The sacrifice ‘of’ self for the greater good is the greatest calling imaginable, and it is the b...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Apathy is unconditional surrender where we are driven into hiding by unrealistic fear, and firmly he...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I were to sit down and count them, how many of my prayers were tainted by the seduction of greed?...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Fear says that what God has called me to is blatantly impossible. Selfishness says that the cost is ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Sooner or later I will be faced with the fact that the world is helpless to meet my needs. And at th...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To only see ‘death’ in death is to somehow assume that death itself is a barrier so abrupt that ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If safety is my goal, living life is not.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Shame is embarrassment multiplied against itself until it dies under it’s own weight and we with i...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Dreams are ideas where the collar has been removed and the leash has been thrown away.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I can confidently state that the greatest rescues in my life have occurred when I’ve been saved fr...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If you want to completely destroy a child, all you have to do is mold them into your vision of what ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I’m surprised at where I’m at, it’s probably because I’m not listening to the reality tha...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH It is in building the best of our abilities that we ultimately destroy the worst of our liabilities.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I can arrogantly brag that the doors I choose in life open wide and grant me unobstructed passage. B...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If we are merely a chance product of ‘random happenstance’ and nothing more, doesn’t it strike...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH So, there’s this hornet’s nest. And there’s this long stick. And then there’s me. How I walk...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The thing that I’m most likely to collapse under is not the weight of the stresses that stand arou...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH A compass calibrated by my greed is a rather shrewd way to legitimize my agenda. However, true north...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH In my impatience I become convinced that this desire of mine should have been fulfilled yesterday, w...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If it has anything to do with me, it has nothing to do with sacrifice.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I pretend to give gifts that people pretend to be gifts so that I can pretend that I gave something ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I can’t quite figure out what an ego is, all I have to do is look for the thing that’s killin...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I pretend to give gifts that people pretend to be gifts so that I can pretend that I gave something ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If it’s about me, I can be assured that there will be a bunch of empty chairs in the auditorium of...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We must clean the lens of our hearts to see the state of our souls. However, too often the former is...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We are always immeasurably bigger than the little person we’ve too often doomed ourselves to be.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The world is shaken by major events, but it is ‘transformed’ by slight subtleties. And while we ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I am thankful that there are those among us who have sacrificed dearly on behalf of us. And I ardent...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I can draw the slightest smile across a single face obliterated by pain, in that act I will have ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Are my efforts driven by the need to win at all cost, or am I inspired by the desire to hold onto my...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I paved the path to the very place I don’t want to be. But passing the blame off to someone else d...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The reason placing blame repeatedly fails to work is that I repeatedly place it on everyone else ins...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH True peace cannot be found in a ‘place’. Rather, it is found in a Person who can be with you in ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Undoubtedly, failure is growth in pain’s disguise.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We can be seized with panic of the fall, or inspired by the potential that lies within the fall.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Failure is not the deterrent for the next try. Rather, it is information that empowers the next step...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH As it peaks over the horizon, does not a sunrise whisper the opportunity to try again. And if the da...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH What is fear but that ‘thing’ that we believed to be as powerful as it pretended to be.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The problem with wearing a facade is that sooner or later life shows up with a big pair of scissors.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Too often we make it more about what stands before us, and we miss all that stands within us.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Once I realize that the tune I’m whistling in my head is the theme that’s driving my heart, I su...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH It is when I am cold, alone, bitterly forlorn and shuttered from all hope that you will see who I tr...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Without a doubt, the most ingenious plan I could ever hope to devise would be to trade my plans for ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The point that I think myself to be so terribly clever is the precise point at which I am beginning ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Intelligence without wisdom is nothing more than stupidity that looks smart.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If there’s one thing that’s irrefutably absurd, it’s believing that we can separate intelligen...