There is a couple I know who earn very good money, and yet they live simply, without any status symbols or luxuries, with money set aside for charity. It’s a trimmed-down life for them and their six children. Every month the mother gathers the six children around the...
Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: first, a dissatisfaction with self—a felt void or need; second, a decision to change—to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change—the...
True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as “the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.” Buechner’s definition starts with the self and moves toward the needs of the world; it begins, wisely,...
It is a help to think of the life and death of Jesus as sacrifice, but the word needs to be used with care. In the world of religion a sacrifice is either an offering to the ultimately holy or the giving up of something in devotion to the holy. The two ideas can blend...
Serving is the opposite of our natural inclination. Most of the time we’re more interested in “serve us” than service. We say, “I’m looking for a church that meets my needs and blesses me,” not “I’m looking for a place to serve and be a blessing.” We expect others to...
Community is characterized by two things: one is forgiveness, the other is celebration. Forgiveness means that I continually am willing to forgive the other person for not being God—for not fulfilling all my needs. I too must ask forgiveness for not being able to...
We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.
If happiness is what we feel when we think we’ve got what we want, then joy is what we feel when we discover we already have what we most need. Joy is still present when life is hard. Christ comes for grieving people with broken homes and broken hearts. Christmas is...
What do we experience by eating together? We share the host’s hospitality. And hospitality is at the core of our spiritual life. Most of our day is spent experiencing how we are different from one another—our race, our economic status, our education, our language, our...
“God won’t give you more than you can handle” is idolatry of self-sufficiency hiding behind spiritual sound words. The truth is, people are dealing with more than they can handle all over the world. That’s why we need God and why he’s given us each other. I know. I’ve...