Sermon Illustrations on control 2

A loaf of bread is the bearer of at least four major narratives or histories; (1) a narrative of natural processes that yield diverse plant growth, yeast spores, salt, sugar, and water; (2) an agricul...

Many years ago a senior executive of the then Standard Oil Company made a wrong decision that cost the company more than $2 million. John D. Rockefeller was then running the firm. On the day the news ...

Kate Bowler is a gifted scholar and writer who, as a young wife and mom, was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer—kept going six months at a time thanks to immunotherapy. She writes honestly about how ...

In his excellent study of the famous Biblical passage on shepherds, ( The Good Shepherd: A Thousand Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament) , scholar Ken Bailey describes the nature of David’...

So you ask, “Where is peace to be found?” This question is answered clearly and powerfully in Isaiah 26: You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust i...

God’s goal is people. He’ll stir up a storm to display his power. He’ll keep you out of Asia so you’ll speak to Lydia. He’ll place you in prison so you’ll talk to the jailer. He might even sideline a ...

In their excellent book Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “formed” s...

One of my small joys in life is grocery shopping. Ever since our kids were old enough to sit up, they fawned over the grocery carts that looked like little cars. Those carts are to grocery shopping wh...

We all go through desert seasons and have the opportunity to determine how we will respond. The cyclical frustrations I faced in regard to my desire for control, fear, and the longing to feel chosen w...

A survey in 2015 found that 91 percent of adults in the United States agreed that the best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself. Everything else flows from this conviction. The thinking ...

In 2010, an oil rig named “Deepwater Horizon” suffered a catastrophic failure. Due to improper installation of the cement seal, a malfunctioning blowout preventer, and cost-cutting decisions by corpor...

Raising kids today is more complicated than it was when I was a kid. Parents feel out of control, hopelessly overmatched by the deluge of devices. And we can’t even count on one another to back us up....

We all know our world has sped up to a frenetic pace. We feel it in our bones, not to mention on the freeway. But it hasn’t always been this way. Let me nerd out on you for a few minutes just to show...

While I was at a concert in college, I responded to a flyer requesting volunteers to sponsor a child overseas. For years I read the letters from this little girl in El Salvador. Ruth seemed happy to b...

In Thanks! I wrote that legendary investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton had posed the question, “How can we get six billion people around the world to practice gratitude?” Not long after Sir ...

On a Friday in July of 2007, fourteen-year-old LaSaller David Melia stumbled upon people giving away hugs outside a movie theater. Strange, he thought, and refused to take them up on their offer. Hour...

In her book, The Next Right Thing, Emily Freeman describes the difficulty in making decisions, including the decision that would eventually lead to her enrollment in Graduate school. After a prolonged...

The way most of us serve keeps us in control. We choose whom, when, where and how we will serve. We stay in charge. Jesus is calling for something else. He is calling us to be servants. When we make t...

In Luke Norsworthy’s book, God over Good , he describes the curiosity of a new friend whose bedroom was, to use his own words, “immaculate.” At the time this seemed strange, but in hindsight, and wit...

The other thing that helps me deal with my compulsion to control things through my direct involvement and my fear of missing out is what Henri Nouwen has called “the ministry of absence.” Jesus modele...

There’s a story that used to make the rounds about the German theologian Paul Tillich. Tillich’s theology was considered dangerous by many Christians in the U.S. Supposedly one time after delivering a...

We delude ourselves into believing that if we can just get everything done, if we can only tie up all the loose ends, if we can even once get ahead of the crush, we will prove our worth and establish ...

Nearly everybody knows of at least one sin habit in their life that they wish to leave behind them. Yet, no matter what they do, it seems impossible for them to be free of this habit, character flaw, ...

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), the archbishop of Canterbury from 1532 to 1556, played a pivotal role in the English Reformation. A key figure in Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, Cranmer...

If we want to turn in the direction of what is life giving, we are going to have to let go of Winter. “’Let go’ of the dark, which you wrap yourself in like a straitjacket, and let in the light. Stop ...

More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us. … We cover up what is inside us with food and other good things, but in fasting these things surface. If pride controls us, ...

We might not say we believe a Jesus-plus-our-efforts idea of the gospel, but when we place our performances on the pedestal of personal progress, we’re not relying on the grace of God. We’re worshipin...

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a co...

In the vast, frozen wilderness of the Arctic, an Inuit hunter used a clever technique to trap a wolf. He took a sharp knife and carefully coated its blade with layers of animal blood, letting each lay...

Pharaoh viewed the Hebrews as a growing threat to the Egyptian way of life, so he ordered all Hebrew baby boys killed. King Herod feared that a future king would arise from Bethlehem, so he ordered al...