Our challenges always build. A ninety-five-year-old man sits in his chair with a wandering mind because a century cannot pass without many blows. That much life is heavy for the strongest shoulders. A young man might feel bold; he might feel courageous, gambling with life and death. And he might be courageous. But he trusts […]
It had all been taken and hung on a tree
He was my expert whenever some adventure story required knowledge of planes. He was a man who faced bullets and bombs and storms, who was willing to end his life story in the service of his country, his family, his men. And he came close. But even after two wars, the heaviest burden he ever […]
GAINING TROUGH LOSING
Remember when I said suffering is having what you don’t want and wanting what you don’t have? Subtract your wants and you’ll have contentment. It’s a way of equalizing your desires and circumstances. The apostle Paul was an expert at this arithmetic. For example, he was glad his Philippian friends were sending him gifts. “I […]
THE PSALMS: A FABRIC OF FEELINGS
Emotions are one of the least reliable yet most influential forces in our lives. One day we are hopeful; the next, we hate. Despair at one time; delight, the other. Emotions are the surging, restless tides that keep ebbing and flowing, drawing us up, then pushing us down. The Psalms are a gyroscope, keeping moving […]
He is the answer and we need him
“In order to suffer without dwelling on our own affliction,” Thomas Merton once contemplated, “we must think about a greater affliction, and turn to Christ on the cross. In order to suffer without hate, we must drive out bitterness from our heart by loving Jesus. In order to suffer without hope of compensation, we should […]
Sunday’s coming
Highlight Longings: God created us for Paradise, but we now live in a desert. So we thirst (John 7:37-39), we suffer (John 16:33), and we groan for home (Romans 8:18-25). Biblical discipleship counselors keep their hearts and ears attuned to the discrepancy in the soul between what people were designed for (Paradise) and what they […]
Remember Again
It’s another way of saying: Never doubt in the darkness what you once believed in the light. When hardship settles in to stay, dark and brooding skepticism surges over us in a tide of doubt and fear. The only sure dike against a flood of feelings is memory. We must recall sunnier times when we […]
Bitterness and Simple Faith
She realized her seething hatred was just as heinous, just as nauseating as the sins committed against her. She was no better than her parents. As surely as her father thrust himself on her, she had in her imagination, thrust a knife, with hot fury, into his chest. Glenda could have easily been the one […]
to embrace you with is love
But it doesn’t stop there. Can the Father turn a deaf ear to the pleas of his own Son? (If Jim can’t, you can bet God can’t. And if he can, we’re in Big Trouble.) The answer resounds from an empty tomb three days later: No, may it never be! And because the Father raised […]