human nature on Living

Dangerous levels of exhaustion usually accumulate over a longer period of time in which we are consistently living beyond human limits, functioning outside our giftedness, or not paying attention to t...

In this excerpt of a poem by William Wordsworth, the poet describes our yearning for life beyond this life. Our desire for something greater than ourselves: Whether we be young or old, Our desti...

Man is pushed by drives. But he is pulled by values.

When he died, he sent his Spirit to teach us the intricacies of the art of living. That’s why his Spirit is the only One who can fill our spiritual vacuum, helping us become truly human.

The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great they will not go on living a...

I am a human being, not a human doing.

The scholastics used to say: Homo non proprie humanus sed superhumanus est —which means that to be properly human, you must go beyond the merely human.

Survival requires more than the basic biological necessities we readily acknowledge—oxygen, food, and water. It also demands something less tangible but equally vital: hope. When hope vanishes, the hu...

The animated movie WALL-E is a cute story of a curious robot whose job is to clean up a trashed earth. While humans once inhabited the earth, we soon discover they have been evacuated from earth with ...

For prayer exists, no question about that. it is the peculiarly human response to the fact of this endless mystery of bliss and brutality, impersonal might and lyric intimacy that composes our experie...

The South African politician Nic Diederichs—a prominent leader during the apartheid era—once made a rather provocative observation: God, he said, dislikes deadly uniformity. I hate to admit that I lik...

[Speaking of crucifixion] It seems almost inevitable to me that Jesus should go through this kind of darkness. . . . If you think of Jesus as God disguised as a man, then this will have no meaning for...

When Julius Caesar returned to Rome after many years of fighting its battles abroad, he planned great festivities and triumphal processions to celebrate his victories over Gaul, Egypt, Pontos, and Afr...

No person has ever walked our earth and been free from the pains of loneliness. Rich and poor, wise and ignorant, faith-filled and agnostic, healthy and unhealthy have all alike had to face and strugg...

Every human being, each in their own way, has the same glory, and this glory is incomparably greater than the glory of any distinction they could struggle themselves into.

Before my mentor, Dallas Willard, passed over to glory, I asked him what he thought about the rapid rise of the Christian spiritual formation movement. He said, “It is a wonderful thing, but my fear i...

A few years ago, HBO released a gritty (surprise!) crime drama called True Detective . The show starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as the two detectives responsible for catching a serial...

Even deliberately nonreligious people pray at times. Studies have shown that in secularized countries, prayer continues to be practiced not only by those who have no religious preference but even by m...

Men have never been good, they are not good and they never will be good.

A large part of what it means to be human is to be one who longs after things. Sometimes, we have trouble putting into words the longings inside us. Take for example these words from Anne Frank, just ...

Human flourishing is first and foremost a flourishing of relationships—our relationship with God and with others. But human flourishing is also a product of fruitful work that reflects our God who wor...

So, how are you feeling?  It’s not a trick question. But it’s more complicated than it sounds. We’re always feeling something, usually more than one thing at a time. Our emotions are a continuous ...

From a purely biological point of view man is not at home anywhere in the world.

When Tara and I learned we were pregnant for the first time, we went right out and bought a crib. You might have done the same. The act of selecting, purchasing, and assembling a crib is deeply cathar...

Human kind cannot bear very much reality.

On August 20 and September 5, 1977, two spacecraft named Voyager were launched. Eventually leaving the solar system and heading into deep space, they represented a revolutionary and promising breakthr...

Man becomes human with the eating of bread.

The human capacity for burden is like bamboo – far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.

Invitations are powerful. Like tides, they ebb and flow, shaping the contours of our existence. Some invitations we desperately want but never get—“Will you marry me?” or “Would you consider a promoti...

A man needs three conversions: first of the head, then of the heart, and finally of the pocketbook.