being on Brain

Studies show we actually get a dopamine hit when we think we’re proven right. We can literally become addicted to the sensation of our rightness. “Your body does not discriminate against pleasure,” wr...

A man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it: but the tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened not merely by rest, but by using other parts… Man...

Still our minds, God, and calm our hearts, so that we may hear the Word that comes from you that leads us in life, that protects us in struggle, that guides us in doing your will, that strengthens us ...

The interplay between listening and obedience expresses itself in our lives all the time. Sound has the ability to “command” us, to summon a response in us, forcing us to take notice.  Unlike visual ...

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my w...

In her book Confessions of a Beginning Theologian , Elouise Renich Fraser discusses how crucial it has been to listen to her body throughout her personal and theological growth. My body, once...

If you’ve been around a kid who’s just learned to ask “why?”, it can be a bit much. You’ll be asked, “why is grass green?” “Why do birds fly?” “Why do I get hungry?” and much, much, more.  Pa...

Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person; and he is often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of sel...

Have you ever felt like a part of you was dying while sitting in traffic? Apparently, you’re not too far off. A team of German researchers found that being stuck in a traffic jam increased your chance...

Leader: The Lord searches us and knows us. God discerns our thoughts and is acquainted with all our ways. People: Even the darkness is not dark to God; the night is as bright as the day, for darknes...

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is pos...

If you think of a problem as being like a medieval walled city, then a lot of people will attack it head-on, like a battering ram. They will storm the gates and try to smash through the defenses with ...

At a dinner party, [The Scottish playwright George Bernard] Shaw sat next to a young man who proved to be a bore of historic proportions. After suffering through a seemingly interminable monologue, Sh...

Mission is related to the sending work of God. The Son is sent by the Father. The Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. To gain a proper view of the church we must understand that God is active in...

We need the interruption of the night To ease attention off when overtight, To break out logic in too long a flight, And ask us if our premises are right.

The fascination with silence took root early in the life of composer John Cage. In 1928, during a speech contest at Los Angeles High School, he argued for the establishment of a national day of quiet....

In her aptly title book, Being Wrong , Kathleen Schulz describes just how difficult it is to be wrong: A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the ti...

Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his ...

In your wisdom, O God, you call us here to worship you. We gather, alive to the Word of God. You call us to be fully alive with your life abundant, ready to listen and respond with heart, soul, st...

O Father of all creation, who hovered over the deep at the beginning, who spoke light into darkness, who split the heavens open and descended upon the Son of God in the waters of the Jordan, who creat...

Offending people is a necessary and healthy act.  Every time you say something that’s offensive to another person, you just caused a discussion.  You just forced them to have to think.

Historically the West has tended to throw its chief emphasis upon doing and the East upon being. . . . Were human nature perfect there would be no discrepancy between being and doing. The unfallen man...

A missional theology...applies to the whole of life of every believer. Every disciple is to be an agent of the kingdom of God, and every disciple is to carry the mission of God into every sphere of li...

Let the current of your being set towards God, then your life will be.

Mission [is] understood as being derived from the very nature of God. It [is] thus put in the context of the Trinity, not of ecclesiology or soteriology. The classical doctrine of the missio dei as Go...

It is quite possible that I may be altogether wrong in this idea. My own impression, however, is, that I am right.

Why is change important? Why do we avoid it, even when it means experiencing much more pain staying stuck? Writer Ann Lammott explains: If we stay where we are, where we’re stuck, where we’re comfort...

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson points out our blind-spots with respect to pride: We rarely think of ourselves as proud. I...

Gracious Spirit, you are at work all around us. You prompt us to follow you, and you convict us when we have missed your leading. Please forgive us for the times that we miss your presence. Please hum...