The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being...
While Christians espouse the view that we are all God’s children, too often we point to those who have gifts or talents we value. Saying that everyone is somebody is not comparable to giving everyone a trophy for merely existing but treating everyone as valuable...
Empathy is a strange and powerful thing. There is no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It's simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting and communicating that incredibly healing message of, "You're not alone."
As different as we are from one another, as unique as each one of us is, we are much more the same than we are different. That may be the most essential message of all, as we help our children grow toward being caring, compassionate, and charitable adults.
The whole message of the Gospel is this: Become like Jesus.
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull,...
Our culture teaches us about shame--it dictates what is acceptable and what is not. We weren't born craving perfect bodies. We weren't born afraid to tell our stories. We weren't born with a fear of getting too old to feel valuable. We weren't born with a Pottery Barn...
We cannot force someone to hear a message they are not ready to receive, but we must never underestimate the power of planting a seed.
Rest provides fine-tuning for hearing God's messages amidst the static of life. from Rhythms of Rest: Finding the Spirit of Sabbath in a Busy World
The more you grow into love, into the message of Jesus--to say it in such traditional, defenseless terms--the more vulnerable you make yourself. You simply become more open to attack when you have become conspicuous or when "that of God" lights up in you. When you...