I have an incredible mother-in-law.  Despite the jokes and the crazy stories, they do exist, and I happen to be blessed with one of the best ones.  Her husband, my father-in-law, is the extroverted one and we have enjoyed over fifteen years of rich conversation.  Carol Ann is quieter and

Singing in the dark has been a central and distinctive habit of the Christian life from the beginning.  People of other faith traditions sing for sure, but Christians have the habit of singing loud and long and joyfully, triumphantly no matter the circumstances.  We sing our songs all the more

Last Sunday a man went into a nightclub in Orlando and shot over one hundred people, murdering 49 and injuring 53. These mass killings that were once almost unheard of seem to have increased to a point of near horrific regularity and everyone responds to these situations in different ways.

[This is an excerpt from a sermon I recently preached.] Later on Jesus would grow up and he would tell this story that helps us understand the joy, the magic, and meaning of Christmas (Luke 15:11-32) . There was once a wealthy man who had two sons. His youngest son

Jesus tells us both to love our enemies (Matthew 5:44) and to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40). I have spent a lot of years wrestling with what is the faithful thing to do when the two commands come into conflict. In violent confrontations is it right to use force to

“Love” is used in so many ways by so many different people it would seem like it can mean almost anything. If it can mean almost anything depending on who is using it and how they are using it, then does it really mean anything? Is such an important word

[This is a two-part series. In the second part I’ll focus on How to Teach Compassion to Your Children.] “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” – Matthew 14:14 (Emphasis added) In this verse and several others, Jesus SEES people,

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. – 1 John 3:16 I love God because God first loved me I love God because when I was so incredibly lonely and hurting God gave me the most incredible wife, companion, and friend.

In the last post I briefly explained Bernard of Clairvaux’s four degrees of love. I love this model, not just because it expresses how Christians grow in faith and love, but more so how God meets us where we are and leads us toward being more free, alive, and mature

Twelfth century monk, Bernard of Clairvaux developed a helpful model for expressing how Christians (can) mature in their faith – the four degrees of love. Loving yourself for your own sake (Selfish Love) Loving God for your own sake (Dependence Love) Loving God for God’s sake (Intimacy Love) Loving Yourself