Every person is a piece of clay. We always have been and always will be. Clay is malleable, impressionable, ever ready for pushing and pulling. Most of the time we’re unaware of this. We think ourselves stone—weighted and set, rolling towards every daily destination. But we know better when we pause and look around. The […]
Everyone’s a farmer. We’re always sowing and reaping, planting and harvesting, putting down seeds and taking up crops. We just do so with our thoughts, words, and actions. That was Paul’s sentiment in Galatians 6:7-9. Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. 8 For the one who sows to […]
Lies always lead us places. We might think of them as mere tricks, but they’re more than that. They are paths. Paths always take us somewhere. And if Satan’s great lie is that God isn’t always and everywhere present, where is that taking us in our relationships? Identity and Presence Satan’s great lie has a […]
Do you know who Satan is? In our day, that question might strike your ears as cultic. “Satan . . . like, as a real being, with a name and everything?” Yes. Our secularized culture says Satan is make-believe. At worst, he’s an idea that gets in the way of our taking responsibility for poor […]
There are billions of intersections in Scripture, places where the lines of two texts cross and offer us critical opportunities for encouragement and growth. The latest intersection the Spirit led me to was wonderfully hopeful (should I expect anything less?). “Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives […]
How do you know your heart is maturing, that you’re developing, that you’re more than just your yesterday-self? Simple question. And maybe there’s a simple answer. In the midst of reaching for biblical definitions of the heart as the seat of human emotion and the hearth of longing, we make the question of maturity overly […]
I was reading through a book manuscript the other day, and it was making me think of a previous article I wrote about Job (“Job and the Deadly Spiritual Equation”). The author of this manuscript made a point that, while I already knew it conceptually, still drew me into wonder. Here it is, in my […]
Limitation is a son of transience. When things are always changing, when waves of time are always lapping at the thin shore of the present, we see how little we’re able to control. We hate this instinctively. And then we draw the false conclusion that limitation is an evil, that we have to wage against […]
Job is one of my favorite books of the Bible. That usually catches people by surprise. Why would a book about a holy man falling prey to Satanic torment be something you want to read? Despite the initial fear the book induces, it’s extremely comforting and relevant for our understanding of trauma and suffering. Job […]
I have spent weeks writing a memoir about the early death of my father. Something came out in the last chapter that I had to share with you. I was writing about our transience and limitation as humans, and here’s what ended up falling from my pen: I’m going to do everything from a certain […]