BOOM! Yes and Amen

“For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”
- 2 Corinthians 1:20

I’ll never forget watching my daughter play basketball her senior year in an away game at Munday, Texas. We were up against the Munday Mongols and it was a tough game. It was close. My daughter came down, caught the ball at the three-point line and shot. On the release, I yelled with all my might, “BOOM!” I had no doubt the ball was going in and it was a turning point in the game.

I had watched my daughter play organized ball since second grade. I had seen her set and shoot thousands of time. I knew her motions, posture, mechanics and finish. I knew beyond a shadow of doubt when the ball left her hand that it was on the mark. So much so, that I yelled it before it was even halfway to the rim. Even her coach commented about me calling it after the game. A game that set up a playoff run.

If you have been around the game long enough, and know a player well enough, you can see from the positioning and mechanics when they are in the zone. Yet, no player is perfect—save one.

2 Corinthians 1:20 tells us, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” The only one to play the game of life perfectly was Christ. He didn’t miss a shot!

And all the promises in Him are yes and amen!

Sin: “…our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no long be slaves of sin.” (Romans 6:6)

Forgiveness: “And you…He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” (Colossians 2:13-14)

Righteousness: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Holiness: “For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being made holy.” (Hebrews 10:14)

Child of God: “But as many as received Him, to then He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12)

All of these are YES! They are completed by the work He has done in everyone who believes in Him.

However, they are also AMEN! Amen can be translated as “so let it be.” The promises are not a theological designation for an eternity to come. They are a present reality to be worked out in our daily lives.

His promises give us power over sin. They allow us to forgive others and ourselves. They motivate us to walk in righteousness and holiness. They enable us to live as the children of God. In other words, His promises are a yes, so let them be lived in our daily lives. Amen!

With my daughter, I knew she had made the shot long before it got to the rim because I had so closely observed her playing ball for years. It is no different when it comes to faith. We can only anticipate these promises being worked out in our daily life when we spend enough time watching Christ work. We have to care enough about the game of life to study the posture, mechanics, position and way Christ works to bring these promises to be in our lives.

I drilled into my daughters that games are won or lost in the practice gym. This week I’m challenged to get back in the spiritual gym and consider my posture, mechanics, position and finish and evaluate where I am, and am not allowing Christ to work in my life.

Everywhere I’m willing to allow Him to work, His promises are YES, and AMEN!

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

Attention Span Scam

“I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies. …The Lord lives! Blessed be the Rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted.”
- Psalm 18:3,46

Attention spans aren’t what they used to be. Or are they?

According to research reported on by the American Psychological Association, attention spans have decreased from around 2 1/2 minutes in 2004 to just about 47 seconds in recent years. Lots of reasons exist for this according to psychologists commenting on the research: social media, information overload, AI, screen time, entertainment models, etc.

Can I call hogwash on all this? I completely disagree. We have allowed this idea of attention spans to become a scam that dictates our society. We then alter our efforts to accommodate the model and in consequence perpetuate it further.

The recent epitome of declining attention span comes from the 2009 Pixar movie Up! (Pete Doctor), where Dug (the overweight Golden Retriever) is constantly distracted by what he thinks is a squirrel. Saying “Squirrel!” has become a conversational phrase to acknowledge someone has been distracted. But have you ever considered it was the conversation distracting Dug from his primary purpose of retrieving squirrels? Just a thought.

There is absolutely no doubt we live in a culture of information overload and distraction. Everyone in my family will attest I’m majorly ADHD (although I’ve never been tested), and yet I can spend hours focused on a singular task and think consistently through a task for weeks and even months in the background. Why? Because it is my purpose and passion.

I don’t believe we have an attention span problem. I think we have millions of people around the world who are functioning without purpose. People who are reacting to the world rather than deciding who they are going to be in it. I believe it is a scam from the Evil One to distract us from being who God called us to be while we sit idly by blaming it on just being the way the world is now.

A classic example is Psalm 18. Through 50 verses David pours out his heart after his deliverance from the hand of Saul. He goes into minute detail as to how God saved, protected and sustained him. However, for many Christians we have boiled the entire Psalm down into two verses. And we turned them into a song; “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies. The Lord liveth, blessed be the Rock! May the God of my salvation be exalted!” (From Psalm 18:3,46). Most of us don’t even know the other three verses. Me included.

