When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person. from Prayer: Does it Make a Difference?
01347 – Letting Suffering Teach Us
Many of us are tempted to think that if we suffer, the only important thing is to be relieved of our pain. We want to flee it at all costs. But when we learn to move through suffering, rather than to avoid it, then we greet it differently. We become willing to let it...
01345 – Characteristics of Repentance
Repentance isn't about blame, or avoiding the cost of being blamed. It's about putting on a new mind, that is, seeing the familiar with fresh eyes, changing one's opinions and behaviors in order to come closer to God's desire. Repentance seeks change, not blame....
01344 – Risk Everything to Gain Everything
Sooner or later, if we follow Christ we have to risk everything in order to gain everything. We have to gamble on the invisible and risk all that we can see and taste and feel. But we know the risk is worth it, because there is nothing more insecure than the transient...
01336 – Spirituality is about Seeing
Spirituality is about seeing. It's not about earning or achieving. It's about relationship rather than results or requirements. Once you see, the rest follows. You don't need to push the river, because you are in it. The life is lived within us, and we learn how to...
01330 – John vs. Pop TV Preachers
John's testimonials are lacking in content and repetitious: "Look! The Lamb of God!" Yet on the basis of his witness two of his followers become Jesus' first disciples. Having seen, John testifies so that others might see... As Karl Barth said, anybody who stops on...
01319 – Doing the Gospel, Not Just Quoting It
Doing the Gospel rather than just quoting it was the best way I could find out what God was up to. I didn't believe in dragging souls into some special club of the saved... My only sense of "mission" now was to show others that they, too, could feed and touch and heal...
01308 – Following Jesus as “The Way”
The metaphor of blindness and seeing is not only prominent in the teaching of Jesus, but also found in stories about his giving sight to blind people. There are three, two in Mark and one in John. They clearly have a metaphorical meaning, even as one or more may well...
01264 – Seeing the Need for Love
People are hungry for love. Are we aware of that? Do we know that? Do we see that? Do we have eyes to see? Quite often we look but we don't see. We are all just passing through this world. We need to open our eyes and see. Since we cannot see Christ, we cannot express...
01261 – Your Faith will Make You Well
Jesus calls his disciples, giving us authority to heal and sending us out. He doesn't show us how to reliably...make a blind man see, dry every tear, or even drive out all kinds of demons. But he shows us how to enter into a way of life in which the broken and sick...