Love and Hate
Putting Jesus at the center of your life is learning how to love as God loves, which involves a willingness to sacrifice our preferred ways and outcomes in favor of Jesus’ way and his preferred outcomes. Spiritually, we haven’t grown up until we want God’s way more...
When God is Silent
What to do when God is silent, goes the question. But maybe what is really being said here is, ‘God is not speaking to me in a fashion that is convenient or dramatic enough to address my anxieties and hardships.’ Being the anxious creatures that we are, we might be...
Self-Examination
Self-examination means we pause and check-in with our soul. And we ask our soul two questions: What are my patterns? And, do they increase well-being? Ultimately the practice of self-examination is a gift because it moves us from blindness to gaining new sight. Recent...
Near
God being near is how it all gets started and is sustained. God was near to Jesus at his baptism, near enough to whisper the words “beloved” and the affirmation “pleased.” God wanted new nearness to Jesus so God directed him through Spirit to the soul-making crucible...
Convinced
Before St. Paul begins his best-known chapter – the one about love, 1 Corinthians 13 – he finishes the 12th chapter with this, “I will show you a more excellent way.” Given all of the division and vitriol that has become a normalized part of life, we might need to...
Rendezvous
Whether we’re meeting God for the first time or the eighty-second time there’s a reliable rendezvous available to us. It’s at the intersection of our failing strength, fraying faith, and God’s understanding and power. This crossroad is where God infuses our expiring...
Unclean
As Jesus teaches in the synagogue he is interrupted by a man with an “unclean spirit.” When we see those two words in scripture it means a demonic spirit. A spirit that is not love. A spirit that opposes God. A spirit that harms the community and the host. Unclean...
Both
Simon and Andrew “immediately” dropped their net and joined Jesus’ friend making campaign. To my mind, either Jesus was exceedingly compelling, or their discontent with their occupation was peaking or both? Sometimes we can think of these bible stories in too pristine...