Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish—separating spirit from flesh, sacred from secular, church from world. But we should not be surprised when God does not recognize the distinctions we make between the two. Earth is so thick with divine...
The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that were the only place in...
There is a Hasidic tale that reveals, with amazing brevity, both the universal tendency to want to be someone else and the ultimate importance of becoming one’s self: Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man said, “In the coming world, they will not ask me: ‘Why were you...
Now testimony is…”who we are and who we are becoming.” Our stories no longer tell tales of spiritual acquiescence and conformity. Rather, they tell of finding meaning, finding unique selves, and finding God in a confusing and chaotic world. Contemporary thinkers have...
This internal dying or death has two closely related dimensions of meaning. On the one hand, it is a dying of the self as the center of its own concern. On the other hand, it is a dying to the world as the center of security and identity. These—the self and the...
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God.Your playing...
How are we to experience peace in a world filled with war and destruction, hurricanes and greed? …Prayers are offered for peace and Nobel prizes are awarded for it. But more frequently, peace seems as distant as the moon… The world whizzes by at breakneck speed as its...
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least...
The Kingdom is served in greater ways when Christians and churches are collaborating and cooperating to proclaim the Gospel and minister to human need… The call and challenge for each individual, each church, and for all of us as a Fellowship, is to be the presence of...
I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts. But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there...