Being Christian Without Losing Your Mind
A certain man, Lazarus, was ill. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha…So the sisters sent word to Jesus, saying, “Lord, the one whom you love is ill.” – John 11:1, 3 Mary and her sister Martha had an interesting relationship. In Luke, these two sisters, who were so different …
Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us. – Matthew 6:12 Father Henri Nouwen wrote, “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly.” (From his You Are the Beloved) How do we love poorly? …
I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry,Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? – Psalm 8:3-4 (The Message) Why “take a second look our way,” indeed? We humans have a default setting of …
We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. – 1 Corinthians 13:12a (The Message) That sentence from Paul’s “love chapter” in Corinthians is quite out of character for him. He was uncompromising in his beliefs. Sometimes, when people argued with him, his temper rose proportionately. For …
[Love] isn’t rude, it doesn’t seek its own advantage, it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints. – 1 Corinthians 3:5 Paradoxically, while we’ve practiced social distancing during the Covid pandemic, we’ve also practiced lessening the distance between us and the ones we love. Children come home and stay home from school. Spouses …
“Then the older son was furious and didn’t want to enter in, but his father came out and begged him. He answered his father, ‘Look, I’ve served you all these years, and I never disobeyed your instruction. Yet you’ve never given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.” – …
So we aren’t depressed. But even if our bodies are breaking down on the outside, the person that we are on the inside is being renewed every day.—2 Corinthians 4:16 Getting older makes us susceptible to the disease of depression. How can it not? You’re not as fast, admired, beautiful, smart, [fill in the blank] …
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. – 1 John 4:18a I was about six when my dad and I took an overnight train to Chicago. It was high adventure for me. We were in a sleeping car, with fold-out-from-the-wall bunk beds. I was in the upper, and dad in the lower. In the middle …