Episodes
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”Thanksgiving Reawakened and Reclaimed:” Rich Living - Climbing Trees and Mending Shoes
Rich living has nothing to do with wealth...depending upon the kind of wealth we're referring to. Rich living is found far more frequently in impoverished lives. It is in these lives that the clutter of material wealth is absent so that these lives are free to see what is truly precious. Life is...
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Taking It to Our Knees - Day 10 - The Loss of Hope
Welcome to Day Ten of the devotional series taken from the book, “Taking It to Our Knees – Rigorous Prayers for Life’s Greatest Challenges.” Today’s These is “The Loss of Hope” The Quote for Today Is This: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are...
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Podcast Short: We Are More - Understanding Our Capacity
We Are More - Understanding Our Capacity “Whatever you see within yourself, let it be the whole of yourself. For too often we have been brutalized by our own sense of inadequacy and we’ve been held hostage to the lesser choices born of such a debilitating sense of self. Know this, that latent...
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Podcast Short: Becoming Accountable
Becoming Accountable Accountability…might it be time to be accountable to who we’ve become so that we can make ourselves accountable to what we can be? Are we willing to divest ourselves of all the lesser things that we have elevated as greater things and engage in both a pointed and painful...
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Day 9 - The Plague of Self-Esteem
Welcome to Day Nine of the devotional series taken from the book, “Taking It to Our Knees – Rigorous Prayers for Life’s Greatest Challenges.” Today’s Theme is “The Plague of Low Self-Esteem.” The Quote for Today Is This: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.…
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Podcast Short: Dead-End Roads of Our Making
Dead-End Roads of Our Making We chart these paths. We set these goals. We ponder where we are, and from there we determine where we want to go. There’s some sort of road that we’re walking, whether that’s a road of our own making, or it’s a road that everybody is walking, or it’s the road that...
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Podcast Short: Do We Search for the Truth?
Do We Search for the Truth? Do we search for the truth, or do we search for ways around the truth? Do we even take the time to consider a question like that out of the long-held assumption that we are, in fact, looking for the truth because (we assume) that that’s the obvious thing to do? What...
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Day 8 - Taking It to Our Knees - The Painful Struggle of Infertility
Welcome to Day Eight of the devotional series taken from the book, “Taking It to Our Knees – Rigorous Prayers for Life’s Greatest Challenges.” Today’s Theme is “The Painful Struggle of Infertility.” The quote for today reads this way: “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the...
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Podcast Short: Thinking It’s Over When It’s Not
Thinking It's Over When It's Not It’s over…we tell ourselves. It’s over. Whatever it might be (or might have been) it’s gone and there’s no getting it back. The loss is too big. The obstacles are too daunting. Things have changed so much that whatever we lost no longer has a place in the current...
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Podcast Short: Change - It Begins With Us
Change - It Begins With Us Change. It’s needed for sure…just look around. But if our posture is to wait for someone else to create the change that we’re waiting for, we’re probably going to just keep right on waiting. As a part of my own processing in trying to understand what change is, and how...
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Podcast Short: What Are We Focusing On?
What Are We Focusing On? We can be very focused people. We can decide that there is something that we want to do, or not do, or get, or not get, or complete, or not complete, or argue, or not argue, or whatever it is that we want to focus on. Indeed, we can be very focused people. In fact, we can...
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Podcast Short: Better or Worse?
Better or Worse? Will the choice that you’re about to make, make you better or worse? Will it improve your life, or diminish your life? The fact of the matter is, it’s going to do one or the other. And because it is, it’s worth asking the question, will it make me better or worse? But that…
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Podcast Short: Repentance - Reconfigured Standards
Repentance Reconfigured Standards We all have standards, even if our standard is not to have one. We all live by something, even if it’s the denial of that ‘something.’ There’s some sort of inherent code that creates a framework that provides direction to our actions. There’s a paradigm that we…
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Podcast Short: We Reap What We Sow
We Reap What We Sow We reap what we sow. In other words, what we do is never free of an outcome that will be shaped by what we do. The ‘cause-and-effect’ of life is such that what we do will always cause an outcome that is fashioned directly by what we do. Despite the fact that we often think (or...
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Abandonment - When People Make Destructive Choices
Abandonment When People Make Destructive Choices There are times when the best of our logic fails to understand the worst of other’s behaviors. It’s part of the oddity or maybe complexity of the human psyche that we sometimes make choices that defy any shred of reason or seem void of even the...
