Month: July 2026

We Bought a Beach House—and Learned What We Really Needed

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

Last night, a friend was watching television when a couple of familiar faces appeared on the screen—ours. 

She took a few pictures of the television, posted them on Facebook, and tagged us. There we were, a decade younger, walking around Dauphin Island, Alabama, looking for a beach house on an episode of Island Life.

We bought the house in 2016, but the episode still turns up occasionally. Every few years, somebody will be watching television, recognize us, and send us a picture. It is a little strange to have a decision from your past preserved in reruns.

Seeing those pictures again brought back a flood of memories. It also reminded me of something I learned during that season—something Richard Foster expressed far better than I ever could: “It’s possible to enjoy the beach without owning a piece of it.”

It took buying a beach house for me to discover that.

Let me clear up one misconception before we go any further: Vanessa and I are not wealthy people. We were not wealthy in 2016, either. Owning a beach house is not necessarily proof that someone has a lot of money. Sometimes it simply means they have a good credit score and a complicit banker. We had both.

We loved Dauphin Island. It was quiet, unhurried, and far removed from the pace of ordinary life. We could imagine ourselves escaping there, sitting near the water, watching the sun go down, and enjoying time with family. Somewhere along the way, however, enjoying the island turned into wanting to own a piece of it. Once that desire took hold, we began finding ways to make it happen.

That is one of the things I have learned about desire: once we decide what we want, we can become remarkably creative in justifying it. We run the numbers. We imagine the possibilities. We focus on everything that might go right and minimize everything that could go wrong. If the door opens—even if the door is opened with borrowed money—we take that as confirmation that we are supposed to walk through it.

We found the house. The bank found the money. And television found us. The producers of Island Life told the story of a couple searching for the perfect place on Dauphin Island. We toured houses, talked about what we liked and didn’t like, and eventually chose the one that would become ours. It made for a nice episode of television. But, there is nothing real about reality television.

The story had already been decided before the cameras arrived. Scenes were staged and conversations repeated. We walked through houses we had no intention of buying and acted as though the decision still hung in the balance. Hours of recording were edited into a neat little story about a dream coming true.

That is what television does. It removes the complications, compresses the timeline, adds some music, and gives everything a satisfying ending. Real life is rarely that tidy.

The episode showed the excitement of buying a beach house. It did not show the mortgage payments, insurance, upkeep, repairs, worry, or responsibility that came with it. It did not show what happens when the place you visit to escape becomes one more thing demanding your attention.

Owning a beach house changes the experience of going to the beach. You no longer simply arrive and enjoy it. You notice what needs repairing. You wonder what the weather has done while you were away. You think about what the house is costing when you are not there and what needs to be done while you are. The place that was supposed to provide rest can become another source of work.

There was another complication, too—one that is harder for me to admit. At the time, I was pastoring a church. Not everyone in the congregation celebrated our new adventure. Some assumed that buying a house on Dauphin Island meant we were preparing to leave. Others wondered whether my attention was where it needed to be.

I thought those concerns were unfair. We were not planning to leave, and I was still doing my job. From my perspective, owning a beach house had nothing to do with my commitment to the church. Looking back, however, I wonder whether they saw something I did not. Perhaps my body was still present while some part of my imagination had already moved to the island.

That does not mean pastors should never own beach houses. Nor does it mean the house itself was sinful. The deeper issue was not the property. The deeper issue was desire—and the amount of attention, energy, and imagination I was willing to give it.

I wanted something, and because we could find a way to acquire it, I assumed we should. I confused the ability to purchase something with the wisdom to pursue it.

That is a temptation most of us understand. We live in a culture that is remarkably skilled at turning wants into needs. We are told that fulfillment is always one purchase, one accomplishment, one experience, or one upgrade away. And when we finally get what we wanted, we often discover that it cannot give us what we were really seeking. The beach house was not just a financial decision. It revealed something about my heart.

I am in a different season of life and ministry now. These days, I find myself thinking less about success and more about faithfulness—less about what I can build or acquire and more about who I am becoming. As I reflect on my own discipleship, I am beginning to recognize how easily misplaced desires can shape a life.

Discipleship is not only learning to resist desires that are obviously sinful. Sometimes it means surrendering good desires that have taken an improper place in our hearts.

Rest is good. Time with family is good. Watching a sunset over the Gulf is good. Even owning a beach house can be good. But good things become dangerous when we ask them to give us something only God can provide—or when pursuing them begins to compete with the life to which God has called us.

We do not always abandon Jesus to chase what we want. Sometimes we simply ask Jesus to come along and bless the pursuit.

Richard Foster was right. We did not need to own a piece of the beach to enjoy it. We did not need a mortgage to appreciate the water, the sand, the sunsets, or time together. Those things were already available to us as gifts. We could receive them, enjoy them, and then return home without carrying the burden of ownership with us.

Perhaps that is what we really needed—not possession, but permission to enjoy the gift without having to own it.

The old episode will probably continue appearing on television from time to time. When it does, it will show two people pursuing a dream and finding the house they wanted.