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Sacrifice” and “self” both begin with the same letter, but the spelling is way different after...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I am selfish by habit, but sacrificial by nature. Therefore, I’d be wise to develop the habit of f...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Most journeys are armchair calculations strategically charted in some reclined state that are design...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The problem with the ‘herd’ is that our voice is never ‘heard’.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If you haven’t figured it out yet, an absolutely certain way to lose something as quickly as possi...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If truth be told, the easy road is nothing more than an armchair in clever disguise. And if you look...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH It wasn’t until I slowed the car and rolled down the windows that I realized I spend most of my da...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Easter is the final solution to the finality of death.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We somehow have led ourselves to believe that our questions are big enough to encircle life, and tha...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The restless adventurer within me stands eye-to-eye with the fear that has stepped directly in my pa...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH When we choose to stay down, we are in reality confusing wisdom with cowardice. When we choose to st...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Risk is the clue that our dreams are both real and great.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Too often, opinion is a lens polished by the grit of bias. And as I stare through my own lens, I mig...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The worst of it is that while we continue to sink deeper into the muck and mire that we’ve created...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I decry the injustice of my wounds, only to look down and see that I am holding a smoking gun in one...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I thought myself sufficiently shrewd to make whatever decisions I wanted to make, and then to be abl...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The only things I truly keep are those things that I give away.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH As I contemplate a relationship with God, I find that I’m afraid to ride on the coattails of the i...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH My goals exceed the reach of my energies, but my God exceeds the reach of my goals.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Underneath the chaos there stirs a great plan. And it will be birthed only if I give it permission t...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We work hard to believe that our actions really don’t affect others all that much because we want ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I yearn not for the easy path, but for the right path.  For 'easy' and 'right' are rarely compatibl...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH At the moment that everything goes dark, the sunset in front of us becomes the whole story. But if w...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Any dream that I am absolutely confident I can achieve should immediately be discarded for the simpl...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Life is not about getting everything right, as much as it’s about working to live right.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We focus on the reasons why we ‘can’t’ at the expense of the far greater reasons why we ‘can...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Apathy is giving up when we need to get up.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If the amount of times we get up is just one less than the amount of times that we've been knocked d...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Self-serving biases and self-centered agendas are cotton jammed in the ears of our conscience. Even ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH It’s really a rather simple thing to bring balance to my anger. All I need to do is remember that ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Undoubtedly, our weariness is not based on the fact that we’re running. Rather, our weariness is a...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I’m perplexed by the fact that I’m constantly lost, maybe somewhere in my head I’ve determi...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We look around us and we find ourselves confused as to why the world has fallen into such deep darkn...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To be found is to be exposed. No wonder so many of us are still lost.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If we fail to instill a fixed sense of confidence in our children, we will raise handicapped childre...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Maybe I've got to be sufficiently broken by life's many broken promises to be sufficiently compelled...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Easter is a marvelous affirmation of the genius of our design, but it is likewise the blunt acknowle...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If my heart is set on pursuing real treasures, my mind must be fixed solely on the privilege of enjo...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Darkness should never be an excuse to quit, for with God, darkness is the exact stuff that light was...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I do not walk into the storm unless I have been called into the storm. For the former is arrogance a...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Failure is a friend if we can see past the face of the foe that we project on it.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Simply giving something ‘a shot’ is not giving something our ‘best,’ for our best is made up...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Strength other than that received from God is just hype manufactured by men.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Of course love is blind; it keeps me blind to myself.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The war on Christmas is waged of weakness and fed by vision blinded. It is a war of intellect blunte...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Often we don’t see the majesty of God’s design because we’re caught up in the mediocrity of ou...