pain on Transformation

Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffe...

Preaching Commentary Context The Gospel of Mark presents two clear phases of Jesus’ ministry. The first phase (chapters 1-8) takes place in Galilee. It is characterized by words and deeds of power ...

Context The Gospel of Mark presents two clear phases of Jesus’ ministry. The first phase (chapters 1-8) takes place in Galilee. It is characterized by words and deeds of power and authority. The seco...

In Bob Benson’s book “See You at the House” he recounts the story of a friend who had a heart attack. At first it didn’t seem like the man would live, but eventually he would recover, Months later, Bo...

One common mistake is assuming that everyone else finds faith easy, while we alone struggle. Yet there is comfort in recognizing that we are not alone in our pursuit of Christ in the midst of a broken...

Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.

If you do not transform your pain, you will surely transmit it.

The Latin term for confrontation means “to turn your face toward, to look at frontally.” It merely indicates that you are turning toward the relationship and the person. You are face-to-face, so to sp...

Individual disasters, too, very largely follow upon human choices, our own or those of others. And whether or not they do in a particular case, the situations in which we find ourselves are never as i...

In her book The Broken Way, Ann Voskamp shares a beautiful exchange between her and her husband (The farmer). His encouragement is for all of us: that God uses the broken things in this world for good...

There is no growth without change, no change without fear or loss and no loss without pain.

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we...

Live to the point of tears.

Alcoholics Anonymous has a great definition of how we change: We change when the pain of remaining the same is greater than the pain of changing .

One of the main ways we move from abstract knowledge about God to a personal encounter with him as a living reality is through the furnace of affliction.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life…. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for pe...

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

Paradoxically…healing means moving from your pain to the pain…When you keep focusing on the specific circumstances of your pain, you easily become angry, resentful, and even vindictive. You are inclin...

Trials are the ruler and scale to reveal in our lives.

We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey.

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...

This past week I have been at a reunion with college friends (this is the main reason I missed last week's update). It's been significant for a number of reasons. I hope to unpack a few other ...

The whole history of the Christian life is a series of resurrections. Every time a man bethinks himself that he is not walking in the light, that he has been forgetting himself, and must repent; th...

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story.

Your sorrow itself shall be turned into joy. Not the sorrow to be taken away, and joy to be put in its place, but the very sorrow which now grieves you shall be turned into joy. God not only takes awa...

Some kind of loss is usually necessary to turn the mind toward faith. If you’re satisfied with want you’ve got, you’re hardly going to look for anything better.

Faith does not grow in spite of suffering, but through suffering, when hope learns to contradict reality.

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

My transition into my 40’s came with the obligatory hip surgery. The only way to stop the cycle of hip pain was to literally carve out some bone. Those parts had to be removed. But recovering my funct...

The truth is, that more spiritual progress is made through failure and tears than success and laughter.