It is easier (and less painful) for us to rely on God’s forgiveness of our sins than it is to believe that God might support us to quit them.
My brother and his family lived about an hour away from where I went to college. So, from time to time I would go up and spend the night, eat real food and have some family time. I remember one weekend, Randy and his wife Margaret where doing some spring cleaning. They determined to make […]
We don’t like to get too serious about things, especially about ourselves. When we are with other people, we are apt to talk about almost anything under the sun except for what really matters to us, except for our own lives, except for what is going on inside our own skins. We pass the time of day We chatter. We hold each other at bay, keep our distance from each other even when God knows it is precisely each other that we desperately need.
“So, don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” (Matthew 6:34, NLT) Those words were spoken to an audience over 2000 years ago, they are still applicable today. Losing someone you love changes everything, and change is hard. It’s hard to imagine a future without that […]
Grief can be an uneven process. It’s often unpredictable, coming in waves of sadness and then yielding to days of reprieve. It can bring depression, anger, relief, and confusion, sometimes all in the same day. Memories play an important part in the process of grieving. The way that we engage our memories will often determine our […]
It is this God of the gospel who came to that barren, hopeless couple Abraham and Sara, in their old age, and gave them a child, an heir, and opened a future for them. And since then, the God of the gospel has been giving people futures when they thought there was no possibility of newness.
Last week marked six years since my brother died. I’ve thought about him and the intervening six years a lot over the past few weeks. My brother was possibly the best human I’ve ever known. Our family didn’t have a lot, and it had even less when he and my sister were growing up (he […]
Jesus is an invitation and a chance and a summons to a different way of life. And we are always deciding. The Christian life can be tricky at times. Christians aren’t perfect. In fact, most of us are very aware of our faults and flaws. One of the main questions that comes up for […]
Lent is about noticing our blindness and seeing differently. I invite you, during this Lent, to see differently, maybe even for the first time. To see past your anxiety, your greed, your fear, your control. See yourself as the sheep of this Good Shepherd, as the traveler in God’s good valley, as the citizen at home in God’s good house.
The love for equals… is a human thing, the love for the less fortunate… is a beautiful thing. The love for the more fortunate… is a rare thing. And then there is love for the enemy. This is God’s love. It conquers the world. -Frederick Buechner Everyone is talking about how important it […]