Posts from August 2020
Five Ways to Jump Start Your Devotions
“Spending meaningful time alone with God is one of the most important aspects of the Christian life, but it is also one of the most difficult to sustain. Failure in this area, real or perceived, is common and is guilt inducing for most Christians. We give many different reasons for our struggle: it bores us, it discourages us, it’s work, we’re busy with the things we really have to do, and so on. But I suspect the vast majority of our problem…
The Sabbath: A Look Back, A Look Forward
“Christians hold various opinions concerning the place of the Sabbath for Jesus’s followers. However, I think we can all agree that consciously setting apart time to experience rest refreshes us, gives us a taste of what is to come, and it also makes us all the more conscious of the work we are called to do the remainder of the time. This too, is a reflection of a greater reality: our temporary Sabbath rests can remind us that we have…
Engaging our Emotions
“I’ve spent a great deal of time reflecting on God’s call to us to have a whole array of emotional responses to his world, from awe-filled delight (e.g., Ps. 8) to vehement hatred (e.g., Ps. 139:21–23). How can we live up to this? Does God expect us to have perfect, instantaneous control over our emotions? No. God does not stand at a distance and command emotions we can never fully attain. Instead, he meets us with countless mercies, transforming our…
Talking to our Souls
“I once thought that the psalms were sung by a fine choir in God’s throne room. Then I actually read them, and they sounded more like the words of a street troubadour who encourages the participation of those around him. Now I find that they are simply spoken and sung everywhere: in the darkness of night, in the early morning, in all the details of everyday life. And there are a handful of psalms in which the psalmists speak to themselves.…