Thoughts from the Mound

Everybody loves the thought of being content. The difficulty is not desiring contentment, it is doing the hard work required to achieve contentment. One of our great difficulties is we have lost the ability to distinguish between happiness and contentment. Doug Larson once said, “The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.” The Biblical idea of contentment is vastly different that the idea of contentment that pervades our society. The word content itself only occurs five times in our Bibles, and the  word contentment occurs only once. In First Timothy 6:6 Paul says, “But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.” The word Paul uses here is, “autarkeia.” It literally...

Mom’s desire to always be in attendance for worship. The way she stood up for Dad and always supported him. Seafood & Chicken Box. The way she stood up for her children and always supported us. Shoney’s strawberry pie. Her unfailing concern for people who were hurting. Watergate Salad. Hosting more preachers in our home than I can remember. Strawberry Cake (that she made every year for my birthday!) Reading the Bible to us when Dad was away. Roast & Potatoes. Making sure we always completed our Sunday school lessons. Never missing a game. Her trying to climb the fence when I separated my shoulder during my Junior year. Knowing that every night mom prayed for us! Locking us in her room with bolt lock, chain lock and sliding the dresser up against...

This hasn’t been one of my better weeks as far as my physical health. Please don’t view this as complaining because this isn’t anything major. I have dear Christian friends who live with cancer, heart problems, and other serious illnesses every day for years. But I’ve been sicker than I can ever remember being. My sickness caused me to have to miss two appointments and I desperately wanted to be a part of both of them. Finally got into the doctor late Monday afternoon and learned that I had strep throat. Probably also have the flu. Just about completely lost my voice and had a temp of 102. When the nurse came in to take my vitals she said, “It is obvious that you feel really bad, you are not your normal happy self.”  I’ve thought a lot about her...

To begin this article let me be clear about a few things. I have never fought in a war, lived through the depression, had my home blown away by a tornado or a hurricane, been fired from a job (at least not so far!), but I have experienced some difficult days in my life. Each of these days is memorable for different reasons and I am convinced that marvelous lessons have been learned in each of those difficult days. I remember vividly as a young boy attending my grandfather’s funeral. To me, Paw-Paw was bigger than life. I’ll tell you more about him in another post. I remember the day Laura and I lost a son. Up to that point it was the saddest and most difficult day of my life. Even though it’s been nearly thirty years ago it still hurts when I think about...

It’s hard to believe it’s been one year ago today that we began The Jenkins Institute and launched TheJenkinsInstitute.com. We began this effort to honor our dad’s memory and to advance the Work he loved so much.  We also share a common passion to encourage ministers and strengthen the church. Since that time much has happened: Noon, April 4, 2011 – Launched TheJenkinsInstitute.com: Initially, Thoughts from the Mound, The Tie That Binds and The Scoop Blog all combined under one umbrella.  We had over 7,000 page views in first 12 hours. August 1 – Hope & Expectation the online magazine (e-zine) submits it’s first offering. Issues in first 9 months have included: Evangelism, Balanced Christian Living, Growing the Church, Preaching. The...

We all understand that faith is one of the key ingredients to our Christian walk. We must have faith if we want to please God. (Hebrews 11:6) There are times in life when it is relatively easy to have a strong faith. It is easy to have faith when you’ve just received a clean bill of health from the doctor and you feel well. It’s easy to have faith when you’ve been successful in business. It’s easy to have faith when your team has just won a big game. It’s easy to have faith when you’ve just aced a big test and your doing well in school. It’s easy to have faith when your marriage is strong and your children are living the way you’ve taught them to live. It’s easy to have faith when you’ve preached a sermon that everyone has responded positively...