It was Saint Thomas Aquinas who coined the Latin phrase anima forma corporis , which means “the soul is the form of the body.” The soul, as I said previously, is defined as the first principle of...
Franklin D. Roosevelt had hoped the Yalta conference (which discussed the future of Europe and Germany post-WWII) wouldn’t last more than five or six days. Winston Churchill, however, remarked, “I do ...
Job 38:1-7, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Genesis 32:22-32, Luke 1:26-38, Matthew 16:13-17, Psalm 8:3-4
It is as if in creating us God asked a question, and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.
At the beginning of this season of Lent, on this Ash Wednesday, we are reminded that we are dust and to dust we will return. We are reminded of human fragility and failure. We are reminded that we are...
James 1:17, Romans 8:19, Matthew 7:11, Ecclesiastes 3:13, Psalm 104:24, Genesis 1:31
There is an Indian restaurant in my neighborhood called Bollywood Theatre. I once went to lunch with my friend Todd Miles, a theologian at a local seminary. Taking in our first few bites, he blurted o...
To ask our (not so) simple question in another way: Why did God make this world? Why did he make a world for his own glory in Christ and then fill it to the brim with pleasures—physical pleasures, sen...
Genesis 3:1-7 , Exodus 32:1-6 , Ecclesiastes 2:1-11, Psalm 73:25-26, Matthew 4:1-11 , James 1:13-15
The church fathers consistently acknowledged the beauty and goodness of desire (e.g., Augustine, above), but they were not naive to the potential for desire to be bent by sin. They knew that our longi...
Acts 14:17, Matthew 6:11, Ecclesiastes 2:24, Psalm 34:8, Genesis 1:29
Once, when sharing my faith with an agnostic friend, I was asked to make my greatest argument for God’s existence. I uttered one word: mangoes. I was not talking about just any mangoes. I was talking ...
Two Latin words are used to describe useful and beautiful things: util and frui. Util means useful, beneficial, helpful. Frui means enjoyable, pleasurable, and delightful. The created world is both fr...
Divine Creator, your ways are above our ways. No matter how hard we try, you will always confound us. Too often we try to reduce you into something we can fully comprehend, or something we can control...
Psalm 33:6, Psalm 113:3, Psalm 74:17, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Romans 11:36, John 1:3, Luke 12:27, 1 Peter 1:24-25
Almighty God, Creator: The morning is Yours, rising into fullness. The summer is Yours, dipping into autumn. Eternity is Yours, dipping into time. The vibrant grasses, the scent of flowers, the li...
The atheist author Richard Dawkins, who wrote, “The universe, at the bottom, has no design, no purpose, no evil, and no other good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor care...
After twenty years of listening to the yearnings of people’s hearts [as a counselor], I am convinced that all human beings have an inborn desire for God.
Adam was called by God to take care of Eden. But it was too much work for one man. Eden was massive. Adam was incapable of gardening the whole thing. He needed help. That’s why God created Eve. Go...
Imagine you have an invisible recorder around your neck that, for all your life, records every time you say to somebody else, “You ought.” It only turns on when you tell somebody else how to live. In ...
I asked the earth, I asked the sea and the deeps, among the living animals, the things that creep. I asked the winds that blow, I asked the heavens, the sun, the moon, the stars and to all things that...
The mystery of perfection as an aspect of beauty is its transcendence. It points to a glory beyond itself. I knew that when I held my children, I didn’t simply cradle flesh and blood. I held a living ...
Hosea 1:10-20, Hosea 11:1-11, Ecclesiastes 1:2, Luke 12:13-21, John 1:13
The Good News or the Bad News? Which do you want first: the good news or the bad news? Well, if you’re preaching Hosea these next two weeks, it doesn’t matter what you want. You’re getting the bad ...
We long to see our lives whole, to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Lacking a vision of a l...
Everything significant starts with relationship. At the end of the day, your faith, your family, your work, and your leadership are all based on who you relate to and how you relate. Your life is moti...
Colossians 3:23-24, Proverbs 16:3 , Micah 6:8 , Ecclesiastes 3:13 , James 5:1-5, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Mark 10:42-45
O God, who gives to every man and woman their work, and through their labors does accomplish your purposes upon earth: Grant your blessing, we beg you, to those who are engaged in the work and busines...
If you’ve been around a kid who’s just learned to ask “why?”, it can be a bit much. You’ll be asked, “why is grass green?” “Why do birds fly?” “Why do I get hungry?” and much, much, more. Pa...
Genesis 2:7, 1 Kings 19:4-8 , Ecclesiastes 12:7 , Matthew 11:28-30, 3 John 1:2, Psalm 43:5, Psalm 42:5
The soul can be difficult to define. The great theologian Karl Barth confessed, “We shall search the Old and New Testaments in vain for a theory of the relation between the soul and body.” Your soul i...
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it...
Lamenting a Living Son This is God’s own lament: a brokenhearted father mourning the loss of a still-living son. Throughout the book, God has led Hosea to draw from moments of Israel’s past. Here, ...
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...