New for 2010. Leary Gates, BoldPath founder and teacher, has launched a new feature on his personal blog site. His daily Thought for the Day includes a thought provoking quote, often from a famous leader or author, followed by a reflection on applying the principle as intentional men of God. It's a daily one-minute post you can have delivered to your inbox or favorite RSS reader.

Click here to view the blog and subscribe or read a sample on the difference between a being a dreamer and a visionary.

As I write this, snow is softly falling, creating a blanket of pristine white--the quintessential image of a Norman Rockwell Christmas. So much unlike the original; the day the Prince of Peace quietly entered our world. What many of us celebrate now, surrounded by the comfort of family and friends, was then, for the Christ-Child, anything but comfortable. For a young man and his virgin betrothed, it was an untimely birth, in an unfamiliar place. The Bread of Life would spend His first night in an animal feedbox, for there was no room for Him to be born among the comfortable. Those who slept quietly in the inn were likely oblivious to the divine visitation just outside their earshot. The Gift was among them, yet they did not recognize it as such (John 1:10).

Fearless is as wonderfully written as you might expect from a New York Time's best selling author who's cranked out more than 50 books in 25 years (do the math!). It's easy enough to digest in a sitting (just 180 pages), yet packed with enough nuggets of insight to make you stop and think. The subtitle, "Imagine your life without fear," is aptly chosen, for Lucado stirs the imagination by presenting a potpourri of fears (e.g. dying, poverty, violence, insignificance, etc.) vanquishing amid God's unceasing love for His creation. Lucado reminds us that Jesus' most common command was to "fear not," and each chapter puts that command in context of a fear that Jesus confronted in His disciples then and today. The disciple Lucado, himself, writes of his own fears with an honesty borne of the very freedom his book title promises.

I highly recommend reading this book as an important diagnostic--asking, "Where can I be more fearless today? Now that I've read it, it's going back on my reading list, to be read aloud with my sons.

Alan D. Wright's book, Shame Off You was written to help people to "wash away the mud that hides our true selves." In twelve brief chapters, Alan provides biblical guidance with powerful personal illustrations of how shame and a false sense of guilt grip people's lives and drag them off into the shadows, causing them to miss or forfeit so much of what might have been. Each chapter provides helpful insight into ways in which shame invades our lives and causes us to run endlessly after "rabbits" we can never catch.

You can get more information about the book and/or workbook from Alan's website. I only wish I had read this book earlier in my life and career. Oh well! Shame off me.

Our family is fortunate to share our secluded suburban property with an astonishing array of wildlife. Deer, fox, wild turkey, rabbits, duck, geese, egrets, and herons are all frequent visitors. In his youth, our dog, an American Staffordshire Terrier, would give them chase. Twelve years later, age and cataracts have dampened both Casey's vision and inclination. That was, until we had an unexpected visitor.

Shaken, not stirred. It's how James Bond, the fictional British Secret Service agent 007 likes his martinis. It may make for a good martini--I've never had one--but I'm thinking it's a not a very bold way to live.