To face and embrace ourselves is the only way that we can bring our whole selves to God in love, as Jesus commanded.[Matthew 22:36-40] This passage means to come to God naked, hiding nothing, totally open to him. There are no longer any walls in us that would protect our guilt and shame from ourselves […]

On the way back from a short trip on Memorial Day weekend I didn’t turn the radio on at the start because of static on my favorite station. As I drove I was quite appalled to listen to my mind and its intrigues.” Oh, why didn’t they ever ask about my work?” Or “Oh, I […]

Eight years ago when I launched this blog I was writing on the same topic as I am today– how to live a life centered in God—but today I write with a stronger voice, a harder-hitting voice. Five years ago we were just beginning to pull out of the recession of 2008, things were beginning […]

One of the great lessons I learned in 37 years of marriage was this: when Hank was mad at me, I had triggered some memory in him that caused him to react, but that I was not the source of his anger. Inadvertently I might have pushed his buttons, and on some days, maybe I […]

One of the things that I have learned in following Christ is that timing is everything. And that without an inner ear tuned to what he is asking of me right now, I can violate his timing by being too early or too late or I can miss the boat totally. It is only in […]

“Be still and know that I am God.” That is a challenge in this busy, busy holiday season. But at all times there is a reason that we are asked in Psalm 46:10 to still ourselves, to quiet our minds, to simplify our lives: we cannot access the divine wisdom within us, the “still, small […]

  I am sitting in a booth at Chuck E. Cheese while my grandsons play games and rack up coupons. It’s noisy just like it used to be when I took my sons to another one in California 30 years ago. I am thinking about the grace and blessings that I’ve experienced in my life, […]

There are two ways to be compassionate. From a cultural viewpoint compassion is caring about another person. It might be being with someone who is grieving and helping them through it. It might be feeding the homeless. Or visiting someone who is sick. It often comes with pity attached, feeling sorry for the other person, […]

Humility is a strange concept to us Americans. We are so self-sufficient and self-directed and motivated, that we almost can’t grasp what humility is. It is not a cloak that we wear to subdue ourselves and look like we are “humble” and pious. It is not an attitude that we have to be a doormat […]

“I so want this with all my heart amen” wrote one of my readers, SW, in October this year, in a comment on “The Promise of Isaiah.” She was expressing a deep longing for her whole self to be restored to the Lord and for living a purposeful life. Interestingly, that deep longing is the […]