christian living on Affection

Love that reaches up is adoration. Love that reaches out is affection. But love that stoops is grace.

Love is not an affection feeling, rather it’s a steady wish for the other’s good as far as it can be obtained.

There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable.

Maurice Sendak, author and illustrator of and other children’s books, gets many letters from his young fans. A favorite was a “charming” drawing sent on by a little boy’s mother. “I loved it,” Sendak ...

Adoration is the spontaneous yearning of the heart to worship, honor, magnify, and bless God. We ask nothing but to cherish him. We seek nothing but his exaltation. We focus on nothing but his goodnes...

In love. What does that even mean? “Love” is a junk drawer we dump all sorts of ideas into, just because we don’t have anywhere else to put them. I “love” God, and I “love” fish tacos. See the probl...

It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am, the more affection I have for them. It is pure affection, and filled with reverance f...

Baptism is like a wedding. It is a covenant act, a relationship-making agreement, in which commitments are made. A couple may love one another. But feelings can go up and down. That is why marriage is...

What Eric Liddell Did Not Do Scottish athlete and missionary Eric Liddell, whose story is told in the movie Chariots of Fire , was a favorite to win the hundred-meter sprint in the 1924 Paris Olym...

Trust is that rare and priceless treasure that wins us the affection of our heavenly Father. For him it has both charm and fascination. Among his countless children, whom he so greatly loves and whom ...

Unlike most of us, Francis of Assissi's love of preaching extended beyond just human beings. On one of his journeys through the valley of Spoleto, near Bevagna, Francis of Assisi came upon a large...

Intertwined Narratives Jesus’ encounters with Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman are sandwiched together with the intention that the two narratives would unlock and help to interpret the other....

Let us love the Lord God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength. Let us love Him with all our understanding, powers, and fortitude. Let us offer to Him our every effort, ...

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who who creates families for our belonging: We ask for your continual care for the homes in which your people live. Keep them from all bitterness, arrogance, and the...

In his prose and poetry, David Whyte shares what David Brooks refers to as “emotional joy” in his book, While not necessarily unique to the Christian, this type of joy has the ability to draw us towar...

It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We're in a kind o...

Through death we may as well be nameless. We’re essentially waiting to be forgotten in time. But in Christ we are known, eternally, by the Father with the same intimacy and affection he has for his So...

The ultimate reason for our misery, however, is that we do not love God supremely. As Augustine so famously put it in prayer, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they fin...

It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We’re in a kind of am...

Spiritual guidance affirms the basic quest for meaning. It calls for the creation of space in which the validity of the questions does not depend on the availability of answers but on the questions...

When we put God first, all other things fall into their proper place or drop out of our lives. Our love of the Lord will govern the claims for our affection, the demands on our time, the interests we ...

We must be sure of the infinite good that is done to us by our Master, Jesus, the King, in order that we may be ravished in love with our God and inflamed with a right affection to obey Him, and keep ...

Relational congruence is the ability to be fundamentally the same person with the same values in every relationship, in every circumstance and especially amidst crisis. It is the internal capacity to ...

Let us, who are on the way, hasten home; for our whole life is like the journey of a single day. Our first duty is to love nothing here; but let us place our affections above, our desires above, our w...

To be born again is, as it were, to enter upon a new existence, to have a new mind, a new heart, new views, new principles, new tastes, new affections, new likings, new dislikings, new fears, new joys...

Several times during the day, but especially in the morning and evening, ask yourself for a moment if you have your soul in your hands or if some passion or fit of anxiety has robbed you of it…. If yo...

A man was dying and he called his wife to his bedside. He affectionately told her he loved her but he also had to confess something to her. “I haven’t been 100% faithful to you in our marriage. I’m so...

The way to a person’s heart is to capture their imagination (mind), move their emotions (affections), and challenge their actions (will).

In a fundamental sense, worship language, like all of worship, is formative. The words we hear, sing, and speak in worship help form our images of God; our understanding of what the church is and does...

Several times during the day, but especially in the morning and evening, ask yourself for a moment if you have your soul in your hands or if some passion or fit of anxiety has robbed you of it.... If ...