People come to church in silent pain, isolated and hurting. “Look at all these happy people getting close to God. I’m the only one who’s faking it.” Nothing could be further from the truth. But we drive people to internalize and hide their pain because, by and large, the church doesn’t know how to help […]
This could quite possibly be the most important post I’ve ever written. It could save a life. It’s based on Sarah Robinson’s excellent post here (not an affiliate link). Sarah is a personal friend in our writer’s mentoring group, and a very strong believer. Please read her article, share it, and then come back and read […]
The most obvious signal of danger is fear. I wrote about the 3 types of fear here. A lot of fear is unhealthy and keeps us bound up by the enemy. But there is a good type of fear. Fear Means “Move Back” When the threat is real, healthy fear is a God-given emotion that […]
Looking back at history, we can see amazing things God was doing that nobody recognized at the time. Learning this skill helps us see what God is doing in us today that other people, often friends and family, don’t recognize. While Europe was in the chaos of the Dark Ages, God used Saint Patrick to […]
As our regular readers know, this blog is all about our true identity in Jesus—the identity God created us to become. But let’s take one giant step backward. How can we understand who we really are in God if we’re confused about who God really is? In order to understand who we really are, we […]
Many of us are familiar with Bill Murray’s comedy movie Groundhog Day, where he keeps reliving the same day, day after day. Sometimes we live our lives like that, where we keep making the same mistake over and over again. Why do we do that? Often, it’s because we think we’re the problem. If I […]
I recently listened to Dr Curt Thompson on the Face-to-Face podcast with Cathy Little and Melinda Wilson (the episode on 1/18/2022]. Dr. Curt Thompson said something that blew my mind. It’s a simple thing, something where you might say, “oh that’s nice,” and just move on with your day. But if you stop and think […]
There’s one quality of Christianity, a central feature actually, that other world religions just don’t have. And the world lacks completely. In fact, being able to do this one thing separates Christians from the rest of the world. That thing is Forgiveness. Being raised in a (mostly) Christian culture, at least one founded on Christian […]
Do we present Jesus and the “house” of Christianity to people as realtors, or as residents? (DISCLAIMER: I am in no way dissing realtors. I know a lot of great realtors who negotiate win-wins for both the buyers and the sellers. Most realtors are very ethical, and I am in no way disparaging them or […]
Over the last several years, there’s been a rash of high-profile people leaving Christianity. Worship leaders. Pastors. Famous Christian authors. Christian influencers, bloggers, leaving the faith to embrace the deceptions of this world. And a whole bunch of us “regular” people. “Deconstructing your Christianity” is now a thing. So what’s going on? This is nothing […]