christian living on Despair

Gracious God, we are called to be a joyful people, giving thanks for You and Your good gifts. There are times, however, when sin and sorrow grow, pushing joy to the side. We lose sight of Your grace, ...

Out of the depths of darkness and despair we have cried out for your mercy, O God. Instead of marking our iniquities with the just weight of our condemnation, you have forgiven us, breathed new life i...

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...

Dearest Father, we long for light, but dwell in darkness. We crave the warmth of the sun, but crawl into our caverns of sin and sadness. We are a people who prefer the misery and melancholy that we kn...

In a series of sermons for the Lenten season, pastor and author John H. Baumgaertner shares one of the greatest moments that can ever happen to a pastor, though, in truth it is available to all who ha...

Abba – Father: Because of Your love and strength, we trust You … believing You are faithful, true and gracious. Thank You for coming into our world when we could not and would not come to You. You wal...

Father–Father of the Lord Jesus and our Father: You’ve blessed us beyond imagination. You redeem us, forgive us and lavish Your gifts on us: Thank You. You choose us, when we wouldn’t choose ourselves...

Lord—you not only know all things... You notice all things. You notice when we are joyful—and You laugh, too. You notice when we are in grief or despair—and you cry with us. When we are alone or confu...

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are to subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.

Hope orients all thought, action, and relationships to God’s ultimate redemption of the creation and to the ultimate communion with the triune God...hope is the steady orientation to God’s making all ...

Dear God, my Heavenly Father, My heart is unclean, but you can purify it. My heart is full of darkness, but you can illuminate it. My heart is sad, but you can comfort it. My heart is wicked, but ...

I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe, more loved and welcomed than I ever dared hope.

I find your lack of faith—disturbing.

Dear Lord Jesus, we feel our sins. They bite and gnaw and terrify us. Where shall we go? We will look to You, Lord Jesus, and believe in You. Although our faith is often weak, we look to You and find ...

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.

Loving God, you are the author of all life. You created the heavens through the words of your mouth. You also are constantly creating new life. However, we don’t accept the new life you give us. We ch...

Let this be thy whole Endeavour, this thy prayer, this thy desire, that thou mayest be stripped of all selfishness, and with entire simplicity follow Jesus only.

I believe in the sun though it is late in rising. I believe in love though it is absent. I believe in God though He is silent.

In the novel, Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley, Buddy Crawford, a horse trainer, has a “born again experience but things don’t go according to plan. This is his prayer: “One night, when he was praying...

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

Have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you are not saved yourself. Be sure of that.

I (Josh) know a young man named Mark who was on the brink of self-destruction. He partied away his first semester of junior college and was later kicked out of school. He was devastated by his loss an...

Lord, sometimes it’s so difficult to place our trust in you. You make incredible promises to us in your word. You say that through your power, we’ll be able to do even greater things than Jesus did in...

I am one of those who would rather sink with faith than swim without it.

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.

Charles Templeton was a close friend and preaching associate of Billy Graham in the 1940s. He effectively preached the gospel to large crowds in major arenas. However, intellectual doubts began to nag...

The man of pseudo-faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get in a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself w...

Mercy goes beyond justice, it does not undercut it. If I forgive you the hundred dollar debt you owe me, that means I must use one hundred dollars of my own money to pay my creditors. I cannot really ...

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.

By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude.