You can't heal the people you love.You can't rescue them.You can promise that they won't journey alone.You can loan them your map.But this trip is theirs. Be gentle with yourself--it's hard work to be present to the freedom of the Other.
God doesn't stop the bad things from happening; that's never been part of the promise. The promise is: I am with you. I am with you now until the end of time.
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,...
It amazes me how casually I can sing songs of deep, almost heroic commitment. It’s as if I think, “As long as I’m singing, the words I say don’t really matter. God knows it’s just a song.” While my mind wanders I promise to bow before the Lord, to proclaim His name to...
Worship is the celebrative response to what God has done, is doing, and promises to do.
For at least some of the followers of Jesus, maybe the worst day was the third one, Sunday, which for the Jews was like our Monday, with everything around them returning so completely to normal that it was impossible to believe that either his life or his death was...
We don’t have to believe that God is the author of death and destruction in order to believe that God can speak to us, even in sorrow. God’s answer is not an explanation, but the promise of his presence through every storm of life. —————-Gender-neutral version: We...
What kind of kingdom will this be? It will be a kingdom where, in accordance with Jesus’ prayer, God’s name is truly hallowed, his will is done on earth, men will have everything in abundance, all sin will be forgiven and all evil overcome. It will be a kingdom where,...
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...
The truest, most beautiful life never promises to be an easy one. We need to let go of the lie that it’s supposed to be.