The writer Frederick Buechner once made an interesting observation: “I think maybe it is holiness that we long for more than we long for anything else.”[1] The origin of the word “holy” is helpful in understanding what Buechner meant. The word holy comes from pagan and Jewish temple practices, and it literally means taking something […]

“Where is the hope? I meet millions who tell me that they feel demoralized by the decay around us. Where is the hope? The hope that each of us have is not in who governs us, or what laws are passed, or what great things that we do as a nation. Our hope is in

Happy Pentecost! Did your church celebrate Pentecost this last Sunday (May 19)? If not, you can still celebrate with the Eastern Orthodox church, which (based on their Easter calendar) celebrates Pentecost beginning Sunday, June 23, with three days of feasts and celebratory worship! But Pentecost is actually something we should be celebrating every day. What

Have you ever experienced a paradigm shift? You thought you understood something, and then something happened that opened a completely different perspective? I have experienced such a paradigm shift in the way I view God. And because (whether we realize it or not) how we view God affects every part of our lives, this paradigm

I hate death. I can’t stand it. It separates us from the ones we love; it cuts short our goals and longings; it brings excruciating physical pain and waves of emotional grief. Death is a trainwreck, “the expression of a catastrophe which runs on a collision course with man’s original destination or, in other words,

The question was a little strange: “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). It was strange because, being Jewish, the disciples of Jesus knew how to pray. From childhood, their parents had taught them to pray the Shema three times a day: “Hear O Israel, the LORD is God, the LORD alone” (Deut. 6:4). It

Find a penny and take a look. At the top are the words that have been engraved in U.S. currency since 1864: In God We Trust. These words appear above the head of one of our greatest Presidents, Abraham Lincoln, who led our nation through its most difficult days. On the eve of Lincoln’s 215th

What are your New Year’s Resolutions? The top 3 New Year’s Resolutions for most people are: save more money, exercise more, eat healthier. Those are all great resolutions, but can I offer an even better one? This doesn’t come from me, but from the wisest teacher ever. Jesus was once asked “what is the greatest

In a short letter he wrote to the small church located in Colossae (in modern day Turkey), the apostle Paul pens the words to the greatest hymn ever written. Scholars believe it was a hymn to Jesus sung by early Christians (a similar hymn is found in Phil. 2:5-11). This hymn is the center of

Why does it seem God hides so much? Where is he? Even the ancients admitted: “Truly you are a God who hides himself;” and “Why do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” ((Isa. 43:15; Ps. 10:1). God is funny in that he doesn’t yell at us saying, “Hey,