A recent article in the New York Times tells the story of a 37-year-old social media consultant who wrote on Twitter her concern for a friend not communicating.  “I don’t hear from my friend for a day – my thought, they don’t want to be my friend anymore,” she wrote, appending the hashtag #ThisIsWhatAnxietyFeelsLike.  Soon thousands of people offered…

Recently at the conclusion of a Sunday morning service in our church I closed the service with prayer.  I had a picture of  people  standing by a door, wondering if they should cross the threshold.  Thresholds can be  important markers, helping us  interpret our progress on the  spiritual journey.  John O’Donohue asks,  “At which threshold am I now standing?  At this time in…

Be warned men, you will be afflicted by  the “Noonday Devil” on your journey to wholeness in Christ.  This is the term given to the sin of spiritual sloth and  discouragement, known as” acedia.”   The desert fathers of the fourth century called acedia, the noonday devil –  “destruction that wastes at noonday” (Ps. 91:6), because during the hottest part of…

I am preparing a sermon on Habakkuk.   Eugene Peterson says this  about Habakkuk. “That God-followers don’t get preferential treatment in life always comes as a surprise.  But it’s also a surprise to find that there are few men and women within the Bible who show up alongside us as such moments….Most prophets, most of the time,…