Category Archives: Spiritual Nuggets

Taunting Death My best friend’s mother, a dear family friend, died of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). Over the span of three years, the disease attacked her nerve cells, starting with her hands and feet and moving inward to her vital … Continue reading →

Prayer and Hope for the Anxious Anxiety, depression, and fear aren’t part of the Christian life—or the ideal Christian life, anyway. But for those who struggle with these emotions, this tidy concept isn’t helpful or true. What is helpful is … Continue reading →

Risk: Oversold and Underplayed The fears of the psalmist are not our fears today, and the fact that they aren’t should bother us. The psalmist remarks, “Do not give me over to the desire of my enemies, because false witnesses … Continue reading →

Tongues, Prophecy, and the Thing We Call Love Nearly anything good can become unproductive if it’s abused or misused. Paul is all about embracing the side of spirituality that can seem a bit wacky to us today—gifts of tongues and … Continue reading →

Grace and Favor Usually when we seek someone’s goodwill, we emphasize our own winning traits or accomplishments. Our supervisor, significant other, or family members are barraged with a list of our actions in an attempt to get the other to … Continue reading →

Thoughtless Iconoclasm When we learn something new about life and faith, it’s tempting to use our knowledge and freedom to tear down religious constructs and artifices—exposing truth in a way that’s not helpful or edifying. If we’re honest, pushing boundaries … Continue reading →

Green Pastures: They Require Action Love and complete reliance on God are interrelated concepts. When we discover what love really means, we want to praise God for it. When we learn to rely on God for all our needs, we … Continue reading →

Reason: Not the Ultimate Power Reason is a gift from God, but that doesn’t make it a substitute for seeking God’s will through prayer. Moses appears to have been an intelligent man. He figured out how to flee Egypt after … Continue reading →

Forsaken to Delight “My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Why are you far from helping me, far from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1). These are some of the darkest words in Scripture. It’s almost painful … Continue reading →

Sins of Omission There’s that moment when you’re asked to do something you know is wrong, but you feel like you should respond. It’s almost as fleeting as the decision to not stand up for what is right, even when … Continue reading →

We Don’t (Really) Mean It “I’ll pray for you.” We say it often, but how many times do we actually remember to do it? Our biggest downfall might not be a lack of compassion—it’s probably just not taking time to … Continue reading →

A Merciful Smackdown Sometimes, we’d rather not be teachable. When it comes to taking advice from people in my church community, it’s easier to keep an emotional distance than it is to listen. If I tread lightly on their sin, … Continue reading →

Is This “Bad” From God? God has granted us incredible grace in the salvation that Jesus’ death and resurrection offers, but that very grace is often used as a theological excuse. It’s dangerous to say that bad things come from … Continue reading →

Letting Evil Burn “And Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying . . . ‘let them take to you a red heifer without a physical defect . . . And you will give it to Eleazar the priest, and it … Continue reading →

It Will Seem Simple in Retrospect We’re all faced with difficult tasks. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he was forced to confront their spiritual problems, which were slowly destroying God’s work among them. Paul was thankful for them (1 … Continue reading →

The Power Struggle Every leader faces power struggles—from those who follow the leader and from those the leader follows. If there isn’t some sort of struggle, the leader probably isn’t doing his or her job well. It’s simple: those who … Continue reading →

A Psalm of Confidence “You are my Lord,” the psalmist acknowledges. “I have no good apart from you” (Psalm 16:2). We know that God is everything we need, but somehow the details still get in the way. We want to … Continue reading →

Nostalgia: My Old Friend Regret and nostalgia can destroy lives. They are mirrored ideas with the same pitfalls: neither can change the past, and both keep us from living in the present. When we live wishfully rather than interacting with … Continue reading →

Cry Out Like the Psalmist We often read the very bold psalms of the Bible without really reading them. We’re used to their cadence, their cries, and their requests. They seem appropriate in contexts where war, death, and enemies or … Continue reading →

In the Moment of Weakness All leaders have their moments of weakness. But without such times, they wouldn’t stretch themselves (and that would mean they weren’t really in God’s will). It’s not that these moments shouldn’t happen, but we should … Continue reading →