A basic tool for recognizing if you are under spiritual attack or dealing with foul spirits is to judge the fruit: “By their fruit you will recognize them” (Matt 7:16). Is misunderstanding coming against your friendships? Pray against that. I...
READ MOREHenri Nouwen once asked Mother Teresa for spiritual direction. Spend one hour each day in adoration of your Lord, she said, and never do anything you know is wrong. Follow this, and you’ll be fine. Such simple yet profound advice. Worship is the...
READ MOREMary was frantic: “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him” (John 20:2). She saw a man, assumed he was the gardener, and asked him if he had taken the body. And then Jesus revealed himself to her simply...
READ MOREWe grow during meaningful conversations with kindred spirits. But that's often hard to find in the midst of our non-stop days filled with never-ending to-do lists.
As this year comes to a close, we want to lift up several powerful podcast...
READ MOREThe only way is love. Paul says love “keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Cor. 13:5). In loving relationships, we want to throw away the list in our heads of wrongs done to us and ignore them when they raise their indictments yet again. Too often we...
READ MOREBelieving God is good in the midst of waiting is incredibly hard. Believing God is good in the midst of immense sorrow, loss, or pain is even more difficult. Those are the times that our faith, the treasure of our hearts, is tested by fire and...
READ MOREGod will use painful trials...to hone us, but he doesn’t cause all of them.
Some of my readers will need some help with this because they’ve been taught a theology that God causes all things. So they have had to swallow hard and...
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger...
Christianity is often presented as essentially the transfer of a body of knowledge. We learn about where the Philistines were from, and how much a drachma would be worth today, and all sorts of things about the original Greek. The information...
READ MOREWho among us has not suffered betrayal at the hands of a trusted friend? Who among us has not shrunk away in response to being hurt? Which one of us has not been responsible for wounding another? We all have.
We all have.
We need...
READ MOREWhen the young prophet Samuel heard the voice of God calling to him in the night, he had the counsel from his priestly mentor, Eli, to tell him how to respond. Even so, it took them three times to realize it was God calling. Rather than ignoring...
READ MOREAs a teacher, counselor, and author, I love what I do for a living. But it hasn’t always been so. I spent a lifetime in Washington, D.C., several years ago. They were two of the most miserable years of my life. I don’t like government, and I...
READ MOREWhen we hear the phrase “trust totally in God,” most of us probably sigh, hearing it as one more requirement that we have never been able to live up to. But what if we were to listen to our hearts, and hear it as a need to faint, a need to lay...
READ MORESometimes we feel hopeless to ever change simply because our personal history is filled with our failed attempts to change. Where was that angel who was supposed to be guarding our tongue and preventing those harsh words from lashing out at our...
READ MOREThe life we have is so far from the life we truly want, and it doesn’t take us long to find someone to blame. In order for our longings to be filled, we need the cooperation of others. I long for a loving embrace and a kind word when I get home....
READ MOREStasi Eldredge's book "Free to Be Me" helps teen girls become the young women God created them to be.
Every human being has some vital place in her life where she is not living in the victory she longs for, and...
READ MOREResting in Jesus is not applying a spiritual formula to ourselves as a kind of fix-it. It is the essence of repentance. It is letting our heart tell us where we are in our own story so that Jesus can minister to us out of the Story of his love...
READ MORESomehow, notes Os Guinness, "we human beings are never happier than when we are expressing the deepest gifts that are truly us." Now, some children are gifted toward science, and others are born athletes. But whatever their specialty, all...
READ MOREThe meadowlark has long been my favorite songbird. I love its song because it evokes so many summer days out in the fields and streams of the West. Its song means summer, hay meadows, long lazy days, fly-fishing. More than anything else...
READ MOREEarly in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they answered. He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will...
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