Perhaps we are more attentive when life is hard. When we are open and vulnerable, the Spirit can more easily lead us forth to fuller expressions of wisdom, compassion, and love—to the heart of our humanity, the imago dei, the image of God.
We will go before God to be judged, and God will ask us, “Where are your wounds?” and we will say, “We have no wounds” and God will ask, “Was there nothing worth fighting for?”
The generosity of a believer is a response to Jesus Christ and never merely a “human” virtue. The gospel is about the generosity of God: God owed us nothing, and yet out of sheer enthusiasm for us and desire of our well-being, God sent Jesus Christ… Through the...
Miss Watson, she took me in the closet and prayed but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and whatever I asked for I would get it. But it wasn’t so. I tried it. Once I got a fishline, but no hooks. It warn’t any good to me without hooks. I tried for the...
Surrender—putting one’s life at God’s disposal—is the most truly Christian prayer. It is the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane—”Not my will, but thine.” It is the heart of the prayer Jesus taught the apostles—”Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth...
Prayer is…a very dangerous business. For all the benefits it offers of growing closer to God, it carries with it one great element of risk: the possibility of change. In prayer we open ourselves to the chance that God will do something with us that we had not...
Whenever you see someone who has to be right, you are looking at someone who is spending more time reading about God than praying to him. They have assumed that we are in a relationship with propositions instead of a Person. When we go before the God of the universe,...
Healing prayer is part of the normal Christian life. It should not be elevated above any other ministry in the community of faith, nor should it be undervalued; rather it should be kept in proper balance. It is simply a normal aspect of what it means to live under the...
On a typical day I am charged with the pastorate of three congregations. I teach regularly at the seminary. I have students living in my house. I am writing three books. Countless people write to me. When I start each day, therefore, I make it a point to spend an hour...
Everything that one turns in the direction of God is prayer.