thought exercise on Experiencing God

The Oxford scholar and apologist C. S. Lewis... once closed a lecture to a group of apologists like this:  I have found that nothing is more dangerous to one’s own faith than the work of an apologis...

Brennan Manning recounts the story of an Irish priest traveling through a quiet countryside when he comes across an elderly peasant kneeling in prayer by the roadside. Struck by the man’s devotion, th...

John Ruskin (1819-1900), the famous art historian, wrote about a beautiful tradition that existed among the shepherds of the Swiss Alps during his lifetime. These shepherds grazed their flocks often i...

In Circle of Quiet , Madeleine L’Engle describes how her young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time was dismissed by eight publishers before it eventually landed with the publishing house of Farra...

The spiritual discipline of honoring the body helps us find our way between the excesses of a culture that glorifies and objectifies the body and the excesses of Christian tradition that have often de...

The appreciation of life in the body includes embracing our maleness or our femaleness, and thus our sexuality, as a gift from God that helps to reveal his true nature. None of us exists in this world...

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

Even for those of us who follow Jesus on a daily basis, the reality is, our sinful nature has infiltrated our minds, and we often find ourselves, either consciously or unconsciously, judging those aro...

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...

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

In photography, a still image communicates meaning. Sometimes referred to as freeze frame, these images provide details that lead to greater insight. Use of space, body language, facial expression, an...

The Barcelona Olympics of 1992 provided one of track and field’s most incredible moments. Britain’s Derek Redmond had dreamed all his life of winning a gold medal in the 400-meter race, and his dream...

The problem sincere Christians have with God often comes down to a wrong understanding of what this life is meant to provide. We naturally and wrongly assume we’re here to experience something God has...

In his excellent book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling describes the challenge of experiencing God’s presence, even in the relatively slow world (in comparison to our own) of the fourteenth-century: ...

Pastor and Professor Darrell W. Johnson sets the scene for the Sermon on the Mount with great description. This could serve as a model for the beginning of a sermon on the S.O.M. They were sitting i...

In his excellent book on worship, The Dangerous Act of Worship , pastor and president of Fuller Seminary Mark Labberton shares a story of the transformation of one of his former congregants: Ben ...

My hunch is that most of you … have basic knowledge about the Holy Spirit; but when it comes to experiencing the Spirit in your life, it’s a different story. Take a moment and ask yourself this questi...

Desire—eros, or erotic desire, to be more specific—kicked in pretty early in my life. I was often overwhelmed by a gnawing hunger and thirst I didn’t know how to handle. God bless my parents and my Ca...

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for y...

Sabbath is that ancient idea and practice of intentional rest that has long been discarded by much of the church and our world. Sabbath is not new. Sabbath is just new to us. Historically, Christians ...

Twenty-five years ago, when I was just getting started, vulnerability was not a high value. Things have changed. But with a higher value on transparency, authenticity, and vulnerability in the church,...

My wife, Susan and I were sitting in the office of a fellow pastor, Jack Harrison, in the fall of 1992. The recommendation of friends had led us to Jack’s office. “He’s an amazing counselor,” they sai...

In her beautifully written memoir Unafraid, Susie Davis reflects on fear after experiencing a school-shooting as a high-school student. It was after this that Davis began to experience regular bouts o...

Many formerly active able-bodied people have had to learn a new pace in life after an accident or illness. Whether the condition is temporary or permanent, it isn’t easy. The memory and muscles still ...

While the search for the divine has been somewhat crowded out in modern times by our busy and overstimulated lives, it is still one of the most universal of human strivings. C. S. Lewis describes this...

In his important book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, seminary professor Andrew Purves sees a paradigm in Elijah’s ministry: For many years I have taken Elijah’s story in 1 Kings 19 as a paradigm. Eli...

One of my favorite mentors for listening prayer is Frank Laubach, the great missionary statesman and “apostle of literacy to the silent billion.” His books are simply littered with his experiences of ...

There’s a quote by H. Richard Niebuhr that I believe is absolutely true.  “The great Christian revolutions,” he argued, “come not by the discovery of something that was not known before. They happen w...

Sunday dinner was finished, but we lingered around the table, savoring the good food and reflecting on the morning’s service at church. The congregation—where I then served as a very young (and very g...

Frank Laubach recounts the profound shift in his life that came when he wholeheartedly committed to following God’s will: Before that moment, I was barely alive—like a tree rotting from within. Bu...