My feelings change in the blink of an eye. I’ll be sulky, stuck in a seemingly unshakable mood. But then my phone will buzz and I’ll answer with the perked-up voice of someone who’s on […]
Tag: God and life and stuff
Old words that won’t go away
I was pulled aside by the staff leader of the camp I was working at one summer. I was expecting a pat on the back by was shocked by angry and cutting words I didn’t […]
The Lord’s Prayer — foundation for our praying imaginations
When my friend Scott began following Jesus a few years ago, prayer was a new idea for him. In fact, the thought of it was somewhat terrifying. How do we approach the Master of the […]
Regaining a childlike imagination
As we get older, our bodies grow but our imaginations shrink. We know more and question less. If we are to engage with the vastness who is God, we need to regain a childlike imagination […]
Preach like a tsunami
The power of water can be as serene and unnoticed as a lake or as wild and violent as the waterfall that pours out of that lake. It’s all right there. Power on tap. As […]
An open letter to Hollywood about guns
Dear Hollywood (whoever you are), Thank you for so many beautiful and entertaining movies over the years. You have filled my imagination with incredible stories that have forever shaped my life. Babbette’s Feast showed me […]
Integrity
An integer is a whole number, not a fraction. It is complete. Nothing hiding. Not cracked. Unbroken. Integrity has to do with being an integer — being whole, honest, unhidden, lacking deception. My oldest son is […]
I’ve been bought! (And so have you.)
I’m not aware of putting a “for sale” sign on my soul, but it seems that there are endless attempts to buy it. Sports keeps trying to buy my soul. And far too often I […]
A litany for campers
For the setting up of tents and the lighting of the camp fire, We give thanks to the Lord. For the unceasing murmur of rivers and the cooling of feet therein, We give thanks to […]
Declaration of Dependence
I am glad to be an American. There’s so much about my country that I’m grateful for. But there’s something that catches inside me when we celebrate Independence Day each July 4. While I’m glad […]
In a world against things, what are you for?
As our presidential election cycle continues to heat up, I’m reminded of the challenge a friend of mine posed on Facebook last time around, a challenge that went mostly unanswered. He asked his many Facebook […]
Rediscovering hope in a hopeless culture
We live in one of the most hopeless, now-oriented cultures in human history. We can hardly look past today, much less the next election without shaking our heads. Our imaginations are filled with dystopian, future-shock […]
God thinks you’re more resilient than you do
God has a pretty high view of you. Sure, he knows you’re a sinner. He’s pretty aware of that fact. But he’s also got a pretty high view of what you can handle. He’s fine […]
What’s the opposite of a terrorist?
After the terrorist massacre in Orlando, I’ve been thinking about this question: What’s the opposite of terrorism? We have grown accustomed to acts of terror in world news, but when they happen in our protected […]
You are a theologian
If you’ve ever prayed or said anything about God, you are a theologian. Writing books and having PhDs has nothing to do with it. Rather, engaging with God has everything to do with it. Having […]
The devil’s #1 tool is …
I fall into all kinds of temptations. Most of them are pretty obvious and lack creativity. Lust. Envy. Sloth. Pride. The typical seven deadly sin stuff. It’s all pretty dull and garden variety. We all […]
A glorious experiment in failure
“All we are saying is give Pete a chance.” The crowd was into it, singing along with the band a cheesy version of John and Yoko’s “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” […]
Away on Father’s Day
My dear kids, thanks for making me a dad. I’ve been a father for 19 years now, thanks to you, and this is the first Father’s Day that I’ve had to be away from you. […]
10 tech commandments for a too-teched world
I am no technophobe. No Luddite, I gladly use by iPhone, my laptop, my car, my table saw, my stereo, my furnace, my dishwasher, and many other tools and devices. But our technology has become […]
The Orlando attack & the culture clash behind it
The horrific assault on Pulse Orlando and the 50 or so deaths caused by one man with guns brings up all kinds of questions. For some, this is a question about access to guns and […]
Getting into God's Story
I was reading a book written by a friend of mine when I found myself in it. Just for a couple of paragraphs, I read almost word for word in the pages of his book […]
The vacationer's prayer
God of creation, God of rest, God who guides, God who protects, Lead us on this vacation journey. Keep us from harm on our travels, as we step out of our safe routines; Keep us […]
Preaching that jams the machine
The best preachers are poets, using words to open up windows in the minds and souls of those listening to a world ignored and unseen by a world mesmerized by trinkets and tech. As such, […]
3 practices for walking through grief
When my sister was killed by a drunk driver, we were crushed. We were not unique in our pain — many suffer similar sorrows — but we suffered out pain uniquely, as all do. But […]
The importance of anger
Some baristas are sages, masters of coffee and poignant tattoos. A barista at a cafe I used to frequent had a tattoo with the words “the upside of anger” wildly emblazoned on his forearm. And […]
When my son got mugged
When my son called to tell us that he’d been mugged, I was furious. My stomach roiled at the thought of his broken tooth and the stitches his companions had to get. The assailants were […]
