Matthew 7:3-5, Luke 10:38-42, Psalm 139:23-24, Proverbs 12:15, Genesis 4:6-7
Lucy says to Charlie Brown: ‘You know what the whole trouble with you is, Charlie Brown?’ ‘No; and I don’t want to know! Leave me alone!’ ‘The whole trouble with you is you won’t listen to w...
Countless mistakes in marriage, parenting, ministry, and other relationships are failures to balance grace and truth. Sometimes we neglect both. Often we choose one over the other.
Heavenly Father: You know all about us – our weakness, our failing, our sin; And you still love us enough to give your Son to redeem us. Hear the cries of our hearts today. There’s someone for who...
If you’ve ever watched a war movie, or a film that takes place in the military, you’re likely to have encountered a specific scene, in which a subordinate will have something to tell a senior officer ...
Genesis 32:22-32, Exodus 5:1-21, 2 Samuel 12:1-14, Matthew 18:15-17, John 21:15-19, Psalm 141:5
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...
It takes time to build and sustain healthy relationships. Time pressures can erode the quality of relationships and create fragmentation and isolation.
In The Chimes, the second of Charles Dickens five Christmas stories, nine-year old Lillian Fern, orphaned and under the guardianship of her father’s brother Will, is taken in for the night by Tobias (...
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...
It happens sooner or later in every relationship: someone will let you down. We have a term for the earliest stages of a relationship: the “honeymoon phase”—that rosy time period when everything but d...
An Irish church once had a humorous yet insightful motto that gets at the heart of the pain that often accompanies our relationships: “To dwell above with those we love will certainly be glory. But to...
Psalm 51:10, Ephesians 4:23-24, 2 Samuel 12:1-14, John 7:37-38, Philippians 2:5-8, Matthew 5:3-4, Psalm 51:10
Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...
James 3:5-10, Matthew 12:34-37, Psalm 141:3, Proverbs 15:1, Genesis 3:12-13, Isaiah 6:5
I actually want to believe that when it comes to communication, my biggest problem is outside of me, not inside of me. I want to think that it’s my kids, my wife, my neighbors, my boss. I want to thin...
Lord of all, the only thing that truly matters is staying connected to you. As we remain in you, you give us life. We are sorry, Lord, for squandering the gift of incredible love that you have given u...
There is a lovely disarray that comes with attraction. When you find yourself deeply attracted to someone, you gradually begin to lose your grip on the frames that order your life. Indeed, much of you...
Ephesians 5:31-33, Matthew 19:4-6, Romans 8:28, Proverbs 22:1, 1 Timothy 3:7, Titus 2:7-8, Philippians 2:15, 1 Peter 2:12, Galatians 6:4-5, Daniel 1:17-21
While movies and novels often present stories of a budding love interest willing to give up everything for “true love” (Romeo and Juliet, for example), the renowned poet, and later clergyman, John Don...
John's Only Question While Peter sucks up all the oxygen in the room with loads of questions, John only gets one direct question to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. In the passage immediately pre...
Matthew 28:20, Isaiah 30:21, John 14:27, Exodus 33:14, Isaiah 43:2
The path I walk, Christ walks it. May the land in which I am be without sorrow. May the Trinity protect me wherever I stay, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Bright angels walk with me-dear presence-in...
John's Only Question While Peter sucks up all the oxygen in the room with loads of questions, John only gets one direct question to Jesus recorded in the Gospels. In the passage immediately pre...
Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they're trying to find someone who's going to make them feel...
Generous One You entrust us with the goodness Of your faith and field Yet We grasp We scheme Deliver us from wickedness We reject We harm Deliver us from wickedness We murder We seize what ...
The last time someone said to you, “I need to talk to you,” how did that strike you? Did you think, Maybe she needs to tell me how much she appreciates me. More likely you thought, I’m in trouble. Whe...
Today friendship has fallen on hard times. Few men have good friends, much less deep friendships. Individualism, autonomy, privatization, and isolation are culturally cachet, but deep, devoted, vulner...
God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Lord of all our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows: thank you that we don’t need to be afraid of what’s coming because you’re already there ahead of us. Nothing takes yo...
A few years ago Christian friends of ours, after several years of marriage, came to see Esther and me to explain that their relationship had reached an impasse and that they could see no alternative b...
Exodus 34:6–7, Genesis 50:19–21, 2 Samuel 9:1–13, Luke 18:1–8 , Luke 7:36–50, Psalm 103:8–14
I personally get some inspiration for getting at the nature of this work from a story told by one of my favorite spiritual writers, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. Thérèse was born in 1873, to a devout Cath...