2 corinthians on Inadequacy

The following story by professor and author A. J. Swoboda is a vivid example of how shame works in our lives, often causing us to hide and run away from the pain and embarrassment: One of the greate...

Call to Confession In Philippians four, we are called to take everything to God in prayer. This includes our inadequacies, our fears, our anxieties, our shortcomings, and our sins. Let us take our b...

May you refuse to do battle against the parts of yourself that need love the most. Set down your sword. Say hello to every shard. Hello, grief. Hello, sadness. Hello, anger. Hello, madness. ...

If I am in denial about my own weaknesses and sin, there will be a concomitant blindness to the greatness and glory of God.

Adversity is always unexpected and unwelcome. It is an intruder and a thief, and yet in the hands of God, adversity becomes the means through which His supernatural power is demonstrated.

When we listen to and follow Jesus, who lived in continual dependence on his Father, we become convinced of our poverty as men and women. We realize our absolute neediness. We are all beggars. Father ...

As for Christians, well, we really have just one thing going for us. We have publicly declared… that we are desperately in need of Another to give us his righteousness, to complete us, to live in us. ...

Far too easily we settle for holiness rather than wholeness, conformity rather than authenticity, becoming spiritual rather than deeply human, fulfillment rather than transformation, and a journey tow...

Grace substitutes a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our need, a joy in total dependence. The good man is sorry for the sins which have increased his need. He is not entirely sorry for the ...

When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere that day is half done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving has only begun. His lo...

What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction, where it was never meant to be. A man was mean...

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

My friend Wendy calls the incremental disappointments we endure over the years “the slow leak of life.”

Insecurity is a funny thing. It makes us into someone we’re not as a way to cope with someone we used to be. For me, it started at home. Growing up, my dad had been critical of my mother’s weight, and...

Almighty God, we trust in our own strength, abilities, and resources. We think too highly of what we have to offer this world. The truth is we cannot do anything without your strength and all we have ...

Henri Nouwen is a well-loved writer and theologian who taught for decades at some of the most prestigious institutions in the country, but he left behind the academy to serve among the disabled popula...

True humility means total dependence on God for everything.

Total need requires total help

In grad school, although I was studying to become a clinical psychologist, I started working at a Baptist church. I discovered then that I loved to preach . . . until one weekend when the sermon wasn’...

Where there’s humility there is majesty; where there’s weakness, there’s might; where there is death, there’s life. If you want to get these things don’t disdain those.

Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual.

The improvisational ability to lead adaptively relies on responding to the present situation rather than importing the past into the present and laying it on the current situation like an imperfect te...

God uses the nobodies to show himself to be somebody. God uses the nothings to show himself to be something. And maybe you feel like a nobody, a nothing. My friend, you're the one God's chosen...

Living in a society governed by technique conditions us to believe that in every way life is easier than it ever has been. Technique is the use of rational methods to maximize efficiency, and we...

As the darkness began to descend on me in my early twenties, I thought I had developed a unique and terminal case of failure. I did not realize that I had merely embarked on a journey toward joining t...

In her memoir, Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, Tammy describes the internal turmoil she experienced trying to be a good, rule-following Christian who had unexpectedly built an entire life arou...

Inexpressible Things This chapter of Paul’s Corinthian correspondence is rich indeed, revealing so much about Paul and his relationship to the Corinthian church, a church which he himself founded. Bu...

Most of us live with the false narrative that strength is found in domination and control. But these are not the highest forms of power. God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). The powe...

God’s grace is not defined by our ability to be good. God’s grace is defined by God’s desire to be with us.