It’s a question each of us will have to face if we haven’t already—should I use another person’s preferred pronouns? For some the question will come up in a context that is innocuous, and the decision may involve no negative repercussions. But for some the question will come up in a context in which they…
We’ve heard it at both weddings and funerals, as both aspiration for a life lived together and as commemoration of a life lived well. In these two contexts and so many others we’ve heard the “love passage,” the Bible’s beautiful description of love enacted in the life of the Christian: “Love is patient and kind;…
The young woman entered her parent’s home for what she understood would be the final time. The funeral had been solemn but still sweet, for she knew that her father had at last joined her mother. It had been a good many years since death had parted them, but now they were together in the…
Every now and again I just can’t help myself—I respond to a clickbait headline and find myself reading an advice column. The question this time was from a woman who had become disillusioned with her husband and enamored with someone else. And as I read the columnist’s response I thought, “I’m pretty sure that’s exactly…
A single object can be a source of comfort to one person and a source of fear to another. The same object can make one person breathe a great sigh of relief and another to recoil in terror. The one holding tight to the grip of a gun feels very differently about this firearm than…
There may not be times in your marriage when you stop loving your wife, but there may be times in your marriage when you stop liking her—or when you stop acting like it, anyway. There may be times when you are easily irritated with her or times when you just can’t get along. There may…
The thing about legalism is that it’s far easier and far more satisfying to spot in someone else’s life than in your own. We are masterful at identifying it and calling it out in other people, but not nearly so good at doing so in our own lives. In Pat Nemmers’ book Retractions he offers…
The sermon fizzles instead of sizzles. The text seems to become opaque rather than clear. The illustrations fall flat while the application somehow fails to strike the heart, the mind, or the hands. The pastor seems distracted and discouraged while the congregation seems uninterested and unmoved. I expect we have all sat through a few…
It is engraved on many tombstones, inscribed in many cards, expressed in many obituaries: He died too soon. She was taken before her time. Of all the mysteries in this universe, few are more perplexing than the mystery of God’s sovereignty over life and death. Why do some live to so advanced an age while…
The son of King Jeroboam had fallen deathly ill. His father was understandably worried, concerned to know whether his child would live or die. He knew just where to go for a trustworthy answer. Yet he also knew that he could not go himself. He came up with a devious plan: he would send his…
Many years ago a great sailing ship was crossing the Atlantic when it came to the treacherous Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Though this is one of the richest fishing grounds in the world, it can all also be one of the most treacherous. Its waters are shallow and often blanketed by dense fog. Icebergs lurk…
We refer to the first person of the Trinity as “God the Father,” and it is important to understand that God’s fatherhood comes before any fatherhood among human beings. In other words, God did not create human fathers and then begin to describe himself in reference to them. Rather, God has always been Father and…
I was once told the story of a child who had been invited to spend a sunny summer day playing with his friends. He lived in a rural area and it took him a good bit of time to make the trek. But the child made his way toward his friends as they made their…
It was around 150 years after the birth of Christ that the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy determined that the earth must be at the center of the universe. If the earth was at the center, then the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets must orbit around it. Though many people had observed…
The old adage may be trite, but that makes it no less true: Absence makes the heart grow fonder. There is something about being apart that stirs our affections, that causes us to understand and articulate what we might otherwise have taken for granted. It is often only through a time of separation that we…
So many people live with a deep sense of failure. So many people go through their lives convinced they are a constant disappointment to the ones they so naturally long to please. Children consider their parents and feel a sense of shame, certain that in some way their parents regard them as a disappointment. Meanwhile,…
The world was still new, the earth was still young, humanity was still barely east of Eden. And deep in virgin forests, unseen by human eye, untrod by human foot, a gentle fern was summoned forth from the soil. Its fronds were perfectly symmetrical, its leaves were vibrant green, it was uniquely patterned with the…
There was no silence like the silence that descended over the trenches of Western Europe on the morning of November 11, 1918. At exactly 11 AM, an armistice came into effect that brought a halt to all fighting on land, sea, and air. Never had silence been better appreciated than when that silence marked the…
It has been about 8 months since the release of my book Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God. And it has been an encouraging time. I wanted to share a few updates and pieces of information that may be of interest to you. Perhaps the greatest encouragement has come…
I am tip-toeing—or perhaps lurching—toward the age of 50. Whatever it means to be middle-aged, I am indisputably now well within that range. This stage of life has introduced some new trials, new difficulties, and new indignities, many of them related to a body that is no longer what it once was. But this stretch…