Surrender is a loaded word. Give up. Give in. Yield. Capitulate. Submit. Acquiesce. Concede. These are a few of the synonyms for surrender. For an American person surrender often looks like quitting or giving up yourself. Waiving the white flag is not something we are taught. We fight. We take possession. We conquer. We don’t […]

There is a quote from Shakespeare that has always rung so true to me that for a long time I thought it came from the Bible: “To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, that thou canst not then be false to any man.”[1] Today I am writing […]

  One of the reasons that we in the Christian Church are so challenged today is that each denomination, each individual church is an entity unto itself. Each one’s interpretation of the Gospel message is the best. Each one’s congregation is doing the right thing in the right way. Each congregation feels that they have […]

In the last two weeks I’ve been writing about how disfunctionally we see ourselves and God, that if we could clean the lenses through which we view life and ourselves, we would see that we are already loved by God, just as we are. We have nothing to do except to see this reality. We […]

What we believe about ourselves carries no weight with God. Long before the world began in the early stages of creation, God made us in his image, declared us good and blessed us.[Genesis 1:27-31] And in his eyes we are still good and made in his image and blessed. Do you think that the God […]

Over the next few weeks I’ll be writing about the distorted lenses through which we see ourselves and life and the Godhead and how these distortions are the things that stand between us and a deep and loving relationship with Christ. So here’s the first one… If you’re having trouble accepting that God loves you, […]

  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, […]

We can call ourselves Christian and go to church, but are we living the Gospel of Jesus Christ? or are we using the Gospel for our own purposes? Are we living Christ’s Word or our own watered-down version? The Gospel has been used over the centuries for many nefarious purposes—to convert the “infidels” during the […]

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 […]

It’s like picking the low-hanging fruit or the river finding the easiest route to the sea; that’s how natural our search for God can be. We don’t have to make it hard or complicated. We just have to listen, wait, watch for the way to open before us. And we walk down that path. God […]