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In the Footsteps of the Few - Our Calling
In the Footsteps of the Few Our Calling “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” I Timothy 2: 3-4 (NIV) “The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ came to do three things. He came to have my past forgiven, you get a purpose…
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”An Intimate Collision - Encounters With Life and Jesus” - Part Four
He was four years old . . . barely. Boyish innocence was tightly stitched and held fast to a deep zest for living. He was a mosaic of the threads of a splendid tapestry whose fibers were being woven into a soft spirit that reveled in life. I love Corey. I love him for what he is, and what I see…
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Finding Ourselves Somewhere Else - "In the Footsteps of the Few"
Not Where We Were It seems that we have some vague and rather ethereal sense of where we’re going in this thing called life. For the more contemplative soul, that sense might be quite refined. For the casual traveler, it might be a bit more nebulous and scattered. For many, where they’re going is...
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The Five Big Lies - Effectively Building Your Self-Esteem
Think About It You are what you choose to be. Life is not a dictated script. It’s far from being something to which you have to surrender. Yes, there are things that we did not ask for that we have to deal with. Regardless, whatever our flaws there is always room to do something about them.…
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”An Intimate Collision - Encounters With Life and Jesus” - Part Three
Dean was deaf. It was that simple, but it was inordinately complex at the same time. Life can have its sinkholes. Sometimes there’s a bunch of them, enough of them to cause a broad and crippling implosion where things just cave in all around us. Life then becomes a litany of foggy responses to...
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”An Intimate Collision - Encounters With Life and Jesus” - Part One
Filth described her very well. While it was an apt depiction, it failed to embrace the fullest description of what she was. Some lives seem to be nothing more than a brutal manifestation of the accumulated slag and scum that is leftover in the wake of some departed tragedy. These people become…
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”An Intimate Collision - Encounters with Life and Jesus” - Part Two
Darren and a cheap plastic fish; it was a dollar store bin filler indelibly stamped with “made in China” that bordered on being junk. There were numerous needs in Darren’s life, so numerous that he himself was lost in them. They were pathetic and endless, so it seemed anyway. A plastic fish was...
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Taking It to Our Knees - Not Defined By a Journey Gone Wrong
Not Defined by a Journey Gone Wrong “To let myself be defined by my greatest mistakes is my greatest mistake.” Craig D. Lounsbrough Hi, I’m Craig Lounsbrough Welcome to LifeTalk It seems that we have some vague sense of where we’re going in this thing called life. For the more contemplative soul,...
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”In the Footsteps of the Few - The Power of a Principled Life” - Part Four
"In the Footsteps of the Few - The Power of a Principled Life" I Was Thinking - To Think Outside the Box(s) I was thinking. And the more I thought, the more I realized that there is a whole lot to think about. But in my thinking, I thought that most of our thinking (despite how much there is to...
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Freedom is Precious
LifeTalk's "Thought for Life" is a weekly one-minute thought that touches on one of today's pressing issues. Each of these brief presentations is centered on one of Craig's personal quotes. All of his quotes are specifically written to challenge, inform, and inspire. Today's thought is: “If I…
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To Change a Nation - It Begins With Me
How do we change a nation? We might start by changing ourselves first. Change begins with us. We know that, but we also doubt that changing us changes much of anything else except us. How far does that kind of change go? Does it really have a broad sweep and a wide impact? Does it really count…
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Podcast Short: You Are Silent Now -Remembering the Sacrifices
You Are Silent Now -Remembering the Sacrifices “You are silent now who once stood on battlefields ravaged by destruction unimaginable, holding in those desperate places the line of freedom for others you would never know, and who would never know you. And being one of those you never knew, I…
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - The Power of Principles
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. Christianity stands for principles that are not stood for in our culture. It stands for something lofty, but costly. It stands for principles that are timeless rather than those that suit the times. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “So it is that this man...
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Defined By Our History - Taking It to Our Knees: Declaring Who I Am
Defined By Our History “The nature of our histories are always secondary to what we choose to do with them.” Craig D. Lounsbrough Our histories impact us. However, what impacts us doesn’t define us. Our histories can scar us, cripple us, leave us plagued with deficits, and reeling from loss. Our...
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Who Are You Giving Yourself Away To?
Who are you giving yourself away to? To what propaganda have you come to subscribe? To what bit of media polished bias or refined political spin have you succumb? Who has your ear, and therefore holds the heart to which your ear is attached? What are the voices that have methodically and…
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - The Power of Principle
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. Christianity stands for principles that are not stood for in our culture. It stands for something lofty, but costly. It stands for principles that are timeless rather than those that suit the times. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “So it is that this man...
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Thoughts for Father's Day
Father’s Day Some Thoughts Hi, I’m Craig LounsbroughWelcome to LifeTalk On Father’s Day week, I want to change the program up a bit and share something a little different on this Father’s Day week. Sometimes it’s a single thought that changes everything. Not some sweeping set of ideas or...
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - God’s Arsenal
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We spend our lives acquiring what we think we need to fight the battles that we think we’re fighting. In a world fraught with fear and uncertainty, we assimilate whatever grants us this sense of invincibility and power for whatever battle we think we’re...
