Eternal God, we recognize that Your ways are mysterious. Teach us to be still and to wait for You. We confess our sinfulness, our need for control, and our discomfort with the unknown. Instead of turn...
Romans 6:3-4, Ephesians 2:8-9, Colossians 2:11-12, Titus 3:5, Galatians 3:27
If you’ve read or watched any of the biographies of Martin Luther, you will already know that he struggled at times with bouts of anxiety, self-loathing, and perhaps even depression. Shortly after his...
All day long, all of us are framing and reframing our lives. We talk about the memory of our adorable but sexist grandpa. We label ourselves as movie critics or introverts or justice-lovers. We say th...
Almighty God, during this tumultuous time, we see so clearly our frailty and powerlessness. Any illusions of strength and grandeur have been stripped away. We are utterly dependent upon you. Even with...
Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Psalm of Lament or Psalm of Trust? We’ve categorized this psalm under the psalms of lament. The psalms of lament highlight the problems and enemies tha...
When Ministry Burnout Leaves You Empty I imagine that some of you feel like you have nothing left to give. Perhaps you’re in a period in which motivation has morphed into varying degrees of desponde...
In his book, Running Scared , Pychologist Edward Welch illustrates how the fear of an event is often worse than the event itself. To demonstrate this, he provides two examples of people whose lives...
John 10:27, Psalm 143:10, James 1:5, Isaiah 42:16, Proverbs 2:6, Psalm 32:8, Colossians 3:15
We’re afraid when we’re suddenly caught off our guard and don’t know what to do. We’re afraid when our presuppositions and assumptions no longer account for what we’re up against, and we don’t know wh...
Holy and Merciful God, We acknowledge that this crisis has exposed our idols. We accept that we have placed our trust and hope in stability, in consistency, and technology. And now, as we recognize o...
Often we become apathetic in our lives until we face a severe storm. Whether loss of a job, health crisis, loss of a loved one, or financial struggle; God often brings storms into our lives to change ...
Holy God, We recognize that when crisis strikes, the natural impulse is to turn inward, to take care of ourselves above our neighbors. We hoard the essentials we think will keep us safe, even if that...
Gracious God, We come before you today scared. Scared for our health, scared for our jobs, scared for our loved ones. Help us Lord, not to dwell in our fears, but rather to turn to you, trusting that...
Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.
God uses our identity crises to reveal who we are and who he is. Sometimes these crises come out of nowhere. Something devastating happens. Someone close to us dies. We are diagnosed, or someone we kn...
When pain is this fresh and this awful, I’m not sure much light can get through. You have to wait for some of the initial jolt to subside, to let something settle enough that you can emerge from being...
John 11:35, Romans 8:26, Psalm 42:3, Isaiah 53:3, Matthew 26:38
Our culture is afraid of grief, but not just because it is afraid of death. That is natural and normal, a proper reaction to the Last Enemy. Our culture is afraid because it seems to be afraid of the ...
All crises are judgments of history that call into question an existing state of affairs. They sift and sort the character and condition of a nation and its capacity to respond. The deeper the crisis,...
Individual disasters, too, very largely follow upon human choices, our own or those of others. And whether or not they do in a particular case, the situations in which we find ourselves are never as i...
Isaiah 40:1-11, Lamentations 1:2, Lamentations 1:9, Lamentations 1:17, Lamentations 1:21, Matthew 3:3, Mark 1:2-3, Luke 3:4-6, John 1:23, Lamentations 1:2, Isaiah 40:null, Isaiah 40:3, Mark 1:14, Isaiah 40:1-11
Ancient lens What's the historical context? Longing created by exile While crises seem innumerable in the OT, none could compare to the crisis of exile. Babylon, in 587 BC, destroys the city ...
So here I sit in the waiting room. The receptionist took my name, recorded my insurance data, and gestured a chair. “Please have a seat. We will call you when the doctor is ready.” I look around. A mo...
You fear you won’t. We all do. We fear that the depression will never lift, the yelling will never stop, the pain will never leave…We wonder: Will this gray sky ever brighten ? This load ever lighten...
Matthew 10:15, John 5:22, Genesis 2:null, Judges 4:4-5, Matthew 10:15, Genesis 2:9, Judges 4:4-5
The word krisis was used by the Greeks to refer to “a legal process of judgment.” Aristotle used it to refer to a legal procedure that secured civic order. In his case, it was a judgment that helped k...
Like many of you, I have been praying for those affected by Hurricane Ian along the Eastern shore of the United States. I've also continued to pray for Ukraine and for Russia, that peace would com...
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.