Repeated processes shape the soul; this has been core to discipleship for millennia.
It was inevitable that years of Internet life would shape our souls whether we wanted it to or not. As a friend said, “It’s not that we’ve done something...
READ MOREIf then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than as a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, but a reservoir waits until it is filled before overflowing, and thus without loss to itself [it shares] its...
READ MOREWaiting can be an experience of emptiness. Our hands are empty. Our desires unfulfilled. Our hearts feel empty as well.
George MacDonald described it this way:
’Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up—
It is...
The Internet has taught its disciples that there shall be no mystery to anything. We can get to the bottom of any question, lay open the bare facts to any secret. In fact, if there is mystery, we’ve been thoroughly discipled to question...
READ MOREThe book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.
[Sam] Should you have killed a lion before you commit? Many traditional cultures like the...
READ MOREIt was in the depths of his personal tragedies that Job uttered the ruling sentence of his heart: “What I feared has come upon me” (3:25). In other words, “I knew it! I knew I couldn’t really trust God—not with the things that matter...
READ MORELife on the road requires recollection of our Love’s past deeds on our behalf and his promise of continued faithfulness to us. We will need courage and patience and those are strengthened by remembering. We will need memory, which is to say, we...
READ MOREIt seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger for them. (George Eliot)
And I still haven't found what I'm...
Jesus is more impressed with the cunning of “the people of this world” than he is the naïveté so common to “the people of the light.” And then — back to the doves and snakes analogy — he urges us to be cunning: “I want you to be smart in the same...
READ MORELook again at the story — when God gave us the earth, he gave us a mission. God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for...
READ MOREI shudder at how easily my heart can be divided. I do love God, I really do. I know you do too. The double-mindedness is revealed when we only sort of want God. Our longing for life to be good again becomes the test we hold up against...
READ MOREAbiding in the love of God is our only hope, the only true home for our hearts. It's not that we mentally acknowledge that God loves us. It's that we let our hearts come home to him, and stay in his love. MacDonald says it this way:
...
READ MOREWe do need more of God, much more. Little sips between long droughts will not sustain us. We need more of God in our bodies, our souls, our relationships, our work, everywhere in our lives. But when you live in a culture of the incessant...
READ MOREIn our own times of severe testing, we want to be made “holy in every way,” our entire “spirit and soul and body ... kept blameless” (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NLT). Let me be quick to add, I think much of the testing and the Falling Away takes place...
READ MOREDo we form no friendships because our friends might be taken from us? Do we refuse to love because we may be hurt? Do we forsake our dreams because hope has been deferred? To desire is to open our hearts to the possibility of pain; to shut down...
READ MOREThe most essential gift you have to give is yourself. When you aren’t entirely true about that, you aren’t true. But we’ve all grown accustomed to committing dozens of little white lies about ourselves every day.
Except this man. He is...
READ MOREWho is this God who is so determined that we know His presence that He is willing to allow so much that hinders us to be stripped away, including at times our health and well-being? Where do my beliefs of what well-being actually is not align...
READ MOREAsk Jesus to show you his kingdom.
Sanctify your imagination to him, all your spiritual gifting, and ask him to reveal to you pictures of the coming kingdom. Be specific — if you want to see the city, ask to see the city. If you want to...
READ MOREWhen the religious (spirit) is operating, knowing about God substitutes for knowing God. And therefore, teaching is exalted. Church feels like a seminar — could be intellectual, could be motivational. Good content is what matters. Doctrine is...
READ MOREJesus ran because he wanted to, not simply because he had to or because the Father told him to. He ran "for the joy set before him," which means he ran out of desire. To use the familiar phrase, his heart was fully in it. We call the...
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