life on Self-Pity

Uncontrolled temper is soon dissipated on others. Resentment, bitterness, and self-pity build up inside our hearts and eat away at our spiritual lives like a slowly spreading cancer.

John Fiske, a Harvard scholar, once visited Herbert Spencer, regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of his time in England. During their conversation, Spencer asked about Mrs. Fiske and the chil...

Who, then, are we, we prideful late-twentieth-century creatures? Lord knows, we no longer think of ourselves as belonging to anyone or anything. We do not belong – we own; we possess. And that, to say...

Carl Jung, one of the early pioneers of modern psychology, wrote this from his years of experience as a therapist: The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of ...

Out of the depths, we cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear our voice. Let your ears be attentive to our cries for mercy. Living in frailty and weakness with adversity in our path, we too often buckle in despa...

It is always easier for us to want to purify other people, and attempt a moral reformation among our neighbors. (Yet) how much have I helped to make her what she is?

Loving and gracious God, we know we do not always live the life to which we are called: We turn away from You, and from our true selves. You command us to shine Your light, but we often hide it instea...

Up until the twentieth century, traditional cultures (and this is still true of most cultures in the world) always believed that too high a view of yourself was the root cause of all the evil in the w...

Where there’s humility there is majesty; where there’s weakness, there’s might; where there is death, there’s life. If you want to get these things don’t disdain those.

The character Quentin from Henry Miller’s Play, After the Fall explains a life without God: For many years I looked at life like a case at law. It was a series of proofs. When you’re young you prove ...

Almighty God, in Jesus, you meet us where we are. You condescend to our level, yet we wrongfully assume that we are equal to you. We live as rulers of this world masters of own destiny, ignoring your ...

All: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breat...

My friend Wendy calls the incremental disappointments we endure over the years “the slow leak of life.”

Impostors draw their identity not only from achievements but from interpersonal relationships. They want to stand well with people of prominence because that enhances a person’s résumé and sense of se...

But you take pleasure in the faces Of those who know they thirst.

The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior.

People who think they are better than other people haven’t taken the time to hear the stories of the people they think they are better than.

If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can't survive.

Why should I, who have been living from all eternity in the enjoyment of the Father’s love, go to cast myself into such a furnace for them that never can requite me for it? Why should I yield myself t...

We would do well to keep in mind that Solomon’s words on the necessity of friendship were written toward the end of his life, well after he scaled his own Mount Significance. His accomplishments were ...

This prayer also works well for the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18) Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. I have failed to love as You Love I have treated others as objects and...

When I get honest, I admit I am a bundle of paradoxes. I believe and I doubt, I hope and get discouraged, I love and I hate, I feel bad about feeling good, I feel guilty about not feeling guilty. I am...

Princess Buttercup: “You mock my pain. Man in Black: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

But when the cross is working deeply a believer comes to know himself. He realizes how undependable are his ideas, feelings and desires.

But if I am to let my life speak things I want to hear, things I would gladly tell others, I must also let it speak things I do not want to hear and would never tell anyone else! My life is not only a...

Pastor: Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,  People: for in you my soul takes refuge; Pastor: in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,  People: till the storms...

Holy Lord, High Priest over all people, You have given us everything we need to live a life of flourishing. You have met our needs and provided a model for what a life-with-God looks like. But we oft...

A man by his sin may waste himself, which is to waste that which on earth is most like God. This is man’s greatest tragedy and God’s heaviest grief.

With a graciousness and an understanding of human weakness that only God can exhibit, Jesus liberates us from alienation and self-condemnation and offers each of us a new possibility. He is the Savior...

When he found himself desiring to be treated as one of the pigs, he realized he was not a pig but a human being, a son of his father. This realization became the basis for his choice to live instead o...