fullness of life on Vulnerability

There is a great difference between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control, and respectability. A successful person has the energy to create something, to keep control o...

Awe encourages us to think of God as a transcendent presence: someone outside and beyond our own small concerns and our own vulnerable lives. Awe opens us up to the possibility of living always on the...

There was a time when adults were neatly categorized into one of two groups: you were either neurotic or psychotic. Psychotic meant that you were out of touch with reality and afraid; neurotic meant t...

Hope is reliance upon grace in the face of death: the issue is that of receiving life as a gift, not as a reward and not as a punishment; hope is living constantly, patiently, expectantly, resiliently...

I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. On the near side of complexity is simplistic; on the far...

The Boundless Mystery we call God is continuously at work in the life of every one of us. In everything that happens to us, God is always seeking to draw us—and all creation—into greater fullness of l...

We will have to start over, with a different and much older premise: the naturalness and, for creatures of limited intelligence, the necessity of limits.

I had a memorable lunch a few years ago with my friends Mike and Claudia, who had recently returned from Malawi, a small country in southeastern Africa. We were sitting in a booth at one of those chai...

A number of mature Christians have described the Christian journey as one in which the follower of Jesus experiences different levels of grace.  Let us imagine . . . that there are many rooms in t...

Intellect is therefore a vital force in history, but it can also be a dissolvent and destructive power. Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more will probably be inferior to the traditional ...

Merciful God, you have given us the gift of life. We confess the uncaring ways we have treated others. We have been impatient with those growing old. We have been inattentive to the curiosities of the...

In 1879, the preservationist and explorer John Muir took his first trip to Alaska. As he explored the fjords and rocky landscapes of Alaska’s now famous Glacier Bay, a powerful feeling struck him all ...

Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message. To see all that is offered us at the windows of the soul, and to reach out and rece...

Breath has a rhythm to it, a cadence of inhales and exhales. Prayer has a rhythm too, a cadence of inhaling God’s grace and exhaling our fears.

Whoever seeks to avoid danger at all costs may ultimately lose the fullness of life, but the one who, out of love for Christ, dedicates themselves to serving others discovers a life that endures. Arch...

Breathing is the bridge between the brain and the body.

Pastor: Go now in confidence and joy, offering yourselves as living sacrifices of worship and praise.  People: Direct our days and our deeds as we live out our calling to look, live, and lo...

Though Christ was by nature divine, Christ did not cling to equality with God, but in utter self-emptying, took the form of a slave, and was born as a human. God have mercy. Appearing in h...

The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then di...

[T]he old adage “it’s the journey, not the destination that matters most” is particularly true of modern pilgrimage. If the destination is the point, I can get to Santiago from anywhere in the world i...

I preached my first sermon at National Community Church on January 14, 1996. The only thing I remember about that message is my opening illustration. I can’t remember the original source, but I think ...

Friends are individuals who are relational assets and not liabilities. Friends are those whom God escorts into our environments because there is something they need to be for us in order to help us be...

Noteworthy in this regard is the contribution of the Reformers, particularly Martin Luther, though John Calvin’s contribution is also very significant. Both called for a spirituality in the world that...

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...

If this world was made by a triune God, a being of community, then relationships of love are what life is really all about.

[A] vivid scene from the Gospel of John [John 20:19-23]. It’s intimate from the start-a stunningly private scene that occurs behind locked doors among dear friends. The scene begins with a friendly gr...

Whisper to me again How you formed me in my mother’s womb, Fashioned me over generations, Over eons of unfolding of the earth Until it could bear life  On its flaky crust, the dust From which you f...

The Greek language, in which the New Testament was written, has two words for life. One ( bios ) means “mere biological existence”; the other ( zoe ) means “lie in all its fullness.” What we are being...

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...

Holy Spirit Let us not lose ourselves in tedium Errands Obligations Holy Spirit Still us once in a while Stop us sometimes Let us breathe now and then Holy Spi...