Category: The Heart
For the One Who is Exhausted, A Blessing
When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic, Time takes on the strain until it breaks; Then all the unattended stress falls in On the mind like an endless, increasing weight. The light in the mind becomes dim. Things you could take in your stride before Now become laborsome events of will. Weariness ...
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 ...
The Wholehearted Life
A word that has been resounding with me lately is WHOLEHEARTED. Brene Brown brought it to light in her now famous TED talk and subsequent book, The Gifts of Imperfection. A secular researcher on shame and vulnerability, she made some startling conclusions. There was only one variable, she discovered, that separated the people who have ...
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 ...
Wonder of All Wonders
“Too much of our time is spent trying to chart God on a grid, and too little is spent allowing our hearts to feel awe. By reducing Christian spirituality to formula, we deprive our hearts of wonder.” Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p. 205 In our longing to know God and walk in his ways, ...
More God
“When I hear people talk about what is wrong with organized religion, or why their mainline churches are failing, I hear about bad music, inept clergy, mean congregations, and preoccupations with institutional maintenance. I almost never hear about the intellectualization of the faith, which strikes me as a far greater danger than anything else on ...
Wisdom and Revelation
“When I hear people talk about what is wrong with organized religion, or why their mainline churches are failing, I hear about bad music, inept clergy, mean congregations, and preoccupations with institutional maintenance. I almost never hear about the intellectualization of the faith, which strikes me as a far greater danger than anything else on ...
A Love Affair of the Heart
For above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart. It cannot be lived primarily as a set of principles or ethics. It cannot be managed with steps and programs. It cannot be lived exclusively as a moral code leading to righteousness. In response to a religious expert who asked him ...
Gail Johnsen 