Reflections on the loving kindness of the Triune God
Let me return here to a guiding theme of the Spreading Goodness site: the role of the heart in directing all our conduct. I revisit it in part because it invites ongoing reflection and also because for many Christians the primacy of the heart in the soul seems at the same time obvious and improbable: …
Read More Chalmers’ SermonGlory in the Bible is a many splendored term. It speaks of God’s tangible brilliance; of his timeless praise and honor; of our future hope as those who know and love the Son; and much, much more. Most of all glory explains our purpose in life. Glory invited a pause for reflection today after I …
Read More Thoughts on GloryThis entry was completed on January 1, 2010. This morning I got word that my uncle has advanced lung cancer. It was tough news to receive on the morning of New Year’s day. Very tough. My mother’s youngest brother. My connections with Uncle Earl over the years have been too thin, yet I’ve always admired …
Read More On New Year’s DayThe story of Christmas is too big for us to wrap our hearts around. Yet as we reach the day we celebrate as the birthday of Jesus we should at least press our noses against the window of divine revelation and look once again at the greatest of all gifts. Where does the story begin? …
Read More On Christmas DayI welcome Mark Nicklas back as a guest contributor for this Christmas entry. His reflection on God’s gift to us in Christ plays on some of the paradoxical realities of God’s gracious entry into our realm. I hope, on Christmas day itself, to offer my own voice of celebration and reflection in a separate entry …
Read More The Story of Christmas—God with usJ. B. Phillips, a British minister in the last century, wrote a book, Your God Is Too Small. I read it years ago and recall being impressed by it, though I don’t remember the particulars in it today. Rather it was the title that caught me. Whatever our view of God, he is vastly too …
Read More Enlarging GodGod’s grace is amazing—he offers it freely to the poor, the broken, the sinful. It is the basis for salvation as Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” The only problem we have with grace is knowing what it is. Is grace, for instance, the quality of goodness …
Read More The Amazing Migration of GraceOne of the startling moments in Christ’s ministry came as he answered a tough question on divorce and remarriage. Jesus told his followers that marriage is meant to be a lifelong commitment that precludes divorce (see Matthew 19); and they then asked him about the option for divorce that Moses had provided in the Old …
Read More Hard HeartsThe last six weeks have been eye-opening for me. At the beginning I was in Kathmandu, Nepal, and I’m now in Siem Reap, Cambodia—home of Angkor Wat and other ancient Khmer ruins. Today, a Sunday, I’m also in the Psalms in my current Bible reading; and the collision of these vastly different experiences calls for …
Read More On Seeing IdolsI was asked to speak about encouragement. Given the topic I guessed that at least some of the retreat participants already knew about its negative alternatives, of discouragement and its lurking big brother, depression. The assignment turned out to be more challenging than I expected. I first considered what the option of simple volition might …
Read More Gaining Courage