Praying for Open Eyes: See Yourself as God Sees You

How do you see yourself today?  I’d like you to see yourself as God sees you.  Let me hold up a mirror. The Homeless Princess One upon a time there was a princess. As you know, a princess is a daughter of the king. She’s a member of the royal family with position, authority, and […]

What platform building taught me about following Jesus

I’ve been re-organizing my life so I can spend more time using my best gifts. I’m a teacher, a creator and a writer at heart. It is incredibly life giving to me to create things that help people grow. To that end, I’ve been learning from people online who are thinking about writing, blogging, and […]

Weekend Wisdom / Bad Things Are Going to Happen. Be At Peace.

The world is feeling dark these days. Polarized, increasingly hostile attitudes prevail. Really scary things are happening. ISIS. Gun violence. Political discord. In times of anxiety and fear, our faith can get murky. In John’s gospel, Jesus makes an unexpected promise. He says, “In this world you will have trouble.” But then, he turns this […]

Hack the Facebook Algorithm for Spiritual Growth.

More than a billion people use Facebook. Facebook says that the average US user spends 40 minutes per day on the platform. 40 minutes reading and interacting with posts, photos and Facebook messages—every single day! There has arguably never been a more powerful force for social impact in human history. We used to hang out in […]

Weekend Wisdom / How to Read the Bible with Jesus as Your Lens, Part 1

If the Bible isn’t a flat text, where every verse has the same weight and authority, then how do we know which verses to give priority to? If the best way (maybe the only way) to read the Bible is to read it selectively, then what determines how we select? Are we only left with […]

Believe again and again.

I’m studying through the Gospel of John. I’m taking special care to go slowly. These are stories I know well. In my familiarity, I’m liable to rush past the text to the interpretation I already know. So, as I read I was working slowly through the text, considering each verse carefully. Early in Chapter 2, […]

Jesus Invitation? Not so hard as you thought.

Recently my 7-year old son took a “mental health day.” OK, maybe that’s not what it was. I don’t know. He woke up tired and snotty. He didn’t seem sick enough to deserve to skip school. (I come from a long line of parents who believed that only severed limbs and near-comatose illness got you […]

4 Promises from God, including 1 I’d rather skip.

Summer ends and Fall begins. Family vacation gives way to school routine. As this transition unfolded this year, I found myself thinking about how the last year has gone. Most of the feelings aren’t good ones. This year overflowed with circumstances out of my control. Financial plans have gone awry. Relationships have strained; some even […]

An Open Letter to Christians in Election Season

Dear Christian, The election cycle is upon us. Pundits and partisans are powering up for another opportunity to seize the political football. 50% of self-identified Christians vote, some quite loudly, with a sense that this is the chance to “make a difference in the culture” by getting the right people in places of power. Before the […]

Weekend Wisdom / How to read the Bible when you keep getting bogged down in Leviticus

Good Christians read the Bible, right? In fact, Good Christians have read the Bible all the way through…  multiple times. Many Christians have, that’s true. And yet in a couple decades of ministry, I’ve clearly seen that the sense of obligation that people have around reading the Bible all the way through is one of […]

Not everything in the Bible is Biblical!

I love The Princess Bride. (Like everyone, right?) This 1987 film is a near-perfect blend of fantasy, romance, and our universal desire for justice framed with sarcasm and a constant flow of quotable lines. One of the petty villains, Vizinni, is a hyperbolically confident know-it-all, unendingly enamored of his diabolical plans. At every turn the […]

Did Jesus treat the Bible like we do?

Not long ago I posted a comment on Facebook. It was meant to be encouraging to my Christian friends. I didn’t expect it to be controversial. I wrote: “Christian: If your theology, doctrine or world-view is based on anything other than Jesus, it’s time to upgrade your operating system. Saying something is ‘Biblical’ is not […]

The tools for facing fear.

This summer was supposed to be a time of renewal for me. That was my plan, anyway. This spring we put a house on the market. Selling it would free us from some emotional and financial commitments that have been weighing on us, an overfull backpack when the trail calls for lightness. Four months later […]