Faith doubt trust spirit Archives

Silence

In Romans 9:3, Paul the Apostle expresses the emotion that, “for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!—if that would save them.” A great many commentators and writers have attempted to understand just what Paul meant by these words. We do well to note the…

Salieri and Mozart

In Timothy Keller’s book, Every Good Endeavor, he writes about the story of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as told in Peter Shaffer’s play, Amadeus. Keller recounts how Antonio Salieri was a court composer to the Hapsburg emperor in Vienna and wrote many successful operas. He had wealth and position but sensed that his…

Of Cats and Bells

Today, I saw a house-cat hunting a squirrel. The cat crept up on the unsuspecting creature, carefully trying to get within range of a giant leap and an unleashing of claws and teeth. One could see thousands of years of instincts and intuition, passed down from ancient ancestors, coiled up in the body of this…

Warriors of Ephraim or Living Water

In Genesis, we read that Ephraim was the son of Joseph who was the son of Jacob. The descendants of Ephraim were considered one of the tribes of Israel and came to be associated with the northern tribes such that the tribe name, Ephraim, often stood in for the whole of the northern tribes after…

Hope

Hope is what gets us through difficult times. Depression is the result when we face challenging circumstances without hope. Hope is not about knowing for sure that a good result is ahead; it is about having a reasonable faith that a good result is ahead. There are a variety of approaches to faith, but…

After the Fight

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But…

Sacrifices

I had lunch with a friend recently and he was wrestling with some difficult things in his life. (I will change some of the details so that you will not know who he is.) His wife had recently been diagnosed with cancer and they were in the midst of a significant transformation in their knowledge…

The Storms of Life

Andrew Stanton, one of the directors at Pixar, is quoted in Ed Catmull’s book, Creativity Inc. Stanton has written and directed Finding Nemo and Wall-E (among many others) and knows the incredible amount of work that goes into assembling a team and then creating an animated movie. He has this to say about life’s difficulties.…

All I Need

Oh God, my Father, when it comes to the resources I need for this life and the work you have prepared for me, all I need is everything. I just need Your power, Your Spirit, Your grace, and Your will. I like to think that I can contribute something. But, in truth, I cannot. I…

Going Deeper

“Keeping a journal has taught me that there is not so much new in your life as you sometimes think. When you re-read your journal you find out that your latest discovery is something you already found out five years ago. Still, it is true that one penetrates deeper and deeper into the same ideas…