Lord, teach me. . . .

One way to define spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus. –Eugene H. Peterson I’m sure you are familiar with the popular poem about walking along the beach with Jesus, and seeing two sets of footprints in the sand, but only one set during the really difficult challenges of life. And when questioned, Jesus replies My child, it was then that I carried you . It’s a comforting image, especially when one is having a lousy day or two. But if you think about it, if we are truly seeking to be disciples of the Christ, there should always be only one set of footprints. And the tracks we see should be those of Jesus. Imagine a fresh snowfall in the woods. It’s pretty deep, and you haven’t got your snow boots. Someone has gone ahead of you—just one brave soul who knows the way—and left clear tracks for you to follow if you choose. It’s a good path, so you step gingerly into the first boot print, then th...

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals;  adjust the action steps. –Confucius During Lent, many of us choose to add discipline to our lives for this forty-day sojourn, whether by giving up a habit or crutch, or by adding an activity or practice. The purpose is essentially the same: to take this as an opportunity for self-examination/ self-improvement, or as a chance to repent, to turn my life around. We set our lofty goals. We decide to fast, 100%, from TV or social media. We give up added sugars. We set aside an hour a day and embark on reading straight through the New Testament by Easter. And now, here we are in the second full week of Lent, and perhaps we realize: we bit off more than we can chew. The Bible lays unopened on the nightstand; that box of Valentine chocolates proves too much to resist. (Simply admitting this means your journey into self-examination is well underway.) Now what do we do? Might as well throw in th...

Instead of looking outside ourselves and counting potential enemies, fasting summons us to turn our glance inward, and to take the measure of our greatest challenge: the self, the ego, in our own eyes and as others see us. –Tariq Ramadan For Christians, the season of Lent is upon us. Like many other holidays and seasons, some aspects of Lent have expanded beyond the church and splashed over into pockets of “secular culture,” as well. Pancakes and paczki and the festivities and excesses of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) give way to a period of forty days intended for more introspective activities such as fasting and reflection. Traditionally, people use Lent as a time for self-improvement: we promise to give up a bad habit, such as smoking, or add a new discipline, such as daily Bible study. On our best days, this change of habit “sticks.” Perhaps we continue not to smoke, even after Lent has ended; maybe we continue to keep up on our daily devotions. For forty days, we seek to bec...

Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. –Voltaire I lost a dear friend recently. Bruce was a man of deep, abiding faith. His son told this story at Bruce’s funeral: After a terrible hurricane tore up the Gulf Coast, Bruce volunteered to accompany a work team of about 2000 teenagers to Mississippi, to rebuild houses lost to the storm. Bruce had a lifetime of experience in construction and design, and remained a teenager at heart for his entire life; it was a perfect match. The houses were to be built up on posts, to better withstand future high waters; an “advance team” had placed, poured and set these posts several days earlier. All Bruce’s team had to do was begin the construction of the actual houses. But there was a problem. As Bruce looked over the posts, it was apparent to his experienced eye that they weren’t set true to plumb. In fact, they were off by about five inches—and set deep in the earth, in holes filled with concr...

“What if I fail?” Oh, but my darling, what if you fly? –Erin Hanson Francis R. Scobee. Michael J. Smith. Ronald McNair. Ellison Onizuka. Judith Resnik. Gregory Jarvis. Christa McAuliffe. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Thirty years ago, the dreams of these brave souls came to an abrupt end when the space shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff. For many, the “ordinariness” of Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher who had always dreamt of flying among the stars, made this tragedy even more tragic. After all, who among us hasn’t laid on their back on a lazy summer afternoon, staring at the big, puffy clouds and trying to imagine what it’s like out there ? As children, perhaps we wondered: Is God out there? If we flew high enough and far enough, would we zoom past reality and reach eternity? Where is heaven, anyway, and how can we know for sure ? John Ortberg ( God is Closer than you Think ) compares our curiosity and dreams of heaven to the plight of a dog listening at the d...