colossians on Mistrust

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.

Don: On a recent airplane flight I got into a quite pleasant conversation with the person sitting next to me. He was a businessman from India. Even though I am quite introverted, I always love good, i...

A Tree in Which to Perch  An impressive California Sycamore tree used to grace our village. It rose majestically by the water’s edge, a few yards away from the wooden bridge that spans the lake whi...

Father: You are good and You are strong. You want what is best. You act to bring it about .And you invite us to hold our hearts before You in prayer, so we can participate in what You do. Therefore, w...

Gracious God, we come before you with humility, recognizing that doubt has led our decisions. We have allowed fear to lead, rather than love. Because of this, we have been unkind to our families, our ...

Faith is not the absence of doubt. Faith is the presence of love.

We’re afraid when we’re suddenly caught off our guard and don’t know what to do. We’re afraid when our presuppositions and assumptions no longer account for what we’re up against, and we don’t know wh...

For some, faith begins with a hard shell, a rigid set of answers and platitudes that keep them safe but eventually prevent them from growing into who they could be. The system that was initially prote...

By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.

Psychoanalysis . . . daily demonstrates to us how youthful persons lose their religious belief as soon as the authority of the father breaks down.

Anxiety sparks when a perspective we value bumps into another perspective that challenges it in some way. If we find this new perspective to be unacceptable, that’s when our “Someone is wrong on the i...

“No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge*, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.” (*or Faith)

“I’m not superstitious, but I am a little stitious.”

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 ...

Stop being so sure that you are always right, and others wrong. Don't trust your own opinion, when you find it contrary to that of older men, and especially to that of your own parents. Age gives ...

Many promising reconciliations have broken down because, while both parties came prepared to forgive, neither party came prepared to be forgiven.

Ronald Rohlheiser begins his excellent book, Our One Great Act of Fidelity , with a story of a young girl. She had awoken from a nightmare, convinced that monsters had invaded her room and were comin...

George Herbert Mead, an influential early 20th-century sociologist, coined the term “generalized other” to describe the vague group we consider when shaping our actions. How often do we behave a certa...

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...

In her thought-provoking book, Teach us to Want , Jen Pollock Michel describes the tension in listening to our deepest desires: some of them these desires are integral to our identity, but they a...

King Jesus, We confess that we are quick to put our hope in places other than You. We are often more driven by our fears than by our faith in You and Your Kingdom. We place our trust in health, jobs, ...

Heavenly Father, give us hearts that wait with faith. Build in us the assurance that you are at work and in control. Forgive us for our impatience, our uneasiness, and our wandering desires when we do...

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

A student of mine, Josiah Brown, oversees the student outreach team. He and some of our students go to youth groups to teach the youth about Christian spiritual formation. They talk about what formati...

Man's mind is so formed that it is far more susceptible to falsehood than to truth

When we are bitter, we delude ourselves into thinking that those who hurt us are more likely to be punished as long as we are set on revenge. We are afraid to let go of those feelings. After all, if w...

We delude ourselves into believing that if we can just get everything done, if we can only tie up all the loose ends, if we can even once get ahead of the crush, we will prove our worth and establish ...

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

During my training [as a therapist], a supervisor once told me, “There’s something likable in everyone,” and to my great surprise, I found that she was right. It’s impossible to get to know people dee...

Faithfulness in small things is a big thing to God.