ephesians on Longings

There are at least ten God-created longings of the soul:  1. To see my body as sacred  2. To be wanted, desired  3. To be loved without condition  4. To be intimately connected to God  5. T...

Have you ever noticed how closely the words longing and belonging are connected? I’m not sure of their exact etymology, but I do believe that our deepest longing in life is to be-...

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...

Orgasms are one of the most sought-after experiences in life—which is strange, because it’s not like they last forever or even a few weeks, like a long-anticipated holiday. We’re talking about somethi...

Unsurprisingly, whenever we bring the topic of desire into view, our imaginations easily wander in the direction of sex, which can be as discomforting as it is arousing—but it is certainly not irrelev...

Every person enjoys dignity and suffers from depravity. The structure of personality is a result of the interaction of these two dynamics.

While written well over a century ago, this excerpt (from the great Princeton theologian) B.B. Warfield’s sermon “imitating the Incarnation continues to inspire the kind of life Christ calls us to: ...

Updated for 2026. January 19, 2026 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day— the only U.S. national holiday commemorating a pastor. Under his leadership, non-violent civil rights advocacy achieved leaps f...

Lord, Teacher, Savior, Friend: We need Your grace, which forgives our sins; Your truth, which anchors our lives; Your presence, which calms our fears; Your call, which gives us purpose; Your hope, whi...

My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried, my love is carrying me.

You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped; and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst; you...

To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you...

Love is hunting for bigger game than happiness. Love is a union of souls. When one member of a couple suffers from Alzheimer’s, the other doesn’t just go away. Instead, as Lewis puts it, love says, “B...

What is it then that I love when I love you? Not bodily beauty, and not temporal glory, not the clear shining light, lovely as it is to our eyes, not the sweet melodies of many-moded songs, nor the so...

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...

We all need [blessing] desperately. It is the one great need we all share in common. We were born for it and there is no lasting joy without it. What oxygen is for the lungs and protein for the body, ...

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

In her book Keeping Place: Reflections on the Meaning of Home , Jen Pollock Michel reflects on the nature of home in a transient age. In this short excerpt, Michel focuses on etymology of home in v...

A lesson often learned the hard way in each of our spiritual journeys is mistaking goodwill for vocation. Sometimes we feel deeply about an experience we have, whether it be on a mission trip or even ...

Perhaps you have been ensnared by a sinful habit that you will not abandon, and your guilt is so overwhelming you are ashamed to approach Christ. Whatever the reason for your broken intimacy with God,...

Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does.

I have walked with people whose eyes are full of light, but who see nothing in wood, sea, or sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books.... It were better far to sail forever in the night of blind...

Sometimes we have to “step over” our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there...

May Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and height...

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same."

You shall love your crooked neighbor with all your crooked heart.

Loving father, you promise the most amazing things. You give us an inheritance, you adopt us as your sons and daughters, you say you will never leave us nor forsake us, and you say that nothing can se...

Poet Donald Hall told the story of a hermit in New Hampshire, a man who passed away leaving behind sheds full of hoarded stuff. In one of the sheds was a box labeled, “string too short to be saved.” ...

Generous Lord Jesus We confess that we do not receive others with compassion. We object to being interrupted And respond with anger or frustration. We confess that we do not share generously Not trus...

Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...