isaiah on Struggles

Have you ever thought to yourself, "I'm glad I'm not God!" Too much responsibility! In the 2003 movie "Bruce Almighty," Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) gains God’s divine powers b...

The human soul is like a fine wine that needs to ferment in various barrels as it ages and mellows. The wisdom for this is written everywhere, in nature, in scripture, in spiritual traditions, and in ...

The following poem is attributed to Nicholaus Ludwig Zinzendorf, the 18th century Moravian church leader and reformer. It captures well the ups and downs of life, the existential questions that emerge...

But it’s not so simple, that sort of “quiet hour”. It has to be learned. A lot of unimportant inner litter and bits and pieces have to be swept out first. Even a small head can be piled high inside wi...

If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference; he is praying for me.

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’...

Leader: Let us pray for the whole Church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs. Brief silence Leader: Heavenly Father, with joy the Church continues to celebra...

I remember a story that R. A. Torrey told, growing out of a series of meetings he had held in Melbourne, Australia. He had been speaking on prayer. One day just before a noon meeting a note was placed...

[Christ] gives the analogy of bitter labor and says: “A woman when she bears a child has anguish and sorrow” (John 16:21) and He applies all of this to His suffering, in which He so hard and bitterly ...

The first thing to notice is that violence is intentional. For example, one of the most brutal forms of violence affecting millions of poor women and girls in our world is sex trafficking. Lured a...

In Book Eight of Confessions , St. Augustine recounts how, in a state of deep inner turmoil, he “heard from a nearby house a voice, as of a boy or girl, I know not which, chanting repeatedly, ‘Ta...

Brenda Peterson is an author whose work crosses multiple genres, including fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. In an essay entitled In Praise of Skin, Peterson shares a true story from her own ...

John O’Donahue, in his book, Walking in Wonder, shares a story from India that is thousands of years old, but just as relevant today as it was back then. It’s about a man who was forced to spend a nig...

For many of us, life can easily become disorienting and discouraging. Existential questions often emerge that never have before. As stressful as modern life can be, it is somewhat comforting to know t...

The Double Helix, James Watson’s 1968 memoir about discovering the structure of DNA, describes the roller coaster of emotions he and Francis Crick experienced through the progress and setbacks of the ...

The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a far larger, homelier, less self-conscious caste of people who understand they are sin...