living on Slowing Down

[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...

On retreat we stop avoiding the pain of the disconnect between our deepest desires and the way we are actually living. We have time and space to reflect on our life rhythms to see if they are really w...

I like to describe spiritual leadership as living a grace-paced life in the midst of a driven culture; living at a vital, life-giving, peaceful pace while remaining engaged and active in the kingdom w...

Lord God, refresh us with living water, Illuminate our path with your light, Speak to us with the still small voice And calm the storms of our lives with your peace.

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wi...

Sometimes it takes a wake-up call, doesn't it, to alert us to the fact that we're hurrying through our lives instead of actually living them; that we're living the fast life instead of the...

The right manner of growth is to grow less in one's own eyes.

For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be serv...

Calm us now, O Lord, into a quietness that heals and listens. Open wounded hearts to the balm of your Word. Speak to us in clear tones so that we might feel our spirits leap for joy and skip with hope...

Merciful Jesus Grant us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety and take up the cross of opportunity and justice Merciful Jesus Grant us courage to deny consumerism to lay down conve...

“It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Advertising how humble we are will raise some eyebrows. Advertising your humility with a vanity license plate on a luxury car takes a special sort of hutzpah.  But that’s what I (Stu) saw today whi...

...left to ourselves we lapse into a kind of collusion with entrophy, acquiescing in the general belief that things may be getting worse but that there's nothing much we can do about them. And we ...

To accept this [Jesus' self-humiliation in washing the disciples' feet] is to be converted. And nothing can be added to this. If you imagine that you can add something to what is given in the ...

Feel your sinfulness. Let it humble you. Let it sober you. Beware of so filling your life with talk shows and phone calls that you don’t regularly stop and consider the ruinous condition of your life ...

Our mistake is to think that following Jesus consists in loving our enemies, going the ‘second mile,’ turning the other cheek, suffering patiently and hopefully—while living the rest of our lives just...

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...

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

There are people who do not live their present life; it is as if they were preparing themselves, with all their zeal, to live some other life, but not this one. And while they do this, time goes by an...

Living in a society governed by technique conditions us to believe that in every way life is easier than it ever has been. Technique is the use of rational methods to maximize efficiency, and we...

On a beautiful April afternoon in 2008, two college softball teams faced off in a decisive playoff game beneath the Cascade Mountains. The Western Oregon Wolves battled Central Washington University, ...

The greatest temptation of our time is impatience, in its full original meaning: refusal to wait, undergo, suffer. We seem unwilling to pay the price of living with our fellows in creative and profoun...

The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the divine wonder of living is the root of sin.

Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can t...

Introduction This text is used in the first week of Advent, but preparing for Jesus' return isn't something for just one time of the year. For a treatment that is more focused on Advent, see ...

Following always involves a coming down, a humbling of oneself and a serving of others. Jonathan Edwards, the Puritan theologian, captured this condescension of God in his sermon "The Excellency ...

Introduction Hard Sayings These hard sayings of Jesus come at the end of a section spanning two chapters (Luke 13:10-14:35). In it, Jesus’s actions and teachings are set in parallel structure: hea...

We will rise From the destruction From the ruins From the sin and isolation We will rise Building strong foundations Bridging the breach Making a way, a highway to our God We will rise in our ce...

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 ...

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.