Sometimes our care for each other sucks. (There, you made me use that word that Momma told me never to use. But it's true. Sometimes we suck.) We don't mean to suck. But therein lies a big part of the problem: we don't know what lands on each other like an anvil, for two major reasons: those afflicted don't say so, and the afflictors assume that their words are at worst ne...

The measure of our faith shows itself as much in the aftermath of failure as in the glow of attainment. Post-failure, Satan weaves his "best" lies. In these times the boots of faith must gain gritty traction, and hold. How? I offer a few thoughts from 1 Corinthians 1: Look to Jesus to regain hope. In 1 Cor. 1:4-9, Paul confidently states, about the seriously-messed-up-sin...

Sometimes a post on some blog sticks with you, for your own good and the repeated good of others. I share one with you this week, from Mike Leake, written in 2012: "Perhaps the most offensive claim of the gospel is that a hate-filled cannibalistic child molester finds the same redemption and has an equal status in the eyes of God as your dear old church lovin', bake-sale ...

It has been said that when we encounter non-Christians, we speak and give answers. But when Jesus encountered non-Christians, he listened, and told stories. I think that's about right. While Jesus is the Son of God, completely full of the Spirit, much of His wisdom came not from taking advantage of His supernatural power, but from perfectly doing the human skill of listeni...

Psalm 1311O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;my eyes are not raised too high;I do not occupy myself with thingstoo great and too marvelous for me.2But I have calmed and quieted my soul,like a weaned child with its mother;like a weaned child is my soul within me.3O Israel, hope in the Lordfrom this time forth and forevermore. One of the most powerful blockades to prayer is ...

"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment . . ." Philippians 1:9 I have not forgotten, and have sometimes forgotten, what Mr. Ikard whisped in my ear. I was a new bank management trainee , sitting in "Charge-Off Committee" - an "intimate" gathering of the bank's executive management and about 60 of my peers, where ban...

On two prior occasions I've written about the importance and power of our "little" interactions with each other, especially between "insiders" and "outsiders", or "long-timers" and "newcomers". It's easy to forget what it was like to be an outsider, and to make it harder for newcomers to focus on the beauty of God, what for the social awkwardness we foist on each other. To...

[An excerpt from Damien Jourdan's talk this past Friday at the Work + Faith Forum:] . . . Work can take on a double meaning, a double purpose. On one level it is absolutely a good thing. The Bible for example describes how God created human beings to work in Paradise, to bring out the untapped potential hidden in the universe. In this sense work is as much a human need as...

Imagine you were raised in another religion (if you even need to). It's all you've ever known; the only God you've ever known; the only way of worshiping you've ever known. Your family and friendships and business are all woven into the latticework of this religion. But then you begin to have questions. You doubt. You look around. And then, after months, you finally do it...

D.A. Carson, at a conference in 2015: ". . . there is so much in this society that feelswith a certain amount of justificationthat all those nasties on the Left are taking away our heritage! They're perverting our schools! They're overthrowing principles of jurisprudence! They're making the city unsafe! And so there's angerthere's anger seething through the whole land. "...