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH In a very tragic kind of way, sometimes things have to be gone before I fully realize that they were...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The eyes of love have 20/20 vision when focused on another, and become entirely blind when focused o...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH It may be that we’re not seeing the wonder in life because all we’re doing is wondering how we�...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Ego is borne of the need to ‘prove’ oneself instead of making the choice to ‘be’ oneself. An...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Eons ago, the creative genius of God foresaw that it would take the shattered pieces of my ‘yester...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH In evaluating ourselves, we tend to be long on our weaknesses and short on our strengths.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The ledger of my life can lean heavy with a prolific array of stellar investments, yet in the tallyi...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To label myself is similar to thinking that I can come up with a single phrase to explain the univer...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If the pursuit of perfection is a way to prove our worth, in the end the pursuit will only prove our...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Love never lives on a one-way street, for it will always come back up the road bigger than how we ha...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Vulnerability creates unimaginable space to build each other up, as much as it creates ample room to...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I am not touching a life, I am not touching life.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Love that is fueled solely by feelings will suddenly find itself out of gas on a long road with no g...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I must know something in order to believe in it, what I am able to believe in will be severely li...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To live a fantasy is to avoid a life.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I am far too often the author of terribly poor decisions. Yet I must rest in the unalterable fact th...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH You are greater than you can possibly imagine, if you would only free yourself up to imagine.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I have never had, or worse yet, I have lost the conviction that life (despite all of the blows it...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Betrayal is advancing myself at the expense of the one who I committed myself to advance.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Memory is a few lines snipped from a larger story that we are privileged to tuck away between the pa...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To ‘pretend’ is to say that I’m willing to waste the precious energy that it takes to pretend,...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I would like to say that I’m sacrificial. But am I sacrificial enough to acknowledge the fact that...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The problem is not that we don’t recognize the truth when we hear it. The problem is that we don�...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To grow is not to timidly sit on some safe shore at water’s edge and clumsily grab whatever happen...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Whatever the depth of our darkness, God navigated it eons before it was dark. And whatever the durat...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Hate feeds on itself, while love will always find itself fed.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH An obese ego is just about the heaviest thing you’ll ever carry. So maybe you should stop feeding ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Failure is blessing wrapped in the clothing of curse.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We have forfeited our calling for the simple reason that we’ve ignored the God who says that the �...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Common sense is one of the most unused commodities available to man.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I can somehow focus on the pain of not focusing on my pain, I will soon find that pain healed sim...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To assume that I and I alone have all the answers is to eventually find myself entirely alone withou...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The most formidable way to lead is to serve. And while the perplexing oxymoron of such a grinding st...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We can fill our lives with ‘stuff,’ but as we do we’re concurrently filling our lives with the...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Real relationships are the product of time spent, which is why so many of us have so few of them.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Sometimes life has to strip us in order to save us.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I continually focus on what I don’t have, my life will always be completely empty despite the f...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH A lot of the situations that we put ourselves in are similar to a cat in a yard full of dogs. We rar...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Most often, what I don’t know will have a vastly greater bearing on my life that what I do know.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Ignorance might be bliss, but it also has teeth.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Faith is rare because fear is rampant. For faith will demand that I step into places that fear itsel...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Ignorance is my refusal to think outside the box of my fears.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To spin the tale with great flourish but never live the tale is the power of vision strangled to fic...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Too often it’s about what stands before us, not what stands within us.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH My life is too often driven by the fear of the next moment verses focusing on the privilege that I h...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I’m not the author of my fears, but I sure feed them really well.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Maybe my greater fear should not be fear itself, but what I will lose should I submit to fear.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Have we ever thought that being lost is our destination?
