You are the God who makes a way when there is no way. Free us from our anxious intransigence and our impoverished imaginations. Open us to your newness, the gospel gift given over and over and over again. Amen. from Devotions for Lent: A Way Other Than Our Own
02748 – The Answer is “Yes!”
I’m mindful that for many of us, we have heard a lot of “no’s” in our lifetimes. Especially from people who think they are speaking for or defending God. Whether implicitly or explicitly, we’ve heard things like:"No, you’re not supposed to be asking questions like...
02746 – Our Wants vs. God’s Wants
We want the war horse.Jesus rides a donkey. We want the eagle.The Holy Spirit descends as a dove. We want to take up swords.Jesus takes up a cross. We want the roaring lion.God comes as a slaughtered lamb. We keep trying to arm God.God keeps trying to disarm...
02745 – For God So Loved…
For God so loved the world that God made us for love. For God so loved the world that God incarnated love itself in the person of Jesus.For God so loved the world that God empowered us to love even our enemies, even the worst person on Twitter, even those who seem...
02744 – What the Cross is About
The cross is not where God inflicts violence on Jesus in order to vent his wrath; the cross is where God in Christ endures human inflicted violence and forgives it all. The cross is not where Jesus saves us from God, but where Jesus reveals God as Savior.
02741 – God’s Silence
Every year, Holy Saturday hits me hard with the memory that the silence of God isn’t the absence of God.
02734 – The Day will Come
The day will come...when people will once more be called to speak the word of God in such a way that the world is changed and renewed. It will be in a new language, perhaps quite nonreligious language, but liberating and redeeming like Jesus's language, so that people...
02733 – God Came Down
We thought, if there is to be business between us and God, we must somehow get up to God. Then God came down, down to the level of the cross.
02732 – Love God
To love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness -...
02728 – I’m the Instrument for God’s Story
Don’t let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story—just like the typewriter was mine. from A Prayer Journal