freedom on Unhealthy Behavior

I once had the opportunity to speak briefly to a large Mormon audience at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I told them that I feel badly about the fact that we evangelicals often tell Mormons what th...

Freedom is found when undesirable habits are identified and the cue-routine-reward structure is defined, pulled apart, and reframed. In the context of our discussion, the cue is a desire for comfort, ...

Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just grad...

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

Self-Discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and the demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear—and doubt.

It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have all one needs.

We cannot prioritize our doing before being, our assignment before healing, our service before freedom.

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

Context of Galatians I still remember my intro to New Testament class in college and the professor discussing Paul’s letter to the Galatians. All of Paul’s other letters begin with words of adoration...

For most of us it takes a long time for the Spirit of freedom to cleanse us of the subtle urges to be admired for our studied goodness. It requires a strong sense of our redeemed selves to pass up the...

After the fall of our first parents, boundaries were something to push past, to transgress. It’s worth pausing to note how we use the word transgression for “sin.” With its Latin roots, “across” and “...

The world says: "You have needs — satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This ...

In short, contrary to the founders-and in ways they do not realize themselves-Americans today are heedlessly pursuing a vision of freedom that is short-lived and suicidal. Once again, freedom without ...

The desire to feel loved is the last illusion: let it go and you will be free

Every movement toward the humiliation of the false self, if we accept it, is a step toward interior freedom and inner resurrection.

Freedom in Christ allows you to control the desires that once controlled you.

You don’t need to look far today to notice that personal identity is a do-it-yourself project. A gym near where I live advertises itself with the slogan: “Be Fit. Be Well. Be You.” A new apartment com...

Hobart Mowrer was Research Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois. Mowrer critiqued Freudian psychology and its assertion that guilt was merely a pathology to be dispensed with. In this...

God of the Ages Our Deliverer and Provider We bow in humility before your grace You feed us with the divine Your word Your body You quench our thirst with living water A stream in the desert You gu...

The United States is undergoing a marked change in its attitude toward religion, and Christians here face new challenges. When a blogger named Marc Yoder wrote about “10 Surprising Reasons Our Kids Le...

Modern man is a bleak business. To our chagrin we discover that the declaration of autonomy has issued not in a race of free, masterly men, but rather in a race that can be described by its poets and ...

In May 2018, in a Connecticut hospital, a group of twelve surgeons worked for five hours to remove a tumor from the abdomen of a thirty-eight-year-old woman. That may seem like a lot of doctors and a ...

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

A being is free only when it can determine and limit its activity.

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.

The purpose of the Disciplines is freedom. Our aim is the freedom, not the Discipline. The moment we make the Discipline our central focus, we will turn it into law and lose the corresponding freedom....

If you think of your identity and heart as an engine, you could say there is a kind of fuel that powers it cleanly and efficiently—and a kind of fuel that is not only polluting but also destroys the e...

If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation. Let this be one aspect of our daily intercession: "God, preserve my soul, and keep my heart and all its ways so that I will not be entan...

We are rapidly reaching the point in Western consumer societies where people confuse freedom with choice, as they are dazzled daily by an ever-expanding array of external choices in consumer goods and...