When we tell stories that start with a sudden beginning and jump to an ending that only God could write, we skip over a crucial part of the story: the middle. The place where we wait. Where we sit in silence. Where we have no answers. Where our hearts ache and we...
We grow not by memorizing principles but by hearing stories. We imagine ourselves in circumstances and ask how we would respond. We examine stories that have been handed down to us, such as those in the Bible, and ask how those stories play out in our lives. from...
The saints whose stories line the pages of Scripture could be both heroic and weak... They were all too human and subject to the ebb and flow of faith in daily life just as we are. from Driven
The alligator--the chaos, the storm, the danger, the divorce, the illness, the crisis--and the human response--what you and I do in the midst of chaos--and the presence of God in chaos--these are profound issues of faith. And the stories about chaos and God and us are...
What makes the Bible God's Word isn't its uncanny historical accuracy, as some insist, but the sacred experiences these stories point to, beyond the words themselves. Watching these ancient pilgrims work through their faith, even wrestling with how they did that,...
Then he starts calling names, “Jim and bill, you take Baldwin; John and Nancy, Batesville. Bob and Gil, I’m thinking Alto for you… Here’s what I need you to do: preach the kingdom, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the outcasts, cast out demons. Boy, do I need a...
The Bible isn’t a book about how to get into heaven; it’s a library of poems and letters and stories about bringing heaven to earth now, about this world becoming more and more the place it should be. There is very, very little in the Bible about what happens when you...
Whether rich or poor, male or female…our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and to...
It is extremely strange, and extremely interesting, that the stories of Jesus’ resurrection never mention the future hope of the Christian… Instead, we find a commission within the present world: “Jesus is risen, therefore you have work ahead of you.” The stories are...
The stranger is also a central figure in biblical stories of faith, and for good reason. The religious quest, the spiritual pilgrimage, is always taking us into new lands where we are strange to others and they are strange to us. Faith is a venture into the unknown,...