Opening prayer Lord, I find myself unsettled by the people around me. I don’t like their politics. I don’t like their practices. Most of the time, I just put up with it. But sometimes, I […]
Tag: Grace
Real faith works — why the grace vs. works debate is bogus
I was raised with a theological presumption that living by grace and living by works were two contrary approaches to faith. According to our take on things, there were the rule-bound, Law-following, works-based people (like […]
The awkward wonder of Mother’s Day
As a kid in kindergarten, I used to pick flowers for my mom from front yards on my several block walk home. She loved the sentiment but gently stopped me from destroying our neighbors’ gardens. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 sanity of Sabbath-keeping
One of the most life-changing books that I’ve ever read is Marva Dawn’s Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting. In it, she explains how Sabbath-keeping isn’t so much a matter of obligation, but of […]
Wendell Berry & living gratefully in the place where the past meets the future
One of my favorite authors is Wendell Berry, who has been writing novels and poetry and essays for more than 50 years. I’ve soaked in almost 30 of his books over the past decade and have […]
The power of No — resistance is not futile
A while ago, I passed by a guy wearing a black t-shirt with the one-word sentence on it: “No.” I was tempted to ask him a question that he would have to answer with a […]
Psalm 113 — The greatness of God is made greater in his humble generosity
Reading Psalm 113 surprised me. There seemed to be an abrupt shift from its beginning — where it talks about the magnificence of God — and its end. Here’s the psalm in its entirety: 1 […]
Grace is an Easter egg hunt
I’m tired of people taking bad about Easter egg hunts and how they miss the point of Easter. When Jesus was born, there were some people who knew their Bibles pretty well and who could […]
A picture of our torn up praise
Awhile back, I came across a song by the band Phosphorescent called “A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise” and it has intrigued me ever since — not the song, just the title. Doesn’t our […]