Category: Abundant Life
Leading From a Healthy Soul…and Why It Matters – Part 1
There is a part of you that no one sees; not even you. But it is real and it matters. I was raised in a non-religious home with no underpinnings of the things or reality of God. Somewhere, however, as a child I learned the childhood prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I ...
Lessons From the Gym #1
After a four-year semi-hiatus from the gym in order to pursue my doctoral degree, along with four gazillion other people in January, I returned to the gym. I knew going back would be difficult. It was worse had than I had imagined. I was out of breath, sweating, my were muscles shaking…and that was only ...
Living Freely and Lightly
Today I spoke on simplicity at our MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group. Living freely and lightly is not as easy as it sounds. Here are the highlights: There is a story about a spiritual seeker who wanted to spend a few days in a monastery. ‘I hope your stay is a blessed one,’ said the monk ...
A Surprising Wholeness
“If the Lord had not been for us”…Psalm 124 Yesterday, as I pondered by these words, my mind retraced the many times God has literally saved my life. A home break-in. A mountain climbing slip. Running blind in the dark. A high-speed car accident. If the Lord had not been for me…wow. I thought of ...
Coming to Grips With Perfectionism
“I’m not perfect, you know.” She squinted her eyes a bit with exasperation in your voice. As if I thought she should be. Often such a statement has to do with the mistaken belief that the spiritual life is a static state of moral and virtuous personal achievement. Claiming we are not perfect is a ...
The Unfinished Places of our Soul
Eugene Peterson observed, “You know, if there were one other word that could have been used for most translations of ‘salvation,’ it would have been ‘healing.’ ” Interestingly, most often in the New Testament when the Greek verb “sozo” occurs it is translated “saved.” It not only means being rescued from destruction, but also ...
A Benign Way of Living
I heard it again this week. And it made me cringe. If you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time you’ve probably heard it hundreds of times. I think it’s a Christian cop out. Over coffee with a friend, we discussed the failing state of the economy particularly its impact on our own personal ...
On Becoming Fully Devoted
We talk a lot in the church about being fully devoted followers of Christ. This is a good thing. The biblical assumption is that all believers in Christ would become his disciples…and fully devoted ones at that. We usually, however, get snagged up on the “fully devoted” part. We are all aware how much we ...
Things I No Longer Believe to Be True
Today I am piggybacking on a past post that has been juggling around in my head for some time. In this post I wrote,” “God does not allow trials to teach us something but to unlearn something.” I wrote about our Self-Revealing God who is constantly and consistently bringing Truth into our lives through his ...
God is the Subject
“Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person. It is not about developing a so-called deeper life. We are in on it, to be sure, but we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. We get included by means of a few prepositions: God with us (Matt. 1:23), Christ in ...
Gail Johnsen 