Sometimes the weight of the world comes crashing down on us. And sometimes we deserve it. Sometimes, we’ve done something wrong or even a whole series of things wrong and the consequences have piled up […]
Tag: God
The source of goodness in a world of suffering
Evil abounds. When we look around at the world, it’s easy to ask, “Why is there so much suffering and injustice?” But when we look a bit closer, we find a question hiding beneath the […]
Got silence?
The fruit of silence is prayer; The fruit of prayer is faith; The fruit of faith is love; The fruit of love is service; The fruit of service is peace. These are the words that […]
"Magic" is everywhere — The Gospel according to Harry Potter, part 1
I have been reading and rereading the Harry Potter books since J.K. Rowling started publishing them. I can’t say I got my copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the day it was released, but […]
Christmas — God "for" us & "with" us
Christmas changes everything. It upends everything we think about God. And even more than that, it offers a completely different way of experiencing God. For in one event, it shows us that God is both […]
The power of No — resistance is not futile
A while ago, I passed by a guy wearing a black t-shirt with the one-word sentence on it: “No.” I was tempted to ask him a question that he would have to answer with a […]
The problem with inventing your own God
I was heading to Orlando for a conference and had made preparations with friends there to have someone pick me up at the airport. I’d never met the picker-upper, so I sent not just my […]
What lies do I believe about God?
I believe a lot things about God. I have two theological degrees and a library of several thousand theological books. And yet when it comes down to the way I live, I find my theology […]
Is my God really just my dog?
I love my dog. Ebony comes when I call her. She goes to her bed when I tell her to. She’s always excited to see me. She does tricks when I offer her a treat […]
Do you know your God?
Just a couple weeks after I became a pastor, my family and I were invited over to dinner by a family in our new church. Things seemed to be going well until I was asked a […]
It's not about Me (it's about Us)
In the original stage play of The Sound of Music there’s a song called “No Way To Stop It” that didn’t make it into the more famous movie. It’s sung by Max (the family friend […]
Of volcanoes and living missionally in a post-Christian world
We have lava in our backyard. I’m not talking about the red rocks that people people use for landscaping. I’m talking about the bedrock that Bend is built on — and there it is, sticking […]
Do we "owe" worship to God?
I came across an ancient Persian poem by a poet named Hafiz, written in the 1300s. It made me think of worship. Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, “you […]
A picture of our torn up praise
Awhile back, I came across a song by the band Phosphorescent called “A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise” and it has intrigued me ever since — not the song, just the title. Doesn’t our […]
Errors about Creation = Errors about God
“Any error about creation also leads to an error about God.” -Thomas Aquinas If God is the Creator, then thinking badly about and acting badly toward his creation is directly related with thinking badly about […]
A trinitarian view of being human that corrects our either/or approaches
I was reading an excellent article, nodding all the way, until I got to the point where the author made a distinction between two types of people and then sided with one of them. From […]
238 miles of ABBA & the death of creativity
It took him more than five hours to drive to Chicago, during which time he listened to “Dancing Queen” by ABBA about 100 times in a row, stopping only for gas and other essential duties. […]
The importance of self-knowledge to exceeding our limitations
How good of a driver do you think you are? Top 50%? Top 90%? I don’t know where the stat came from, but years ago I read that 90% of Americans think they’re in the […]
Are we living in bad times or good times?
One of the worst parts of using Facebook is seeing all of the articles people post whining about how bad things are these days. It doesn’t matter what your political leaning is, there is plenty […]