Let me take you back now to the last cup of tea, Luke’s parting, and the ending of our family’s childhood era. It was the Saturday of his high school graduation. We had been through two others before and knew the ritual well. I believe in rituals...
READ MOREWe live now in a culture of expertise, so completely second nature to us that we don’t give it a second thought. Cutting-edge advances in science and technology—ever sharpening, ever thrusting forward—are now available to anyone with an Internet...
READ MOREOur local zoo had for years one of the biggest African lions I’ve ever seen. A huge male, nearly five hundred pounds, with a wonderful mane and absolutely enormous paws. Panthera leo. The King of the Beasts. Sure, he was caged, but I’m...
READ MOREThe book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.
[Sam] Are there some things we should do that might not come easy to build a relationship with God, or can we find him...
Whatever else we might believe about intimacy with God at this point, the truth is that God knows us very intimately. He knows what time you went to bed last night. He knows what you dreamed about. He knows what you had for breakfast...
READ MOREWe've all heard the story and missed the miracle—God begins his greatest work by including us. Even though we bungled it so badly the first time, back in Eden. Once again he shares in the excitement. Come with me, you have a part in this—the re-...
READ MOREAny movement toward freedom and life, any movement toward God or others, will be opposed.Marriage, friendship, beauty, rest—the thief wants it all.
So, it becomes the devil’s business to keep the Christian’s spirit imprisoned...
READ MOREThe sense of being part of some bigger story, a purposeful adventure that is the Christian life, begins to drain away again after those first-love years in spite of everything we can do to stop it. Instead of a love affair with God, your life...
READ MORELook, let’s go ahead and name the elephant in the room—some prayers work, and some prayers don’t. Why does that surprise and irritate us? Some diets work, but most don’t; no one is really surprised by that. We simply keep looking for the one that...
READ MOREMothers teach, counsel, and guide. “Do not forsake your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 1:8). Mothers comfort. “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). Mothers are a source of wisdom. The famous Proverb 31 was written...
READ MOREAs large as the role is that our mothers play, the word mother is more powerful when used as a verb than as a noun. All women are not mothers, but all women are called to mother. To mother is to nurture, to train, to educate, to...
READ MOREWe lose the Story every day. It is continually being stolen from us by the Evil One—the ultimate desconstructionist. He twists and spins and pulls apart the truth until the fragments we have left are unrecognizable. Or we lose it ourselves in the...
READ MOREAnd now? Now we are living somewhere toward the end of Act Three. We have a future, but this tale is not over yet — not by a long shot. We now live between the battle for Helm’s Deep and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Between the beaches of...
READ MORESomewhere along the way we all lose heart in marriage. We all do. It happens to the best of us. As Dan Fogelberg sang,
Joy at the start
Fear in the journey,
Joy in the coming home
A part of the heart gets lost in the...
As Jesus steps out from behind those thirty years of almost total obscurity into the task set before him, both men and demons begin to feel his fierce intention:
He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to...
READ MOREI can be a very driven man; I set very high standards; I push myself hard. There are certain “rewards” that come along with this way of living: I get a lot done; I can be successful. But that drivenness that the world so often rewards is really...
READ MOREA judge in his sixties, a real southern gentleman with a pinstriped suit and an elegant manner of speech, pulled me aside during a conference. Quietly, almost apologetically, he spoke of his love for sailing, for the open sea, and how he and a...
READ MOREReserves are replenished when there’s more coming in than there is going out.
That’s how it works. That’s why people come back from their vacations feeling better, and why folks who have taken real time off, like a sabbatical, come back...
READ MOREPlayful, cunning, generous, fierce — not one moment of it is contrived. Jesus never plays to the audience, never kowtows to the opposition, never takes his cues from the circus around him. He is simply being himself.
The diversity of Jesus...
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