Hearing God to See Him
Thirty-three years ago I took a woman to a Gilbert and Sullivan play as a first date. Before the evening of our get-together, I had a collection of …
Beliefs of the Heart
Squeezing Bad News from the Good News
Last spring I attended a wedding and heard an impressive pastor preach a stirring sermon on a powerful passage called The Kenosis (or The Emptying). …
Let’s Rethink the Way We Think
Circumstances, commitments, and surprises (the unpleasant kind) overwhelmed me the past six weeks. I had too much to do and too little time to do it. …
Common Sense or Nonsense?
The speaker was persuasive and moving. He asked us to hug a friend, stomp on the floor, and even pinch our own forearms. It didn’t hurt that he could …
The Hard Edge of the Good News
Last week, a delay by God disappointed me. It also shocked me awake like smelling salts. For ten years, I’ve wanted (and waited) to write a book on …
What Does God Think of Us?
When I first began Beliefs of the Heart, all my blogs were videos. Below is my very first take, shot and published March 19, 2010. I’m on …
When Good Advice Boomerangs
Over the last month or so, I have heard of, witnessed, and (sadly) perpetrated several damaging acts of offering advice, examples where the counsel …
Why Don’t We Think First? For a Change
A couple years ago I had an awful day in the middle of a horrible week in the midst of a bad month. A sniffle turned into post-nasal drip which turned …
The Self-Centeredness of Unselfishness
[Click here for an audio version of this post: The Self-Centeredness of Unselfishness.] Our romantic 30th anniversary trip to Italy began the same …
The Inner Captivity of We Who Are Free
We’ve been remade through a re-birth; we’ve become new creations and given new hearts; and the walls that imprisoned us have been bulldozed. And yet . …
Hearing God in the Multiplicity of His Methods and Moments
Most believers I know long for—and long desperately for—God’s voice, but we don’t hear his voice because we are unaware of the lavishness of his …
Taking Out My Trash
Last week I discovered that my church’s rubbish vendor was taking us to the cleaners. In the last four years, their price for garbage removal …