Jeff's Musings

On February 10, 1981 Julie Smeenge and I went out on our first date that would eventually lead to our marriage on May 25 of the same year. Julie and I both graduated from high school in 1979, but from rival high schools in Knox County, TN. Julie and I did not actually meet until […]...

When it comes to the simple life do you want to reorganize your life or do you want to revolutionize your life? If you want to reorganize your life any old hint column in the newspaper will do. But if you want to revolutionize your life Jesus Christ is the one who can do that. […]...

I am not going to bore you to death with a list of the Top Ten posts I written, because if you  are like me, I really don’t have time to read ten blog posts right now. So, I am going to bore you with the five most visited blog posts I wrote in 2013. […]...

Since the beginning of the biblical record, God promised God’s people that someday He would dwell among them. No more wondering what God is like, no more wondering if God really cares, because with the coming of this Child of Promise we can each know that God understands us. We can be assured ...

So many peple try to find the meaning of Christmas.  Some think it is a feeling or a spirit.  We get caught up in the packages and bows, parties, and shopping. This is the worst time of the year for depression, because so many people have this idea of Christmas as a Currier & Ives […]...

For years at Christmas we journeyed back to Tennessee and Alabama to visit our families and enjoy a respite from the lake effect snow machine that usually cranks up in November in northeast Ohio. A few weeks after we returned from our annual pilgrimage to the Promised Land in East Tennessee in 2006,...

This past week I turned 52. Seems like a few years ago I was only 19 and Julie and I were getting married, but the truth is that was over three decades ago. I began to wonder, “What have I learned over the past Fifty-Two years of my life?” I did what you are probably […]...

There are many people in ministry, corporations, government, and small business that all of us can learn from in order to grow as an individual. We have been presented to and bombarded by leaders messages, both in the religious and secular in regards of how to grow as a person or leader. We have boo...

How do I connect with individuals and the “community” I seek to reach with my writing? As we approach this key question, it is imperative that we keep this question nestled securely in the context of the role of a missionary writer. It may be tempting to rely on conventional ways of attracting p...

The American dream and God’s dream are two very different things radically worlds apart. The American dream used to be a very easy thing to get 30, 40 years ago. It meant you buy a home in the suburbs, Dad goes to work, Mom stays home and bakes cookies. Ward and June Cleaver. Ozzie and [&helli...