mark on Defensiveness

O my Lord, I discern in my anger a sense of self-righteousness, which is much too close to pleasure. And I think of you, Lord. You were never angry in your own defense, and you took no pleasure in ang...

I am struck by all the things Jesus didn’t say or do in response to the litanies of pain and defensiveness he heard from people. Jesus didn’t say to the man, “You sound like a victim to me; what are y...

Offending people is a necessary and healthy act.  Every time you say something that’s offensive to another person, you just caused a discussion.  You just forced them to have to think.

As a pastor, I have received my fair share of letters and missives criticizing my words or actions. Some have been anonymous, others put their name on it. When the criticism felt unfair or angered me,...

Don't waste your time explaining who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.

Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed ...

Father, we confess to boasting in success and security. We have denied you rather that desire you. We have cowered when we needed to be courageous. Jesus, we long to be people who follow you, no matte...

First, we do not believe that strong convictions cause incivility. Instead, we believe poorly formed convictions cause incivility.

In this excerpt from his book Faith in the Shadows, pastor and author Austin Fischer shares a surprising truth about the need to be vulnerable with our own faith if we are likely to have a positive im...

Doubt is really the felt tension that exists between a belief you have and a contrary claim you do not yet believe…Simply put, doubt is that experience of one of our beliefs seeming like it might be f...

Our God, we have been slow to stand and slow to act. We have been unmoved in the face of wrongs. Rather than welcoming others, we have put up walls. We have served this god of self-preservation. But y...

I find your lack of faith—disturbing.

Gracious God, forgive us when we fail to look honestly at ourselves. It is easy to minimize and justify our sin, believing we can appease our guilt. We are afraid, thinking it is up to us to remove ou...

Forgiveness doesn’t mean “I didn’t really mind” or “it didn’t really matter.” I did mind and it did matter, otherwise there wouldn’t be anything to forgive at all, merely something to adjust my attitu...

The indwelling Spirit shall teach him what is of God and what is not. This is why sometimes we can conjure up no logical reason for opposing a certain teaching, yet in the very depth of our being aris...

A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true, though we are part of the world H...

“Would I rather be feared or loved? That’s easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”

On retreat we stop avoiding the pain of the disconnect between our deepest desires and the way we are actually living. We have time and space to reflect on our life rhythms to see if they are really w...

Dear Lord, I am filled with anger born of frustration. I confess I know not whether my anger is of you. I just know I am filled with hope, which makes me angry that others are not so filled. Take away...

Holy God, we confess that we are quick to look through the window and slow to look in the mirror. We confess that we can see how others stumble, but we do not see how we contributed to their stumble. ...

If the Book of Job reaches across two and a half millennia to teach anything to men and women who consider themselves normal, decent human beings, it is this: Human beings are sure to wander in ignora...

Father, as adults, we can fool ourselves into being quite self-sufficient. Yet, You have called us to be precariously dependent upon You. When we see how Jesus welcomes the little children, we can als...

Many Christians are terrified of doubting their faith. We avoid questions and challenges in favor of keeping things comfortable and familiar. We worry that if we open ourselves up to the possibility o...

Have you ever noticed that the phrases in our culture favor doubt over faith? The famed missionary and theologian Lesslie Newbigin pointed this out when we speak of “Honest doubts” and “blind faith”. ...

In the Middle East both the main protagonists embrace religions where forgiveness has never been seen as a duty, let alone as a virtue, but rather as a kind of moral weakness—and by “moral weakness” I...

We had thought intellectually to examine him; we find he is spiritually examining us. The roles are reversed between us...A person may study Jesus with intellectual impartiality, he cannot do it with ...

Heavenly Father, we confess that our trust in you wavers and that we are fickle in our reliance.  We see you provide great things where we see little possibility; but when storms come in life, we quic...

There was a time when adults were neatly categorized into one of two groups: you were either neurotic or psychotic. Psychotic meant that you were out of touch with reality and afraid; neurotic meant t...

Holy God, we confess that we laugh at how confused the disciples were when Jesus tried to teach them. And we confess that we are hiding our own confusion behind that laughter. We confess that we often...

John's Only Question While Peter sucks up all the oxygen in the room with loads of questions, John only gets one direct question to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. In the passage immediately pre...