“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 […]
There is no blanket like fear to squelch creativity, love and connectedness. There is no wall like anger which holds everyone, including God, at a distance. There is no dike like anxiety to hold back the tide of life. Fear, anger and anxiety are the sirens of modern life which call us to self-absorption, isolation, […]
Today I want to focus on two passages in Isaiah which to my mind communicate the whole of the Spiritual life. First, there is God who in Isaiah 43:1 tells the Israelites: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; and you are mine.” God goes on to tell […]
I have been thinking lately about not being or having an addictive personality. After all, I’ve never been addicted to drugs or alcohol. But I was brought up short recently by this thought: what do you mean you’re not addictive? You spent ¾ of your life being addicted to self-doubt and fear. You considered yourself […]
On a recent August morning I was reading the Bible Workbench lesson on Jacob wrestling with a man(or angel as some translations say) in preparation for the meeting at my church that day; tears are flowing from my eyes. As I ponder my reaction, I realize that my life[all our lives] has been consumed with […]
When God created us male and female in his image he declared his creation good, [Genesis 1:27-31] even though he gave us free will. Regardless of the state of the world which seems to be increasingly volatile, which we, all of mankind, have created, we have to entertain the possibility that God who knows […]
I was filled with joy at just being alive and at the same time filled with sorrow because my husband was suffering from a recurrence of cancer –just three months after he had been declared cancer free. What was so astonishingly new to me was that the sorrow I was feeling did not diminish the […]
Watch out for the plateaus in life—they are the respite between the last lesson and the next one—but don’t get too comfortable, don’t give in to the desire to stay where you are. All life is growing towards the full blossoming of the self and then there is the decline towards old age and death. […]
We have not been well-loved and valued; we have not been fully embraced as we are, even if we grew up in a loving family. It is far worse for someone who grows up with abuse in any form. Still we are a prickly people. We are self-preoccupied. We live mostly in the past or […]
What is your state of being? Are you anxious? Worried? Angry? Upset? With what are you preoccupied? What haven’t you got that you think you need? Or are you living in peace? Finding joy in your life? Fulfilled? Trusting? Asking about the state of being of someone, their own interior experience, is like giving them […]