christian living on Distance

Gracious God, you call us to draw near but we keep our distance. We are afraid of your direction and discipline, so we avoid honesty and confession. Father, help us trust in your goodness and your gra...

The shortest distance between a human being and the truth is a story.

Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world - and stop being its ...

Sanctification is more about the direction than the distance we have traveled.

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be...

Watch your way then, as a cautious traveler; and don’t be gazing at that mountain or river in the distance, and saying, “How shall I ever get over them?” But keep to the present little inch that is be...

Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

When conflict and division are driving both politics and media (including social media), the contrast between the way of the world and the way of Jesus stands out more than ever. How can pastors, task...

If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet the distance makes no difference; he is praying for me.

Almighty God, the Psalmist most accurately describes the state of our distance from you, “[We] have all turned aside; together we have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.” While...

Father-God, our burden bearer; Jesus, God the Son and lover of our souls; Spirit of God–giver of life and power: Thank You! Thank You for those we love and those who love us. Thank You for mothers and...

Lord—we’re so anxious we can’t wait! Some of us can’t wait for Christmas to come, while (honestly) some others of us can’t wait for it to be over. We’re not proud of it—but that’s just the way it is ...

Thank You, Lord, for the gifts of life, of love and of care that come from You, wrapped in our moms and step-moms, in our grand-moms, great-grandmas, daughters, sisters, and aunts. We’re grateful for...

Over the years, I have led hundreds of retreats that have at their center a few hours to be alone and quiet in listening prayer. At one such retreat, one participant shared a conversation she had wit...

The more I use stuff to fill up my hungers, the more distance I put between God and myself. And as I continue to fill up my infinite hungers with finite things (when I run through the Starbucks drive-...

In her book Invitation to Retreat , Ruth Haley Barton shares some of the many insights she has had since she began intentionally taking intentional retreats to re-connect with God and her own des...

Sabbath is that uncluttered time and space in which we can distance ourselves from our own activities enough to see what God is doing.

One glorious autumn…I spent an afternoon climbing with a friend who grew up raising sheep in the Alps. We were climbing near the bottom of a ski area …[near] this steep green slope where [a] delightfu...

The world is full of presence. Every moment of life is crammed full of potential encounters with people and things that are present to us even though we may not be present to them: the presence of a c...

Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages. Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to li...

Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao, a village on the island of Molokai in Hawaii that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony...

It is characteristic of any great work of literature to have in its ending something that brings a sense of harmony to the whole. Like the finale of a symphony, or the confetti at the end of a nationa...

As a young boy, around the time my heart began to suspect that the world was a fearful place and I was on my own to find my way through it, I read the story of a Scottish discus thrower from the ninet...

Father Damien was a priest who became famous for his willingness to serve lepers. He moved to Kalawao, a village on the island of Molokai in Hawaii that had been quarantined to serve as a leper colony...

When the Bishop’s ship stopped at a remote island for a day, and he determined to use the time as profitably as possible. He strolled along the seashore and came across three fishermen mending their n...

It is a Masai elder who tells the story. It comes from the book, Christianity Rediscovered, in which the Roman Catholic missionary, Vincent Donovan, shares his discoveries as he worked among Masai peo...

He invites us to leave our burdensome ways of heavy labor—especially the “religious” ones—and step into the yoke of training with him. This is a way of gentleness and lowliness, a way of soul rest. It...

In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, reporter Brian Hiatt asked Marcus Mumford whether he still considers himself a Christian. Mumford, a pastors son and a famous millennial (he is lead singer...

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

The modern way with God is to set him at a distance, if not to deny him altogether; and the irony is that modern Christians, preoccupied with maintaining religious practices in an irreligious world, h...