However, it is in the details we find the meat that sustains us. It is the story that gives substance to the two verses we pull out. The rest of the Psalm is the enlightenment we can apply to our current struggles so we can claim those two verses. It shows a man with purpose. A man who’s singular purpose and passion in all that he did was for the Lord.

I don’t think we have an attention span problem. I think we haven’t paid enough attention to our purpose for being in this world—to know God and make Him known. That is our purpose. And we can only find passion in that when we know who He is and who He created us to be. We have to know the story.

I will reiterate; I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone who wouldn’t spend ample time focused on what they were passionate about and saw as their purpose. I think the problem is so few of us find our purpose and passion in being who God called us to be. The solution to that is simple: “I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised!"

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

Truth Liars

“My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
— 1 John 3:18

“I cannot tell a lie…I did cut it with my hatchet,” George Washington is often quoted in a confession to his father bolstering his integrity. The only problem is it never happened. The story was completely invented by Mason Locke Weems in one of the first biographies of the president in his book The Life of Washington (1800). Taught to school children in America for generations, the “white” lie had merit. A nation without honesty is in peril.

I’ve experienced this in my own life. I’ve worked with several high profile individuals who had extraordinary stories that taught amazing life lessons. I’ve also learned many of them aren’t true. They were exaggerated or completely made up. Neither am I immune. In my early years, I will admit I concocted a story or two about what my grandparents taught me in order to drive home a point. I was always ashamed of it, but felt people would consider what a wise old grandparent would say over the ideas of a twenty-something upstart.

The tactic is a total fallacy—a false argument. It is known as an “Appeal to Authority.” The presenter is basically saying, “These people, who are greater than you, hold this position, therefore, you cannot question it.” And it is always wrong! Arguments have to stand on their own.

I was in a meeting today where the presenter stated that he had spoken to U.S. Presidents, Congressmen, CEOs and even actors in Hollywood. The implication; so if they listened to me, who are are you to question me? Well, I know a lot of idiots who have also talked to those people. What’s your argument, logic, point and proof of what you are saying? That is what matters, not to whom you have spoken.

Yet, we somehow feel compelled to make the truth bigger than ourselves. To leverage other people’s names, stories or inferences to give our truth more weight. What a shame!

Truth is truth. You don’t need a Washington to lead a future nation into truth. You need a child who tells the truth to become a Washington. You don’t need someone who speaks to presidents to guide a nation, you need a child who tells the truth to become a president.

1 John 3:18 states, “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and truth.” Let our lives be the witness of our truth. You don’t need a Washington or a cherry tree to teach about the importance of truth. You just need to be a person who lives it.

You don’t need a nifty story about truth for people to believe it is important. When they see the importance of truth in their own life, they will definitely get it.

We have become TRUTH LIARS in our society. Follow social media and you will see numerous false stories aimed at teaching a greater truth. What a tragedy! If you need a lie to teach a truth, your beliefs about truth are a lie. Truth is truth. It is lived in deed and in word, but never in a lie.

The ends never justify the means when it comes to truth. Rather, truth dictates the ends.

I’m challenged this week to be more honest in my conversations. To resist the urge to amplify my speech, appeal to authority, allow false assumptions to be embraced or flat out make something up to win an argument. If we want to create something real, it has to be built on truth. I don’t need Washington and his cherry tree to express how important truth really is to society. I just need to live it in word and deed.

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

The Glory of Drudgery

“Is not life on earth a drudgery?”
- Job 7:1 (NABRE)

Drudgery is not a term we utilize much these days, but it fully embodies the meaning of the word when we say it. It means “hard menial or dull work.” Just say it out loud. You experience its meaning in the pronunciation. A synonym of drudgery is “donkey work.”

Job expresses his suffering in Job 7:1-2 as such work. The New King James Version translates the verse as, “Is there not a time of hard service for man on earth? Are not his days also like the days of a hired man? Like a servant who earnestly desires the shade, And a hired man who eagerly looks for his wages,…”

Drudgery is all the stuff we know we should do daily, but hate to do. The necessary “to dos” that if neglected for long cause havoc in our life. The stuff that no one applauds, rewards or even notices most of the time. Yet, it is vital.

The neglect of drudgery is peril. I have often told my daughters, “Success in life is dependent on how well you can navigate loneliness, boredom and failure.” Oftentimes we find ourselves facing these three menaces because we neglect the drudgery.

