Category: spirituality

Christmas Is A Beginning

Christians--instinctively, I think--tend to divide up our understanding of Jesus-as-baby versus Jesus-as-savior. The cosmic moment, the violent sacrifice, the grand and undying love: we save our contemplation of those things for Easter. But they started in the manger. [Click title to read more.]

The Burden of the Teacher

I'm writing this because every now and then I'm struck by how easy it is for believers to become teachers. At some churches all you have to do is volunteer. And because of that, I think we can often come to view teaching casually, as though it's just another duty to fulfill or just another activity to take on. But it isn't. [Click title to read more.]

Redefining Our Understanding of Strength

Peacefulness, the refusal to depend on the self or on physical strength, the healing of those who would harm us, the deliberate avoidance of indulging one's "right" to retribution: if we interpret those things as weakness, we miss the point of the Gospel. [Click title to read more.]

Giving Up Our Right To Retribution

I'm struck by how anti-entitlement God's Word seems to be. Been wronged? Been hurt? Been harmed? Have a justifiable case to make against a person/group/corporation who's causing you trouble? If so, the Bible tells you to give up your right to vengeance. [Click title to read more.]

Fruit Inspectors

For all of us, I'm sure, there is a collective set of identity markers and clues that scream to us "fellow believer." But the Bible tells us that's not how you identify Christians. [Click title to read more.]

Preparing For Thanksgiving With Hearts of Gratitude

Thoughts on gratitude and some pre-Thanksgiving testimonies that will help us remember the spiritual, and not material, blessings of the season. [Click title to read more.]

Leaving A Legacy Through Relationship

It's important that Christians not neglect the joys of a mentoring relationship, but it's equally important that we recognize those relationships when we enter our lives - or where they might be present already. [Click title to read more.]

Seek The Silence

Humans need community, and Christians most of all, and we must not be so preoccupied with not being of the world that we forget we are meant to be in it. But I do think that in our current civilization we must prize a momentary withdrawal. We must, for our own sake, seek the silence. [Click title to read more.]