christian living on Self-Reliance

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...

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

In her memoir, Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, Tammy describes the internal turmoil she experienced trying to be a good, rule-following Christian who had unexpectedly built an entire life arou...

How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by! The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic; Our spirits resound with clashing, with noisy silences, While some...

Recovery is not a process we can will, but consists of experiencing many small deaths, the passing of significant anniversaries, until our identity is solid and natural in the pronoun “I.”

Healing begins when, in the face of our own darkness, we recognize our helplessness and surrender our need for control… we face what is, and we ask for mercy.

But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin...

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

Loving and gracious God, we know we do not always live the life to which we are called: We turn away from You, and from our true selves. You command us to shine Your light, but we often hide it instea...

The Desert Saint John Climacus placed a strong emphasis on the role of silence in the life of prayer. In his guidebook to the spiritual life, he had this to say: Intelligent silence is the mother of...

Too often we are given a choice—emotions or faith and belief. Yet as Dan Allender and Tremper Longman observe,  Emotion links our internal and external worlds. To be aware of what we feel can open ...

But hope is hard to come by. I should know. I remember the time when I was once busy dying. It wasn’t long after I had broken my neck in a diving accident that I spent one particularly hopeless week i...

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. (Spoken by Galadriel)

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance, When our strength has failed ere that day is half done, When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, Our Father’s full giving has only begun. His lo...

In this first-person memoir, Pastor Peter Chin shares a story that most pastors can probably relate to, the reality vs the expectation of a church-planter or even the pastor of an established church: ...

The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

Lord, we confess that we do not love you with our whole hearts And we do not love our neighbour as ourselves. We seek the blessing of others Rather than the blessing of your grace We seek comfort in w...

Pastor: Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! People: Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, Pastor: who forgives all your iniquity, who h...

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart Could have recovered greenness?

Because of this we have hope: Two men look out through the same bars One sees mud, one sees stars.

Doubt steals hope. And with no hope, everything that matters doesn’t feel as important anymore.

Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but only for one second without hope.

Waiting is the hardest work of hope.

Heavenly Father, give us hearts that wait with faith. Build in us the assurance that you are at work and in control. Forgive us for our impatience, our uneasiness, and our wandering desires when we do...

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is his faithfulness. ‘The Lord is our portion,’ says our souls, ‘therefore, we will hop...

Some of us believe that God is almighty and can do everything; and that he is all-wise and may do everything; but that he is all-love and will do everything—there we draw back. As I see it, this ignor...

What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.

O God, we thank you that you have not treated us as we deserve. We thank you that, though you are Creator, Judge and King, you are also Father, so that, though we are wandering children, there is alw...

Depth of mercy! Can there be Mercy still reserved for me?