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Defined By Our Deficits - "Taking It to Our Knees: Declaring Who I Am"
Defined By Our Deficits “Any deficit that you have can never stand against the asset that that deficit is waiting to become.” Craig D. Lounsbrough You know, we come to define ourselves more by what we lack than by what we possess. We define ourselves by the successes that we haven’t had, the...
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Ignoring Our Conscience
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We ignore our conscience because we want to do what it says we shouldn’t. But, we also ignore the consequences of ignoring it. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “Disabling your conscience is like disabling your smoke detector. It doesn’t stop a fire. It…
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Running After Stuff
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We run after a lot of stuff. Our time, our energy, our finances, and much of our lives are spent chasing stuff. And when we catch that stuff, we typically find that it doesn’t do for us what we thought that it would do for us. Consider this “Thought for...
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To Think Outside the Box - "In the Footsteps of the Few"
In the Footsteps of the Few I Was Thinking To Think Outside the Box “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” Pablo Picasso I think that most of our thinking (despite how much there is to think about) is really pretty standardized and chafingly rote. We...
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Asking the Right Questions Verses Responding for the Wrong Reasons
Too often we don't take the time to really ask why we support what we're supporting. We get swept up in some energizing movement, or we're utterly captivated by some cause. Something feels inherently good and the premise that drives it appears sound. We find that an army of people have raced to…
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Podcast Short: Am I Passionate for the Right Things?
Am I Passionate for the Right Things? “In full uniform, the color guard marched by as part of the parade. And as they did, he forced his horribly slumped and deeply aged body out of his worn wheelchair and stood to ram-rod attention. He held a salute until the guard had passed, and then he feebly...
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Not Defined By Our Appearance
Defined By Our Appearance “If the mirror doesn’t give me much back, it’s because it’s not designed to reflect the things within me that make the reflection truly magnificent.” Craig D. Lounsbrough The world has set an airbrushed standard of what we’re supposed to look like. This photoshopped...
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Bigger on the Inside - The Self That I Long to Believe In
The Self That I Long to Believe In Bigger on the Inside Than the Outside Attempting to Define Success to Define Ourselves “It would make sense that our worth should be, and in reality is based on something that cannot be proven for any other reason than its value lies forever beyond the most...
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Thinking About the Memorials That We're Creating
Finding Ourselves Somewhere Else In the Footsteps of the Few Not Where We Were It seems that we have some vague and rather ethereal sense of where we’re going in this thing called life. For the more contemplative soul, that sense might be quite refined. For the casual traveler, it might be a bit...
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The Path to Losing Our Freedom
Our freedoms are not a "right." They are, in fact, a "privilege." They are not ours to abuse. Rather, they are ours to cherish. But as we abuse these rights by demanding our right to them or exercising them in ways that will destroy these very freedoms, we forget that they are fragile. Very...
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - We Need to Stop
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We need to stop. We need to put down our calendars, set our phones aside, strip ourselves of the voices incessantly clamoring for our attention and listen. Just listen. For life is not what we’re chasing. It’s what we’re leaving behind in the chasing....
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Fear or Faith
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We spend our lives acquiring what we think we need to fight the battles that we think we’re fighting. In a world fraught with fear and uncertainty, we assimilate whatever grants us this sense of invincibility and power for whatever battle we think we’re...
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - Building Bridges or Barries
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. We build bridges or barriers. If you think about it, everything that we do builds one or the other. And the function of a bridge is quite different than the function of a barrier. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “Every decision will build a bridge or a...
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A Mother's Day Letter
Dear Mom: I realize that on days like Mother’s Day people tend to wax nostalgic, venerating those Mom’s among us who have passed. It is, I suppose, a way to express both our deep respect and enduring gratitude, while somehow holding you a bit closer in heart and mind since we can no longer hold…
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”LifeTalks” Thought for Life - Not As Helpless As We Think
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. Sometimes we feel helpless. In the midst of tragedy, or painful losses, or devastating moments, we often feel that we are helpless to do anything other than standby and watch. Yet is that really all that we can do? Consider this “Thought for Life:” “Prayer...
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”LifeTalk’s” Thought for Life - An Existence Without God
Welcome to LifeTalk’s Thought for Life. It’s my sense that God doesn’t need me to speak to you. He’s quite capable of doing that without me. But there are times when I sense that He wants me to speak something of Him to you. And this is one of those moments. Consider this “Thought for Life:” “I...
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The Unrecognized Potency of Prayer
Let’s start here. Think about this thought: “Too often we have stripped our single greatest asset of its power and hobbled it to the degree that it has come to be viewed only as a pathetic last resort. Yet despite our incessant meddling, this asset nonetheless remains a first resort so potent…
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About this show
Life Talk is a podcast intentionally designed to enrich your life, deepen your marriage, enhance your parenting, maximize your work life, and dramatically embolden this journey that we call life.
Hosted by
Craig Lounsbrough