comfort on Failure

Heavenly Father, we confess that our sinfulness gives us fear and keeps us from pursuing your will. We live with ideas of safety and failure that do not make room for your call to set our lives aside ...

The Great Wall of China was an immense and costly project, built with tremendous effort and resources, designed to provide security and protection. Yet, within a few years of its completion, it was br...

Preaching Commentary The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved ps...

The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved psalm of the entire Psalt...

Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.

Lord, forgive us for the times when we have chosen safety and comfort over fidelity to you. For the times when following you requires us to stretch, grow, and be challenged, give us courage. Renew our...

Notes on the Passage Besieged from All Angles:  The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Ja...

On June 22, 2007, a hit-and-run incident left Daniel McConchie paralyzed from the waist down. McConchie states, “God has not healed my affliction, but he has taught me the power of lamenting to him ab...

God knows our situation; He will not judge us as if we had no difficulties to overcome. What matters is the sincerity and perseverance of our will to overcome them.

It is necessary that our sharpest trials should sometimes spring from our dearest comforts; else we should be in danger of forgetting ourselves and setting up our rest here.

Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; ...

Why does man accept to live a trivial life? Because of the danger of a full horizon of experience, of course.

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.

Our self-soothing habits are keeping us from experiencing true comfort from God.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.

Gracious God, too often we believe that our hard work should earn us comfort, conveniences, and control. Too often, we rely on our own abilities to craft and maintain a life independent from You. Forg...

Leader: When Jesus is tempted by the devil, the temptation he faces is to turn his trust away from God. We face this temptation every day, and give into it all too easily. Jesus responds to Satan, “o...

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

Preaching Commentary Besieged from All Angles The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Jar...

Holy God, You are the anchor amidst our fears. You know the sins we can’t even admit to ourselves. You show your faithfulness even when we reject You. You offer grace even when we offer judgment. Forg...

A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.

Disturb us, O Lord, when We are too pleased with ourselves, When our dreams have come true Because we dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, O...

The chief secret of comfort lies in not suffering trifles to vex us, and in prudently cultivating an undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones are let on long leases.

We comfort ourselves by reliving memories of protection.

The real problem is that we have sought comfort in all the wrong places, everywhere but God.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves; when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lo...

The etymology of certain words can profoundly enrich our understanding and experience of life. Consider the word “consolation.” Its roots lie in the Latin words “con-” meaning “ “to be ” and “solus,...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Passage Context - Divided Kingdom, Common Struggles The prophet, Jeremiah, conducted the bulk of his ministry in the latter half of the...

Take the cul-de-sac, for example, which is my metaphor for the world of suburban monotony and triviality that so many Western Christians find themselves trapped in. The literal cul-de-sac (i.e., a dea...

When life caves in, you do not need reasons – you need comfort. You do not need some answers – you need someone. Jesus does not come to us with an explanation – He comes to us with His presence.