change on Helplessness

Jesus asks, “Do you want to be made well?” Do I? Do I really? I’ve been this way so long It’s what people expect of me It’s what I expect of me I know this life I’m getting by Is it good? No Is...

Resentment is like a poison we carry around inside us with the hope that when we get the chance we can deposit it where it will harm another who has injured us. The fact is that we carry this poison a...

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Faith and pessimism are incompatible. To be sure, we are not starry-eyed idealists; we are down to earth realists. We know well that sin is ingrained in human nature and in human society. We are not e...

People who blame things rarely change things. Blame is an unassailable change-avoidance strategy.

I am convinced that the scourge of our scientific and technological age is depersonalization. There is a heartbeat pulsating at the center of the universe, giving life and meaning to everything, but o...

A God who cannot suffer is poorer than any human. For a God who is incapable of suffering is a being who cannot be involved. Suffering and injustice do not affect him. And because he is so completely ...

As the people of Judah cried out to God in their time of catastrophe, we remember that we, too, can bring our burdens before God. Let us join together in confession, confident that God hears us. Lord...

May God bless you with tears of lament that mourn over the injustice of our world.  May you be blessed with a holy discontent over the way the world is.  May the Spirit of Jesus shake you out of com...

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Some people find themselves stuck in a rut. Without challenge or new opportunities, they begin to sound like Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoons: “Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll p...

Life is precious. Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird. To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, ...

“Historical insecurity” and “cosmic instability” are the ingredients of existential fear that inspire this Psalm of Trust, according to James Mays in his Interpretation Commentary series on the Psal...

Precious Lord, take our hand, Lead us on, help us stand; We’re tired, we’re weak, we’re worn; Thru the storm, thru the night, Lead us on to the light, Take our hand, precious Lord, Lead us home. The o...

Imagine you’ve just purchased a brand-new car—it’s no ordinary car, it’s a luxury vehicle, with the highest trim levels, equipped with all the latest technology. Among its many upgrades is a voice ale...

There are so many things we do not understand⁠ So many ways we long for change and closure⁠ Help us to trust you⁠ even when the situation is desperate and out of control⁠ Help us to follow you⁠ even...

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...

Holy God, we know that you created us in love, to enjoy this world and You, to serve your creation and your children. And we know that we do not do your will. With clenched hands, we can neither give...

In his important book, The Crucifixion of Ministry, seminary professor Andrew Purves describes what he needed as he faced down a cancer diagnosis and the upcoming chemotherapy he would soon endure: ...

Change will happen whether you like it or not. Positive change, however, requires choice. You can choose to accept natural change or you can choose to fight it. . . . The power to choose is yours. The...

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

At root, change means the partial or total abandonment of the norms, safeties, and patterns of behavior that make our lives manageable.

Change invariably leads to loss, loss to grief, grief to anxiety and, finally, anxiety to hostility. We need therefore, to acknowledge grief. We need to understand and choose to walk with the grieving...

Self-deception is a major part of what defeats spiritual formation in Christ. In self-deception the individual or group refuses to acknowledge factors in their life of which they are dimly conscious. ...

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

[W]e cannot really solve the problem of our world’s injustices by merely giving a little more of our surplus to fight hunger. More deeply, we need to be freed from our reliance on material consumption...

I actually want to believe that when it comes to communication, my biggest problem is outside of me, not inside of me. I want to think that it’s my kids, my wife, my neighbors, my boss. I want to thin...

Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.

Lifeless are our prayers. Dry and brittle are our spirits. Like Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, we are a people without the sinews of goodness, the flesh of holiness, and the breath of righteousness. W...