The greatest deterrent to genuine happiness - believing that if our circumstances were different, then we would be happy. Paradoxically, deep contentment finds us when we lay aside the pursuit of happiness for something more...loving God and others. May we be caught...
04026 – Paradox: Desire to Die vs. Desire to Live
For many trauma survivors, suicidal ideation isn't a desire to cease existing--it reflects a desire to escape a physical body or a social environment that make actual "living" impossible. It's paradoxical, but that desire to "die" is actually a desire to truly...
02646 – Faith Must be Evaluated in Community
While all were granted the right of conscience in matters of faith, Luther still stressed the necessity of evaluating faith in community. Indeed, for Luther, the very freedom of the Christian was paradoxical as the believer is both freed from all in Christ and at the...
01280 – God’s Spirit is Dangerous, Not Safe
In the midst of depression I once asked my spiritual director how I could be feeling such despair when not long before the depression hit I had been feeling so close to God? "Simple," she said. "The closer you get to light the closer you get to darkness." The deepest...