The apostle Paul was about as zealous as any person has ever been in spreading the message of Jesus, but when he faced stubborn resistance, he did what Jesus did: he walked away. He didn’t run away at the first sign of resistance. He reasoned and pled with many inquirers. He even seems to put […]
Read More
We all have limited energy and our family deserves the best “us” we can offer in the midst of work and life in general. Part of protecting your marriage and your peace of mind so that you can devote yourself to loving your family involves learning how to protect yourself from the toxic people who […]
Read More
If you adopt a wolverine and pour all your love into that animal; if you treat it like a puppy, hugging it and feeding it and playing with it; if you give it the very best care anyone has ever given to a wolverine, the day will still come when that wolverine will attack you, […]
Read More
If you want freedom from toxic people, you have to learn how to be okay with others not being okay with you. Historically, I’ve been rather weak in this regard. I hate it when people aren’t okay with me. Even toxic people. That weakness gives them a power they don’t deserve and potential control that […]
Read More
I’ve been in several marathon training groups that begin meeting months before a marathon. It’s astonishing to see how a little bit of daily training takes very ordinary, often very unathletic people, and gently but steadily leads us to a place where we can start running twenty-six miles around breakfast time and finish sometime before […]
Read More
An excerpt from Thirsting for God: Spiritual Refreshment for the Sacred Journey by Gary Thomas (Harvest House Publishers, 2011) Living in a Dying World: The Remembrance of Death When sportscaster Glenn Brenner died at the age of 44 in Wash- ington DC, the city was in shock for several days. Why? After all, the city […]
Read More
When a couple you love is going through a marital crisis, both spouses giving you two entirely different accounts of what is happening and begging you for your insight… When a child has prayed and prayed and God hasn’t seemed to answer that prayer and they ask you what to do… When your spouse needs […]
Read More
A pastor wrote to me asking for help with a church member who is well read and very cerebral, but who needs a little help shaping his heart and soul. He asked me for some books he could recommend, so I put together the following list in no particular order. It’s a mix of classics […]
Read More
A divorce lawyer recently posted an article arguing that the vow “till death do us part” is passé, unrealistic, and needs to be discarded. There’s no shame, he said, in knowing that it’s unlikely and “even rare” for marriages to last for a lifetime, so let’s stop with the pretense. He admitted children face some […]
Read More
Nicolas Rolin frolicked, adulterized, gambled, and even murdered his way through the fifteenth century until he looked mortality in the face and realized he was going to die sooner rather than later. Given that he had broken every one of the Ten Commandments at least once, the prospect of facing God terrified him. A priest […]
Read More
