Our culture rarely deals intimately with death any more: we have cordoned it off, confined it to funeral homes and hospitals, done everything to keep it separate from us as we try to think up ways and means to evade the inevitable ourselves. But it wasn't always that way. And I suspect that in the interim, something has been lost.
Tag: spirituality
How To Talk To God Instead Of At God
Two questions nagged at me for a long time every time I sat down to pray: what am I giving to God with my prayer? And in what ways can I allow God to speak, to make this more about Him and less about me? [Click title to read more.]
The Indwelling Revelation
All I can say is this: that God sought my spirit and my heart and somehow, inexplicably, conquered them and made them His. The spirit that cries out in me isn't my own; it's His, calling back to Himself. [Click title to read more].
Cultivating A Sense Of Wonder Is A Christian Act
Wonder is a quality that we must embrace and cultivate as believers. We live in an often-cynical world, heavy with pessimism. Unironic enthusiasm and delight sometimes seems out of style, and out of step. But as Christians, wonder is part and parcel of our experience. [Click title to read more.]
To Christians Starting College In Fall: A Letter From A College Professor
A list of things you ought to know from the fellow believer who stands at the front of the classroom [Click title to read more]
Sports and Misleading Narratives of Christian Victory: Or, That Time I Swore I’d Shave Off My Eyebrows
It's interesting to me that we never equate God's victory with loss. That we never equate God with the less-than-happy-end, or with what happens when things don't turn out right. The team that slumps into the locker room doesn't say, "Well, He's the reason we're here." After a fumble or a turnover, the football player doesn't crouch and quietly thank God.
Faith Is A Christian With No Answers
Faith is not the blind belief that everything will be fine. Faith is not a self-hypnosis that magically transforms the bad things in our life into good ones, or automatically makes us content to struggle forward without answers. No. Faith is an effort of will. It is the resolution of heart and mind. [To read more, click title.]
God’s Economy
God's economy seems antithetical to the modern age we live in. I and most people I know would run back to get the sheaf of forgotten wheat, would linger to make sure we hadn't left anything behind. And if we found any scraps on the ground we'd ask Pinterest how to use them to make centerpieces. To us, this sort of act seems sensible, and yet it runs directly opposite the commands of God. Leave the leftovers, He commands. They're not for you to use. [Read more...]
Why The Church Should Be A Bad Business
The danger in this is that - if we're not careful - the loving and serving that the church is supposed to be doing can get submerged beneath a corporate outlook. The Message becomes a logo. Outreach becomes a business wherein believers supply love in exchange for attendance, salvations, and baptisms, and are tempted to move on when they see no signs of a harvest.
The Fine Art Of Humility
Humility is not a contrived performance or a degrading of the self, but rather the attitude natural to those who act with empathy, compassion, and selflessness.