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The choice to avoid risk is the choice to avoid living, and to avoid living is one of the greatest r...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Have we ever thought to consider that God allows things in our lives to die so that in that death we...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH While real sacrifice is committed to the result, it relishes the effort
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Although I’m seldom aware enough to see it, the greater cost regarding that which I possess was no...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To lead solely on the behalf of those being led is the utter pinnacle of fatherhood, and it is sad t...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Easter is the invulnerable tale of utter selflessness where at an inestimable cost God did for us wh...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Oh God, please find it within your heart to grant me a heart that looks after itself only because it...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I’m asking what kind of ‘return’ I should be expecting on the sacrifices I’m making, I ha...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The father who has selflessly poured himself into the life of his children may leave no other monume...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Things that are truly great need nothing from me, and to somehow think that they do speaks to my utt...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Contrary to popular opinion, we are all a vast brotherhood of human beings whose very survival hinge...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Sacrifice is a noun in my vocabulary that should be a verb in my life.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If the baser instinct of rampant self-preservation adamantly refuses to surrender itself to the infi...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH And who would dare write their own death into the script so that the rest of the characters in the t...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Making oneself large involves intentionally making oneself small.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To embrace an attitude of humility is to free myself from myself. And that is likely the great liber...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The greatest dividends in life are those that we give away.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH My heart says, ‘This way.’ The world says, ‘That way.’ God says, ‘I am the Way.’ And if ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Anything great will only be appreciated if I am given the opportunity to feel the absence of it, or ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I look closely, my failures are less about my inadequacies and more about the fact that I channel...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If truth is relative, then it’s cousin is anarchy.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I would suggest that the prisons I incessantly create are not designed to lock me in, rather they ar...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Raw power without Godly obedience is a long walk off a short conscience.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The shortest short-term investment is to serve ourselves.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Only God understands how incredibly far we’ve fallen, and only God understands how incredibly far ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If we’re honest, what makes something impossible is not our fear. Rather, it is our indifference.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH What would behoove me to instantly declare God not to be God unless He followed my script in some te...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH What in the world would ever lead to me believe that life is a series of opportunities that are read...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The anticipation of loss is much more frightening than the actual loss as anticipation leaves room f...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To look beyond our horizons is to acknowledge that we’ve hemmed ourselves in by creating them in t...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I can attempt to stay on the fence. However, the problem is that the fence is a figment of my fear n...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I feign fullness, but in reality I am achingly empty. And it is because I too often sit at the table...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Until I realize that it’s all I gift, I can hold all of it and yet receive none of it.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We know enough to know that all of this is not quite right. And we know enough to know that settling...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To deny the battle is unwise. To believe that I can fight it without God is insane. To actually do s...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH True evil is unlikely to receive an invitation from us, so it clothes itself in just enough truth to...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I have forged many things that I believe to be things of great beauty. Yet if God is not a part of t...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH To seek the praise of men as our motivation is to abandon truly great things, for more often than no...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The difference between a ‘man’ and a ‘father’ is that the former shares his genes, but latte...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The extent of God’s grace always eclipses the extent of my grotesqueness. Therefore, I can never b...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The greatest prayers that I could ever utter come from the heart. And when I pray that way, I rarely...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I am brave enough to stand against those who have been groomed by fear, I will recognize that whe...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Where am I?” you ask. Where you are is where the things you’ve denied worshipping have taken you...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Possibly the most debilitating deception of all is to create a god of my own making, fool myself int...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Why am I always lost in the woods?” I yell at the top of my voice! And if I choose to settle down ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If my decisions constantly heed the voice of the world, I can be completely assured that I’m going...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Imagination envisions what could be. Reality states what is. And when my journey is shaped by one of...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If I’m conceited enough to believe I’m invincible, then maybe it will take me doing the very thi...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The real promise in too many promises is a promise that I’m going to be disappointed.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH I have diligently disciplined my life to search out life’s gifts in the places where life stores i...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We can live out our lives, and in the end realize that we never really ‘lived’ a day in our live...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH No person, collection of people, institution, government or organization of any kind can in any way ...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH At the end, a journey based on my imagination will leave me imagining that I should have engaged the...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Abundant living is realizing that life is a privilege whether it’s adhering to our scripts or not.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Prayer is knowing that what I ask for is always far bigger than what I could ever articulate, but it...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We can only get to God through God. Every other possible avenue is a dead-end before it even starts.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH Despite my best effort to make myself as large as absolutely possible, life will always be larger th...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH If your dream doesn't scare you, it's not big enough.
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH The legacy I leave will be unimaginably enhanced by the legacies I received. Therefore, I must be wi...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH We have the power of the pen to write the next chapter, and the privilege to author the page in what...
CRAIG D. LOUNSBROUGH