One of the essential paradoxes of Advent: that while we wait for God, we are with God all along, that while we need to be reassured of God's arrival, or the arrival of our homecoming, we are already at home. While we wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but it is...
Be discerning and kind so that your judgment of others doesn’t just become a new, more acceptable form of the self-righteousness that you so despise. For the most part, we are doing the best we know how. Offer grace instead.
God has not promised skies always blue, flower-strewn pathways all our lives through.God has not promised sun without rain, joy without sorrow, peace without pain.But God has promised strength for the day, rest for the labor, light for the way;Grace for the trials,...
God doesn’t give us answers. God gives us grace and mercy.
Today We Honor Women in Ministry My pilgrimage can be described rather simply and easily. Basically, the scenario goes like this: I listened to the Story, and I believed. When as a child the community of faith told me Jesus loved me and when they demonstrated that...
If God forgives us instantly and completely, then who are we to sulk in despair over our failures? If God finds no pleasure in condemning, then we have no right to find some sort of sadistic pleasure in self-contempt. To allow the sins of yesterday, or even an hour...
…as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches… So although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away. Is there no way to prevent this continued decay of true religion? We ought not prevent people from...
The basic issue for the Christian, it seems to me, is whether we believe we are stewards or owners of what we possess. A good steward receives gratefully anything his Lord gives to him. But he must account for it and use it wisely. We Christians also believe that this...
Pray that God will empty you of everything that isn’t love. Speak an extravagant word of grace to someone. Look for words so lavish that their face and yours will turn red.
Ultimately there is tremendous grace in suffering—not because of the pain of the suffering itself but because suffering allows us to reorient ourselves in ways that we simply could never have done had life proceeded in an untroubled manner. Suffering gives us the...