faith from psalm 23

When most of us grow up in a faith tradition, we begin with an assumption that faith is good, while having doubts is bad. As we mature however, we realize that faith and doubt are not opposites, but i...

The story of young Matthew Huffman came across my desk the week I was writing this chapter. He was the six-year-old son of missionaries in Salvador, Brazil. One morning he began to complain of fever. ...

Some years ago our pastor told an unusual story about a Southern plantation owner who left a $50,000 inheritance to a former slave who had served him faithfully all his life. That was quite a sum of m...

Martin Luther said that every Christian ought to read the Bible from cover to cover every year. But, likening the Bible to a forest, he also said that reading the Bible doesn’t become really enjoyable...

In a poignant tribute written after his son’s passing in a climbing accident, Nicholas Wolterstorff reflects: When we have overcome absence with phone calls, winglessness with airplanes, summer he...

On Christmas Eve in Tehran, house-church pastor Farshid Fatah and his family were awakened to the frightening sounds of the Iranian security police pounding at their door. After the police searched hi...

Jesus reminds us that the wounds of scarcity can be healed only by faith in God’s promise of abundance.

The journey has to feel like night because it leads to the unknown. If Christianity meant mere maintenance, then bewilderment or darkness would spell disaster. But . . . darkness is a condition of the...

There’s no shortage of the religiously faithless who seem eager to tell us what faith is. Many of these characterizations of faith are reminiscent of Mark Twain’s precocious schoolboy who quipped, “Fa...

We should aim for rational confidence in these sorts of pursuits because certainty is a mere will-o’-the-wisp. Finite minds simply can’t pull it off. Though the distinction between aiming at certainty...

Pastor: Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, wielding well  the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Go out into the world with joy and hope, standing firm in your fa...

Pastor: Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, with the belt of truth buckled at your waist. Go out into the world with joy and hope, standing firm in your faith through the pow...

Pastor: Satan and the powers of darkness seek to divide and destroy. And all too often God’s people either run from the battle in fear and defeat, or pick up the wrong weapons in the fight, relying ...

Pastor: Friends in Christ, I urge you all to lift up your hearts to God and pray with me as Christ our Lord has taught us and freely promised to hear us. People: Our Father, who art in heave...

Almighty God, we have failed to trust you. Overwhelmed by the pains of life, we have taken charge and pushed you aside. O God, be gracious to us. Remind us of your daily mercies and redemptive power t...

Eternal and Generous God, Every good gift comes from You. Your generosity is expressed best Through Jesus, the Crucified and Risen One, Who gave Himself for us. We acknowledge we often doubt Your will...

Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf, unbelief s...

One year, in the small cul-de-sac where my family lived in Illinois, three husbands in the four houses around us had heart attacks while still in their forties. This was Illinois, where the state bird...

Bill Irwin was not the first person ever to walk the Appalachian Trail. He was not the only individual to begin in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and conclude on Mount Katahdin, Maine. Other adventuresom...

People...think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross...You arrive at enough certainty to be able to make your way, but it is making it in darkness. Don’t expect faith to clea...