The gospel on a mountain bike
The text came last night: “Be ready at 8:30.” It was ominous, but in a promising sort of way. So, morning came. I dressed, took kids to school, and got my bike ready. My friend […]
God in the in-between
We tend to focus on the big events, the landmark moments, the photographable experiences. With our kids, it’s the first day of school, scoring the winning goal, getting baptized, performing in a play, getting dressed […]
13 reasons why King Saul wasn't as bad as Sunday school teachers make him out to be
I have spent much of my life thanking my old Sunday School teachers for introducing me to the Scriptures and to Jesus. But I have also spent much of my adult life undoing poorly interpreted […]
God is furious (in his love for us)
God is not boring as many have made him out to be. Far too often, how we represent God and his love for us could not be more milquetoast, tepid, and nauseating. Saccharine and sentimentalist […]
Recovering the lost art of friendship
I picked up the phone yesterday and called Steven, a friend of more than two decades. He couldn’t answer right away but called me back as soon as he was free. Now, Steven and I don’t […]
Pain gives definition to life
I celebrate the anniversaries of friends whose marriage survived the dark and harrowing days after his infidelities were discovered. I celebrate the birthdays of the son of friends whose asthma has almost taken down to […]
18 things every pastor and worship leader needs to consider
1. Worship without silence leaves no room for awe. 2. The words “cool” and “pastor” don’t go together. For those who are trying: Stop it. (This applies to worship leaders, too.) 3. Prayer doesn’t need […]
The idolatry of busyness
Busyness is a form of self-idolatry that obscures everyone and everything else in a rush of self-important activity. This is why the psalmists repeatedly call us to wait, to be still, to look for God, […]
Living in a world with teeth
God is not afraid of danger, pain, or death. And he’s not afraid of seeing his loved ones on paths that will lead us through all three. In fact, he guarantees that every one of us […]
How little things become heavy things
We dumped everything out of my son’s backpack that he didn’t need to take to school that day. What was left was about 1/3 of what he’d stuffed into it. And when he put it […]
The best Mother's Day poem ever & the meaning of grace
As a kindergarten kid, walking home the few blocks from school, I would pick flowers from the front yards I passed and give them to my mother when I got home. My gesture was both […]
At the center of God's heart
Lord, forgive me for forgetting those you love. Forgive me for hearing the Scriptures as if they were all about me and my salvation and not about you and your reconciling redemption of what is […]
Don't vote for evil.
As this year’s presidential campaign continues, I am asked more and more often, “What do I do? I can’t decide who to vote for. I don’t like either of the two main candidates.” Now, there […]
We need better stories for better imaginations
We know who we are by the stories we tell. Better stories lead to better living. If I tell a lot of stories about how busy I am, busyness defines my identity. If I tell […]
Peace by piece
This is a busted up world filled with partial people, including me. It’s telling that the words heal, health, and whole all derive from the same root. To be truly healthy humans, we need to […]
Jesus and the end of racism
It’s a simple vision. Every kind of people. A countless throng of them. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, […]
Clovers & how to keep a marriage alive
Soon after my wife and I were married, we were visited by her aunt and uncle and together the four of us visited a botanical garden. In the gift shop, Aunt Bev bought a small […]
If God had a hobby, what would it be?
What is it that God is up to? What is it that God preoccupies himself with? If he had a hobby, what would it be? The answer is simple and obvious and yet we get it […]
Evil is real — the Gospel according to Harry Potter, part 2
My kids were too little to read and take in the Harry Potter books when they were being written and released, so my wife and I waited for, bought, and read aloud to one another each […]
"Magic" is everywhere — The Gospel according to Harry Potter, part 1
I have been reading and rereading the Harry Potter books since J.K. Rowling started publishing them. I can’t say I got my copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the day it was released, but […]
Or quietly tiptoe away
I make mistakes all the time. We all do. It’s a part of being human. We all get that. And we all get that there are some mistakes that are bigger than others. If I slip and […]
My soul is starving
My soul is starving. This North American way of life is feeding and over-feeding me in all the wrong ways. Too much entertainment, not enough reflection. Too much gossip, not enough prayer. Too much ego, […]
Reading the Bible like a novel
There are parts of the Bible which are like a manual. But not a lot. It’s mostly story, poetry, and dream language. Even the manual parts aren’t all that much like a manual. Sure, there […]
Credit cards, usury & the new slavery
There was a time when usury was a punishable offense. Now, it is business as usual. And it has created a whole new form of slavery called massive credit card debt. Usury is the over-charging […]
Faith is a game of follow the leader
When I was a kid, there was a group of boys on our short, dead-end street who would play together. Among the many outdoor games we’d play was, of course, follow the leader. And Greg Smith […]
Why do pastors need coaches?