We neglect to spend the time with family and friends to foster our relationships with the result of loneliness. We neglect to lay the groundwork for fulfilling our purpose and in the place of purpose we find boredom. We neglect the menial work necessary for success and are frustrated by failure. We can never avoid facing these three menaces all together. However, far to often we are tormented by them because of our own choice; the choice to neglect the donkey work that would have changed our circumstances.

Paul talks about how we should approach this type of work in our lives in 2 Corinthians 6:4-10 (I encourage you to read the whole passage). He states, “But in all things we commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distress, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumult, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fasting;…”

In other words, when you find yourself confronted by drudgery, act as a minister of God. Do what needs to be done as unto the Lord. And do the donkey work, as he states in verses 6-7, “…by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and the left,…”.

Drudgery often seems meaningless at the time, but we are called to redeem the time. Where the simplest things (even when they are hard and debasing) become God moments. Like when Jesus in John 13 humbled Himself and washed his disciples feet. It wasn’t just a symbolic gesture. It was a necessary activity before Passover usually performed by a servant. It was donkey work that had to be done. Yet, He made the lowest drudgery the highest form of service to God. Stating in John 13:15, “For I have given to you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.”

In the midst of drudgery, it is easy to loath life and have a pity party. Primarily because we often cannot see the greater purpose. We are blind to how this serves us. That is when we need to shift our focus to how this moment serves God. As Corrie Ten Boom once wrote, “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away your ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”

We all face drudgery. There is always donkey work to be done. Do not neglect it, but face it “by the Holy Spirit…by the power of God.” Trust the living Lord to live through you. Trust the engineer to take you through the darkness of drudgery. And you will find of those times, those are the moments that create the foundation for a greater life.

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.

A Tree Falls...Does It Make a Sound?

“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
- Mark 11:24

The old adage often attributed to George Berkeley asks, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Now, I’m not going to get too deep philosophically, but the simple answer is NO!

Does it create sound waves? Yes. Does it create a sound? No. A sound by definition is audible vibrations of the air that are perceived. Without the reception of the sound waves, there is no sound. It is no different than a hearing test where they put the headphones on you and create sound waves. The sound waves exist, but you only raise your hand when you perceive the sound. Otherwise, you are deaf to vibrations created. The vibrations were present, but their was no sound. The fact that it should have made a sound doesn’t change the fact that it didn’t.

Prayer is talking and listening to God. Many people struggle with prayer. Reading a post on social media, a text message, or a phone call is much easier. It brings the communication down into our physical senses. Spiritual listening is more complex. It is easy to talk to God, but to listen? That is our challenge.

The key to the adage is “and no one is around to hear it.” It is easy to avoid being “around” to hear. Most often it is because we do not expect a response, or we expect a response before we actively listen.

Jesus tells us in Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” Notice what this passage does not say. It doesn’t say “believe that you will receive them”, nor does it say “believe as you receive them.” It says “believe that you receive them!” A present reality.

Part of being around to hear from God is acting on your own prayers. Believing you have received them. You can’t pray and leave the forest and hear the tree fall, or the mountain moved, a miracle performed or the voice of God.

Yet, we often wander through life waiting to hear from God. Constantly moving and hustling to make it our own. We are overwhelmed by oppression, stress, worry, fatigue, doubt and general busyness. We are eager for change, but we want the mountain to start moving before we believe.

Paul tells us in Romans 4:17-18, “God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who contrary to hope, in hope believed…”. Belief came first. Before there was reason to hope, hope prevailed. Those who remained steadfast in faith in the forest of doubt hear not the tree fall, but the Lord speak.

One of the great challenges of the Christian life is waiting upon the Lord. It is a monumental challenge because we are conditioned to wait for a sign. To see His work being done before we join the ranks. What Christ is calling us to here is an active waiting. Not stagnation, but rather actively pursuing His will in the absence of evidence the mountain is moving.

Faith prays and then acts believing “that you receive.”

The only clarification I will make in this regard is that we are talking about anything we ask in His name. (John 14:13) That doesn’t mean we can ask anything and end the prayer with “in Jesus’ name” and get what we want. In His name means to be in Him. It is asking in an abiding relationship where we are in Him, He is in us and He is living through us. In that state, anything we ask, He will supply. Believe that you receive it.

The greatest challenge to prayer is overcoming ourselves. Understanding we are not what’s most important. He genuinely cares for you and wants the best for you, but His will is what matters. Today, I’m challenged to set my own selfish outlook aside and humbly pray for His will in my life. Then, to have the courage to believe and act knowing I have received it. Will you join me?

© 2026 Warren Martin. All rights Reserved.