brokenness on God's Absence

Suffering is not evidence of God’s absence, but of God’s presence, and it is in our experience of being broken that God does his surest and most characteristic salvation work. There is a way to accept...

In this short (and humorous) excerpt, author David Zahl shares a definition of the secular: Perhaps secular warrants its own explanation, though. My most immediate association comes from the belov...

Brokenness is God’s method of dealing with our dependence on anything other than Him for fulfillment and security. No matter how committed we may be to God, we’ll always fight the inclination to do th...

Almighty God, the brokenness of this world is so vast that we doubt what we can do. Forgive us for giving up and leaving brokenness alone. Help us remember and rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to ...

Leader: God of life, when life is broken, All: we turn to you. Loving Christ, when hearts are broken, you come to us. Holy Spirit, this broken world needs us; flow through us to all the...

Prayer of Adoration Father God … our Abba: You seek us with relentless love – coming after us in Your Son, Jesus. When we are in the pits – You draws us up and out; When we are broken – You fix u...

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away. Rather than offering mercy, we...

Almighty God, too often we settle for brokenness in our lives. Rather than offering forgiveness, we hold onto offense. Rather than pursuing justice, we turn away . Rather than offering mercy, we c...

It is not what we do that matters, but what a sovereign God chooses to do through us. God doesn't want our success; He wants us. He doesn't demand our achievements; He demands our obedience. T...

I believe that it is the paradox between serving a healing God and the persistence of illness and even death that ultimately lies behind most theological debates about divine healing in the Church. ...

In a letter to his son, J. R. R. Tolkien famously wrote, “We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is...

Leader: Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed are those who take refuge in him! People: Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! Leader: The young lions s...

The Old Testament portrays the world as it is, no holds barred. In its pages you will find passionate stories of love and hate, blood-chilling stories of rape and dismemberment, matter-of-fact account...

Surrender your poverty and acknowledge your nothingness to the Lord. Whether you understand it or not, God loves you, is present in you, lives in you, dwells in you, calls you, saves you, and offers y...

Preaching Commentary Stop!!!  Do not read further until you have ordered and read Tim Keller’s brief yet very significant book, The Prodigal God: Rediscovering the Heart of the Christian Faith . ...

Pastor: God’s plans are indeed faithful and sure. In this Lenten season we have been focusing on God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah to transform their barren and lifeless situation into one overflow...

I want neither a terrorist spirituality that keeps me in a perpetual state of fright about being in right relationship with my heavenly Father nor a sappy spirituality that portrays God as such a beni...

Our lives are meant to inspire with (or inhale) the breath of God, the glory of his presence, the brilliance and beauty of his creation, and to expire (or exhale) an echo of wonder—an “amen.” It shoul...

The very thing we are afraid of, our brokenness, is the door to our Father’s heart.

Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and ag...

God of mercy, in your gracious presence we confess our sin and the sin of this world. Although Christ is among us as our peace, we are a people divided against ourselves as we cling to the values of a...

If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to born ...

Gracious God, on Sundays we come to this place and you fill us up with your goodness and light and we are renewed. But when we go out into the world, we fall short in so many ways. We confess that we ...

Pastor: God’s plans are indeed faithful and sure. In this Lenten season we have been focusing on God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah to transform their barren and lifeless situation into one overflow...

God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth p...

Preaching Commentary Straight Talk from Jesus Jesus Christ did not mince words.  He seems to have always spoken the unvarnished truth, but, I think, with a smile on his face and compassion in his a...

Lent 2021: A 40-day Heart Restoration The Broken Heart Bonus Content: Video prep session with Jin Cho on Psalm 51 . Password:  Bn*=61p! AIM Commentary Introduction Ash Wednesday Ash Wednes...

Leader: How good it is to sing praises to our God! People: Great are You, Lord and mighty in power. You understand everything about each one of us. You heal the brokenhearted and bind up our wounds....

Brokenness is God’s requirement for maximum usefulness.

If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so lov...