The worst bondages are the ones we don’t realize we have. We’ve been like this so long, it seems normal. But it’s not normal. Bondages keep us from living our best life, and Jesus has healing for us. But to live in his freedom, we need to understand how we get trapped and how we […]
As Christians, when we see someone hurting, we all want to help. That’s good, we should. The problem is, many of us have never been trained how to really help someone who’s hurting. We don’t know how, or even what to do. Often, unfortunately, well-meaning Christians do more harm than good. As the church stands […]
Are you ready to go deep today? Because in this post, I’m going to talk about what we all want and desperately need, but we’re all terribly afraid of. Deep down, sometimes way down there, we all want intimacy. But how can we embrace the intimacy we’re simultaneously longing for and terrified of? Intimacy == […]
People are people. We get saved, and we’re instantly justified before God by the blood of Jesus. But we’re not instantly sanctified. We bring all our godless behavior with us into the church. Being justified means being forgiven. Cleansed of our sin. No longer cannon-fodder for Hell. We were saved from hellfire and brought back […]
We have a nasty habit of blaming trauma survivors for the trauma they endured. In the church, outside the church, it makes no difference. We wrongly blame trauma survivors for the trauma perpetrated upon them through no fault of their own. Yes, unwise choices can put you in a situation where trauma is more likely […]
When Jesus encountered a paralytic lying on a mat at the pool of Bethesda in John 5, he asked possibly the stupidest question ever, on the surface at least. Really, though, this question, more than any other, reveals our heart. Do you want to get well? So here’s the deal with this pool. From time […]
How do we keep from sabotaging ourselves? I’m old friends with self-sabotage. We go way back. When I was 8 or 10 or so, my friends and I rode bikes (bicycles, not motorcycles). Constantly. All the time. On road and off-road. Especially in the fields and canyons around our housing track in Southern California, in […]
Our destiny is the adventure God created us to live. Yet so many of us are not living it, and our history is why—all the wounding, trauma, pain—and the fear it brings. The good news is our history does not have to control our destiny. Jesus is bigger than your fear, and he wants to […]
Sacred. What does that word even mean? We hardly use it anymore today. It sounds like a vegetable. “Yeah, we just planted some sacred between the beets and the squash.” But it’s a very important word. Because life is sacred. When our hearts lose the truth of that last sentence, we descend into the very […]
What is Deep Joy anyway? Sometimes it’s easier to explain what a thing is not, so let’s start there. Deep Joy is not happiness. Deep Joy is so much better than mere happiness. Happiness is situational. When circumstances are great, we’re happy. When they’re not, we’re not happy. Happiness is based on circumstances, and therefore […]