formation on Choices

The most powerful choices we will make in our lives are not about specific decisions but about patterns of life: the nudges and disciplines that will shape all our other choices. This is especially tr...

Quod vitae sectabor iter. Translation: Who do I want to be? And: What path will I take?

Good and evil increase at compound interest. That's why the little decisions we make every day are of infinite importance.

If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I?

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

Note: This was originally posted on February 15, 2017 on the Stirring Our Affections website. Does our working shape us? Depending on what you do, you might answer that readily in the affirmativ...

The twenties are a time when one asks, What will I do with my life? What is it that I really want in exchange for my life’s labors? Most denied that the key desire of life was for material wealth; t...

The difference between forming ourselves and being formed is the vital issue of control.

Resilience is not something that can be mustered in a moment of “rising to the occasion.” It is formed over a long period before the crisis of testing so that it can continue the transformation during...

Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The structure was completel...

I must register a certain impatience with the faddish equation, never suggested by me, of the term identity with the question, “Who am I?” This question nobody would ask himself except in a more or le...

In their excellent book, Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “form...

We can “know” something to be true, and then find it is not true after all. I recall confidently assertive to a student that, of course, the name of the region Perea (to the east of the Dead Sea) appe...

We are being shaped into either the wholeness of the image of Christ or a horrible destructive caricature of that image—destructive not only to ourselves but also to others, for we inflict our brokenn...

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison.

Preaching Commentary Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The ...

I’ve often shared the story of my first experience of solitude and silence at the beginning of 1990. It was led by one of my mentors, Wayne Anderson, as part of a class I was taking at Fuller Seminary...

Da Vinci painted one Mona Lisa. Beethoven composed one Fifth Symphony. And God made one version of you. He custom designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment. Mine like a gold digger the unique-to-you...

When was the last time we had an "easy" year? The past few years seem to have been full of difficulty and uncertainty for so many of us. It’s tempting to look back and see only the loss, str...

The twentieth-century writer A. W. Tozer made a stunning claim: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Really?  The most important thing?  M...

Waiting is not just the thing we have to do until we get what we hope for. Waiting is part of the process of becoming what we hope for.

Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o...

Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.

What we become as we wait is at least as important as the thing we wait for. To wait in hope is not just to pass the time until the wait is over. It is to see the time passing as part of the process G...

The most determinative moral formation most people have in our society is when they learn to play baseball, basketball, quilt, cook or learn to lay bricks.

Dan B. Allender, in his book Leading Character , notes that the Greek word “charaktér" was “used in connection with tools designed for engraving.” Greek philosophers noted that our past actions ...

In March 1845, Henry David Thoreau received a letter from poet William Ellery Channing. “Build yourself a hut, & there begin the grand process of devouring yourself alive,” wrote Channing. “I see ...

Dana Visneskie tells the story of a Native American and his friend who were in downtown New York City, walking near Times Square in Manhattan. It was during the noon lunch hour and the streets were fi...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather have these because we have acted rightly; these virtues are formed in man by d...