV)

Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good… (Titus 3.14, NIV)

Yesterday we meditated on God’s throne room and the implications for prayer. It’s worth a review. Here’s a prayer thought from a few days ago.

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.” (Psalm 91.15, 16, NKJV)

Psalm 93 speaks to the throne:

The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The LORD is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength. Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved. Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. (Psalm 93.1, 2, NKJV)

Therefore, what are we supposed to do? Psalm 95 has the answer.

• Oh come, let us sing to the LORD!
• Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
• Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
• Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

For the LORD is the great God, And the great King above all gods…

• Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
• Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.

For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture, And the sheep of His hand. (Psalm 95.1 – 7, NKJV)

“For the LORD is the great God…For He is OUR God.”

Amen.

Someone encouraged me recently to read Revelation 4 to “see what it’s like in heaven right now.” Not a bad word. We can see what things are like here on earth, and they are sometimes discouraging. What’s going on in heaven?

John gives us a picture that’s a little hard to get hold of, so maybe we should just “feel it,” rather than try to analyze it:

…and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind:

• the first living creature like a lion,
• the second living creature like an ox,
• the third living creature with the face of a man,
• and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight.

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

“Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.” (Revelation 4.6 – 11, ESV, emphasis mine)

What a picture! And what a throne! And it’s this throne that the writer of Hebrews invites us to approach:

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4.16, NKJV)

Come boldly to THAT throne…

• Mercy – not getting punishment I deserve.
• Grace to help in time of need – receiving help that I don’t deserve.

What’s your need right now? I have a specific one in mind, and I’m approaching THAT THRONE to ask for it.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. (Philippians 4.6, NLT)

The LORD reigns, He is clothed with majesty; The LORD is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength. Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved. Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. (Psalm 93.1, 2, NKJV)