It was just the first week of pastoral ministry when it hit me: I had no idea what I was doing. I’d preached a few sermons, but not weekly. I’d led a few meetings, but no […]
What brands do you label yourself with?
As my volleyball team gathered around me for the beginning of practice, one of my players said to me, “Hey, coach, everything I’m wearing is Nike.” She was proud to be a Nike girl, but […]
Sorry, Tennessee, but making the Bible your state book is probably a bad idea
Today, the Tennessee Senate approved House Bill 0615, which designates the Bible as its state book. I think that’s a well-intentioned mistake. While the Bible speaks to every person in Tennessee and to all the world […]
Ask more questions
My purpose in life is to ask questions. I was with some friends at our Table group recently, considering a passage from John’s gospel. After we’d made a number of observations about the passage, I said […]
What do I do when forgiveness feels impossible?
I didn’t get much sleep last night. Memories of slander and of shunning and contempt aimed at someone I love had me wrestling with bitterness and anger. Feelings of hurt and anger are nothing new. […]
The Jesus who confronts our pain & shame
I am a strategically self-protective person. I hide my faults and weaknesses. I weigh my words. I hedge my bets. Because of this, there’s a side to Jesus that I find particularly disturbing. It’s a […]
Bono: The unsettling question asker
Bono is a master question asker, peppering every U2 album with questions, rarely paired with answers. Questions send us on quests. They pull us out of ourselves, requesting that we get up and move and […]
Why taxing churches would hurt more than help
There is a meme bouncing around the net which suggests that taxing churches would reduce the tax burden on everyone else to a mere 3%. If it were true, that’d be a huge incentive to […]
Smaller, weaker, dumber
What happens to the country when you have a mediocre leader? What happens when the country is in the middle of a war and he sends the army home? When the only people left to […]
Deliver us from Atrophy
What has happened to our ability to write, to read, to appreciate the beauty and mystery of words? In Eugene Peterson’s book Answering God, he discusses three forms of language — language that informs, language […]
The gospel according to March Madness
I love college sports and so do my kids. And as much as we enjoy college football’s bowl season, NCAA basketball’s March Madness is the highlight of our sports viewing year. But there’s something disturbing […]
I hope this makes a splash
If not, I’m all wet.
8 biblical truths about politics
The biblical perspective on politics is multi-faceted, calling us to engage in the care for communities while refusing to put much fear or hope into political outcomes. 1. Political engagement is important. The Old Testament is […]
I don't like what you said, but it doesn't make you wrong
My feelings were hurt by something I had overheard and I was determined to get even. So, I wrote a nasty letter. (This was back in the days when people wrote letters.) In it, I […]
Oneness: God's vision for marriage & for the whole world
I’ve seen too much pain in the gender wars in the church, too much using the Scriptures as a weapon. As a result, I came to avoid passages like Eph. 5:22-33. It was only when […]
The case for pity
“Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart” – J.R.R. Tolkien We live in a culture that wants nothing of pity (other than self-pity). We never want to give someone else […]
In praise of pi
My son Josiah has been looking forward to March 14 for weeks. It’s Pi Day (since March 14 is 3/14, which resembles 3.14, the first three digits of pi). And this morning, on the way […]
Being right, but acting badly
I hate it when I lose my temper and the moral high ground. I hate that part of me that blows it when I’m in the right and damages the truth in the process. I’ve […]
Invited in
David lay in bed, his heart pounding in his chest. All else was quiet and he could feel the thumping through his body. It scared him. Earlier that day, his mother had told him about […]
Faith is a continuing conversation
This past Sunday, I had the opportunity to listen to a friend of mine (also named Pete) preach. He started the sermon with a clip from a movie we’d seen together several years before and […]
When superheroes aren't so super
My family watches a lot of superhero TV shows and movies. Just about every Marvel and DC release is consumed with relish, even the schlocky ones. We need heroes. They embody our desires for ourselves. […]
Finding the purpose in our suffering
Pain is one of the most personal things any of us ever experiences. Whether physical or emotional, pain has the ability to focus our attention unlike almost any other human experience. This past week, I […]
The 2 things essential to living a graced life
Everything good in my life has been given to me. My life itself. My wife. My children. My friendships. My body, with its unique physical abilities. My mind, with its unique and often odd ways of […]
Theology for everyday life
Too often there is a disconnect between what we believe and how we live. There’s Sunday worship and there’s the rest of life. We know there ought to be a connection between the two. In […]
Pastor of the playground, or How to join God in the work He's doing in the world
I was listening to a friend talk about the frustrations of being an elementary school recess duty. In doing her job, she spent most of her time trying to enforce playground rules, which meant she was […]
The gospel according to Kanye
Like everyone in our media-drenched culture, I get a lot out of celebrity screw-ups. We love the abilities that celebrities share with the world — whether they are musicians, athletes, politicians, actors, artists, authors, or […]
What does the Holy Spirit do?
