I don’t love very well. My tendency is to close in on myself and keep my distance. Sometimes, I avoid the messiness that love brings. I fear that I will not know what to say or do in a situation that requires love, so to save me the uncertainty and stress, I just avoid it.... Continue Reading →

The most important thing you can do right now as a follower of Christ is to develop a plan for Growing Up. God transforms and sanctifies us but he chooses to do it in a way that requires our participation and intention. It is something that you have to commit to and plan for. What... Continue Reading →

Pharisees are all around us in every aspect of society. It is one of our cultures most seductive tendencies - to puff ourselves up by letting everyone else know how righteous we are and how lacking everyone else is. It is seductive because all we have to do is to tick a few boxes of... Continue Reading →

Since 2015, I have been flattened to the ground by loss, been left zapped of all energy by the death of a loved one, and seen friends and co-workers who I talked to one week be dead a week later. I never knew this kind of grief before 2015. Sure, I had mourned the loss... Continue Reading →

When I read, I very seldom write notes in the margin. I just like to highlight or underline and go about my reading. In the last book I read, I only wrote one thing in the margin. It was more a prayer than a note. I wrote, “Lord, don’t ever let me fall victim to... Continue Reading →

Complete surrender is the ultimate goal of the Christ follower.  Some might say, “Why is that necessary? Doesn’t that seem extreme?” Perhaps we work against this notion because we think we have found a loophole in this discipleship thing. We have been presented a version of the Gospel that is, in Dallas Willard’s words, the... Continue Reading →

My days, which are often filled with worry about what people think of me, constant replays of conversations and scenarios that I wish had gone better, and mental rehearsals of future discussions and plans, leave me full of anxiety about what has already happened and dread for what will happen. But, when I turn to... Continue Reading →

Singer-songwriter and writer, Carolyn Arends, tells the story of how music artist Rich Mullins would answer fans that would ask him how they could understand God’s will for their lives. According to Arends, Mullins would say, “I don’t think finding God’s plan for you has to be complicated. God’s will is that you love him... Continue Reading →

As my daughter starts her new chapter at college this fall, I wrote this as something I needed to hear when I was her age: You will question your faith more in the next four years more than you probably ever will. That is normal and perfectly okay. As Frederick Buechner says about his own... Continue Reading →

Henri Nouwen takes the greatest lessons of the Christian experience and presents them in ways that are digestible and inspiring. That is a difficult feat. His classic, The Return of the Prodigal Son, is dripping with gems that I can’t stop thinking about. For example: “The world’s love is and always will be conditional.” “‘Addiction’... Continue Reading →