relationships and community on Negative Thoughts

One of my continual battles is the one that happens in my own heart and mind. I continue to discover and fight negative patterns of thought and emotion that are shaped less by Jesus and more by the wo...

Called to Pastor, Inclined to Argue When I was graduating from college in the mid-2000s, I was encouraged to take a career test to determine where my personality type would fit in the working world. ...

Whether we are easily swamped or nearly waterproof, there’s one wiring challenge we all face: Bad is stronger than good. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt elaborates: “Responses to threats and unpleasantnes...

But it is important to be aware that the act of judging others has its origins in our self-judgment. As I often tell patients, “Shamed people shame people.” Long before we are criticizing others, the ...

Wrong ideas about God make it impossible for us to function in relationship with one another.

Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.

At a recent gathering of seminary professors, one teacher reported that at his school the most damaging charge one student can lodge against another is that the person is being “judgmental.” He found ...

As long as we continue to live as if we are what we do, what we have, and what other people think about us, we will be filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain a...

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

It goes against the grain to give an image of oneself that is anything less than perfect, and many Christians imagine that they will be rejected by others if they admit to any faults. But nothing coul...

Judgment and joy don’t go well together – no, judgment leads to grumbling. I’m sure you’ve met people in your life who are hard to please – maybe even your parents, or your boss. People for whom n...

Assumptions are the termites of relationships.

As long as we continue to live as if we are what others think about us, we will remain filled with judgments, opinions, evaluations, and condemnations. We will remain addicted to the need to put peopl...

Doubts are suppressed by groups... But remember that the internal incentives that shape how the group perceives risks and rewards may be very different from the reality of the risks and rewards in the...

..the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.

The Beatitudes name nine distinct areas of human struggle that Jesus addresses in his teaching on the hill. Our first instincts are to be anxious, avoidant, competitive, apathetic, judgmental, evasive...

No one ever grew spiritually by focusing on the flaws in someone else.

My friend Christina, a licensed therapist, tells me that Psychiatry 101 teaches therapists that when you and I choose to believe a lie about ourselves, it’s one of these three lies we believe: I’m he...

Feedback is hard because we’re taught from a very young age if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all. And voilà, now it’s your job to say it.

It is important to be aware that the act of judging others has its origins in our self-judgment. As I often tell patients, “Shamed people shame people.” Long before we are criticizing others, the sour...

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.

George Herbert Mead, an influential early 20th-century sociologist, coined the term “generalized other” to describe the vague group we consider when shaping our actions. How often do we behave a certa...

I was shy by nature, and rendered worse in that respect by a consciousness of my own ugliness. I am certain that nothing so much influences the development of a man as his exterior—though the exterior...

The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.

Many Christians . . . find themselves defeated by the most powerful psychological weapon that Satan uses against Christians. This weapon has the effectiveness of a deadly missile. Its name? Low self-e...

I sometimes think that shame, mere awkward, senseless shame, does as much towards preventing good acts and straightforward happiness as any of our vices can do.

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

A man is hindered and distracted in proportion as he draws outward things to himself.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

Bestselling business author Simon Sinek gives a motivational speech called “Understand the Game,” where he mentions a study asking people if they would rather have a $400,000 house on a street where a...