discussion on Blessing

I have a nagging sense that when we read the word blessed , we either feel indifferent or suspicious. Both of these responses are likely the result of the way the term is (over)used in our day-to...

I have been moved to a different course of action, however, inspired largely by my daily exposure to college students in a great university during the course of a preaching and teaching ministry that ...

In his excellent book, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World , Mike Cosper explains the value in persevering through the difficult realities of practicing solitude. ...

It’s easy to label what we consider “good things” in our lives as gifts from God and to welcome them with gratitude. But when difficult things happen, we don’t look at them as part of God’s good plan ...

"God's joy," said by the Persian mystic Rumi, "moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rain water down into flower bed. As roses up from ground. Now it looks ...

In Jonathan Kozol’s book, Amazing Grace , he tells of the struggles and sufferings of people in a community in the Bronx, New York. He is amazed at the courage and resilience he found there. He then ...

The astonishing good news that the Bible gives… is that God has a personal will for each of us. Because we find this truth so hard to learn by heart, we need to hear it repeatedly. So let me repeat it...

Not long ago, I had a young couple come to me and say, “Pastor, we’re looking at buying a house. We’ve looked at this one house, and we really like it, but we want to make sure it’s God’s will. Would ...

I have chosen to focus on this psalm [119] because it formed the important center of Celtic praise. In Ireland it was once referred to as The Biait . The word comes from Psalm 119: 1, which begins B...

When I think of masterpieces, I think of art. But what is art? I like the way that Thomas Hoving, who was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, put it: “Art happens when anyon...

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

Sanctification is a process. Basically, the word sanctified means “set apart.” The term saint comes from the same root and means “a set-apart one” to the Lord. Another word with the same meaning is ho...

The very first word of the Rule of St. Benedict, that famous text that has guided the life of monastic communities since the sixth century, is listen . I want for us to put listening back where i...

If sickness has come into the world through sin, which is conceded, it must be got out of the world through God’s great remedy for sin, the cross of Jesus Christ. If sickness is only a natural condi...

I grew up in a church where healing never happened. We had theology that Jesus healed, but I never saw anyone healed growing up in the church. One day, I’m a pastor, and I decide we have to move beyon...

We all have shadows and skeletons in our backgrounds. But listen, there is something bigger in this world than we are, and that something bigger is full of grace and mercy, patience and ingenuity. The...

A father is delighted when his little one, leaving off her toys and friends, runs to him and climbs into his arms. As he holds his little one close to him, he cares little whether the child is looking...

Testament  means “covenant,” an alliance between two partners, an “agreement,” a “promise.” The Old Testament covenant was brought to fulfillment in the New Testament. Through Israel, the entire world...

The people God used to record his words were themselves uncommonly moved by them. They said the Word of God is honey in my mouth (Ezekiel 3:3)  spiritual food for the hungry (Job 23:12)  dwel...

It would be impossible to overestimate the impact these meals must have had upon the poor and the sinners. By accepting them as friends and equals Jesus had taken away their shame, humiliation, and gu...

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 God who shares power is a listener. Listening is not something that becomes necessary for God only after the world is created. Listening is who God is. In God’s very being, communication does not ...

Is God stingy? Mark D. Roberts observes that many writers and preachers focus on the prohibition of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil instead of Genesis 2:16: "You may freely eat of each...

While I was sitting in Starbucks reviewing my notes for this divine healing writing assignment, I had a valued member of our church sit down with me for an impromptu visit. When he heard the topic of ...

At the core of every project of self-salvation is the staunch unwillingness to believe that God’s love and forgiveness can be unmerited. Those who would try and save themselves prefer work to rest, ef...

Walter Brueggemann writes that the movement of the psalms is from orientation to disorientation and then to new orientation. The psalms give us a language for transformation in desert spaces: we move ...

A conversation in 1784 between Charles Simeon (a Calvinist and believer in unconditional predestination) and John Wesley (a follower of Arminius, who denied unconditional predestination) can help us u...

I believe that it is the paradox between serving a healing God and the persistence of illness and even death that ultimately lies behind most theological debates about divine healing in the Church. ...

When we turn toward Advent, the name on our lips is Emmanuel, God with us . So much in Christian faith relies on what the faithful actually mean when we say that name. Western Christianity has fo...

Before I knew God, I knew nature. I knew the feeling of warmth from the sun on my skin. The crunch of leaves on the sidewalk. The sparkle of the fresh powder snow. It was not until I was a teenager th...