What would the Christian life look like without the Holy Spirit? To answer that question, I ask an oddly similar one: What would the world look like without Garfield the cat? Personally, I’ve never liked the […]
The book that taught me to read like a pastor
I had just finished reading Morgan’s Passing by Anne Tyler and hated it. Morgan was no hero, I fumed. He was selfish from start to finish. His silly outfits. His affair. He was all about […]
I am so out of control
Ever take stock of your life like they do at a retail store? Checking the inventory on the shelves, the stuff everyone sees? Totaling up everything in the back that no one sees but you? […]
Love is a relationship, not an event
Today is Valentine’s Day. Not only is it a day of mandatory romance as dictated by Hallmark, but there’s a “Love Rally” planned for nation’s capitol, promoting love and denouncing hate. Now, I’m all for […]
The God who doesn't shame us for having questions
Some friends and I were sitting around the dinner table, talking about Thomas. The Bible calls him The Twin, but we’ve settled on calling him The Doubter. Poor guy. Thomas has a bad rep. Partly, […]
Why we ash & why we fast
It’s Ash Wednesday. It’s one of those holy days with which I have an odd relationship. I went to St. Monica Catholic High School as a Protestant. My Dad had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church […]
Creating islands of community in a sea of loneliness
In the book The Martian (which the movie is based on), an astronaut is accidentally left on Mars during a storm when the rest of the crew believes he is dead. He survives all kinds of […]
From Bible reading to Bible living
Followers of Jesus have always had a sense that our Bible reading ought to lead to a change in the way we live our lives. We are followers, after all, and following has action at […]
The problem with my book shelves
I have an incredible library. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, reference — I’ve got thousands of incredible books on my shelves. I’ve even read some of them! But there are some problems with my having all of […]
Following the Jesus who follows us
Do we follow Jesus or does he follow us? The question is less simple than it lets on. One of Jesus’ signature quotes is, “Follow me.” Simple. Direct. Unmistakable. Evocative. He looks an individual in […]
Who speaks grace into your life?
I try to duck and dodge from it, but the reality of my sin is always before me. It’s ugly. It’s embarrassing. It’s persistent. But the grace of our Lord is just as real, just as […]
The beauty of stretch marks
Stretch marks are a sign of having given birth. If we don’t have them literally or metaphorically, we probably haven’t given birth. But if we do have stretch marks, we have taken part in the […]
How social media messes up our experience of community
Control. That’s the problem with social media. I’m in control. You’re in control. Our social media worlds revolve around us like planets around a sun. It’s the web and I am the spider, sitting plumply […]
How we know God
The only way to know God is to live in his love and to share it with others. This is how the Scriptures put it: Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from […]
Caring for our neglected souls
We live in a culture that knows almost nothing about souls. The word is used so rarely, it may soon drop out of the language altogether. And who treats us like we have souls? We […]
What makes movies rewatchable? And a list of the 50 most rewatchable movies ever
With the Advent of Netlix and Hulu and Amazon Prime, I don’t feel like I need to own movies anymore. Well, kinda. None of those services have everything and there are some movies that I […]
When God dumps out your toy box … it must be time to play!
You can always tell what toys my kids are into, because they’re all over the house. I do a lot of cleaning up of the toys behind my kids. But they just keep dumping them out again. […]
Still true 60 years later
Jim Elliot died 60 years ago. He was 28. His love for God led him to Latin America, where he was eventually killed by the Waodoni people he was reaching out to. The outcome of […]
Mourning the death of celebrities in our death-denying culture
David Bowie. Alan Rickman. Glen Frey. I’m sure there are others as well, but already 2016 has been a rough year on celebrities with these three deaths. While never a huge Bowie fan, his music […]
Listening to MLK with my daughter
Like everyone else, I’m grateful for a 3-day weekend, thanks to Martin Luther King Day observance. It has given me the chance to take my daughter to a volleyball tournament, where she is playing teams from […]