And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, "Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown." And he replied: "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
They said that if I questioned a 6,000-year-old earth, I would question whether other parts of Scripture should be read scientifically and historically. They were right. I did. They said that if I entertained the hope that those without access to the gospel might...
"To live without risk is to risk not living," my paternal grandmother used to say. The way of trust is risky business, no doubt about it. To change careers suddenly because one feels fulfilled, to assume the energy-depleting care of elderly parents, to retreat for...
All Saints Day and All Souls Day are the feasts of every saint and of every soul who has died and gone home into the eternal love of God. All of them and therefore not only those already celebrated…but also the silent, unknown ones who have departed as if they had...
I said to the man who stood at the gate of years, “Give me light, that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And the man replied, “Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than the known way.”...
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,...
Surrender is not so much a giving up as it is an opening up. It is a dynamic living and striving in the face of the unknown. When we surrender in faith we enter into the power of God, into the realm of all possibility.
He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lake-side, he came to those men who knew him not. He speaks to us the same word: “Follow thou me!” and sets us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him,...