What it cannot show is what took us years to learn: We bought a beach house. But what we really needed was to examine the desire that made us believe we needed one.

Until next time, keep looking up…

Living the Lord’s Prayer

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer for most of my life.

Like many Christians, I learned it as a child. Over the years I’ve prayed it in worship services, hospital rooms, funeral homes, around dinner tables, and in quiet moments when I didn’t quite know what else to say.

I’ve also preached it more than once. Whenever I preached it, I usually approached it the way many pastors do—taking each petition and showing how it can guide our own prayers. That’s a good approach. In fact, I still believe it’s a biblical one.

But this past week, while preparing to preach from Matthew 6, I noticed something I had never fully appreciated before. Matthew doesn’t place the Lord’s Prayer in a book about prayer. He places it in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount. That matters.

The Sermon on the Mount is Jesus’ description of life in the Kingdom of God. It’s where He teaches what His disciples look like, how they treat others, what they value, where they place their treasure, and how they trust the Father. Right in the middle of that teaching, Jesus says, “This, then, is how you should pray…”

It made me wonder: What if Jesus wasn’t only teaching His disciples what to say when they prayed? What if He was also showing them the kind of life they were to live?

Read through the Lord’s Prayer again with that thought in mind.

It begins in the Father’s presence: “Our Father in heaven…”

Before there are requests, there is relationship.

Then it turns to the Father’s priorities: “Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” Before Jesus teaches us to pray about our needs, He teaches us to care about what matters to the Father.

Only then do our needs enter the conversation: “Give us this day our daily bread… Forgive us… Lead us not into temptation… Deliver us from evil.”

The entire prayer moves from the Father’s presence to the Father’s priorities, then to the Father’s provision and protection. That’s more than a model for prayer. It’s also a pattern for life.

The more I reflected on it, another realization dawned on me. Jesus didn’t simply teach the Lord’s Prayer. He lived it.

He lived continually in His Father’s presence. He sought His Father’s glory above His own. He proclaimed the Father’s Kingdom. He surrendered to the Father’s will—even in Gethsemane. He trusted the Father for daily provision. He resisted every temptation. And through His death and resurrection, He became the forgiveness and deliverance we could never achieve for ourselves.

Suddenly, the Lord’s Prayer looked less like a script to memorize and more like a portrait of Jesus Himself. And that’s good news.

The goal of the Christian life isn’t merely to pray better prayers. It’s to become more like Christ. By His Spirit, Jesus is forming His own life in us. As He does, the Lord’s Prayer becomes more than words we recite. It becomes a life we live.

The next time you pray the Lord’s Prayer, don’t rush through familiar words. Pause. Listen. Receive it as an invitation—not only to speak with your Father, but to live as His child.

Don’t just pray the Lord’s Prayer.

Live it.

Until next time, keep looking up…

The Danger Behind a Long Prayer

/ pastorlynnmalone / Leave a comment

I grew up believing that long prayers were better prayers.

The person who could pray the longest usually sounded the most spiritual. Sometimes those prayers were sincere. Sometimes they were beautiful. And sometimes, if I’m honest, they became performances. I’ve prayed some of those prayers myself.

As a pastor, I know how easy it is to slip into that trap. Standing in front of a congregation with every eye closed and every ear listening, it’s tempting to begin talking more to the people than to God. Before long, a prayer can become another sermon. Or worse, an opportunity to sound spiritual.

Jesus never condemned long prayers. In fact, He prayed through the night on more than one occasion. The problem isn’t the length of the prayer. The problem is the motive behind it.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warned His disciples:

“When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. They love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people…” (Matthew 6:5)

Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. He doesn’t say public prayer is wrong. Jesus prayed publicly. The early church prayed publicly. Christians have gathered for prayer together for two thousand years. Neither does He say long prayers are wrong. Instead, He exposes something much deeper.

The problem wasn’t where they prayed. The problem was why they prayed.

The word “hypocrite” originally described an actor wearing a mask on a stage. These weren’t people who didn’t pray. They prayed. The problem was that they had confused their audience.

I’ve often said it this way:

The audience determines the prayer.

If my audience is the congregation, I’ll be concerned with how my words sound. If my audience is God, I’ll be concerned with speaking honestly.

That raises an uncomfortable question. Who am I trying to impress? That question doesn’t just apply to public prayer. It reaches into every part of our spiritual lives. Why do I serve? Why do I give? Why do I post Bible verses online? Why do I volunteer? Why do I pray?

Jesus isn’t trying to make us suspicious of public expressions of faith. He’s inviting us into something better. Prayer was never meant to be a performance. It was always meant to be a conversation with our Father. That’s why, just a few verses later, Jesus reminds His disciples:

“Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” (Matthew 6:8)

Think about that for a moment. You don’t have to impress a Father who already knows you. You don’t have to convince a Father who already loves you. You don’t have to perform for a Father who already knows your heart.

The most beautiful prayers are rarely the most polished. They’re simply honest. And that’s the kind of prayer your Father has wanted all along.

Until next time, keep looking up…