Welcome to the online home of Tim Challies, blogger, author, and book reviewer.
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I don’t know what it is like to lose a spouse. I don’t know what it is like to bid farewell to the person with whom I’ve built a home and had a family and shared a life. I don’t know the unique griefs, the unique sorrows, the unique traumas that come with so devastating a separation. On the one hand I can’t know without actually enduring it myself, but on the other hand, I can learn from those who …
We can tell a lot about ourselves by what we long for, by what we desire, by what we dream about, by what consumes our thoughts when we lie in the quiet darkness of night. You can tell a lot because what consumes our thoughts is a good indication of what consumes our hearts which is, in turn, a good indication of what we value most. If we dream of riches it shows that we have set our hope on …
A new year has dawned. And while we tend to face a new year with energy and enthusiasm, excited by all the possibilities it will bring, perhaps we ought to pause for just a few moments to consider the reality that is set before us. Octavius Winslow would have you consider that this world and all that is in it is but a shadow. And if we simply acknowledge this, we are prepared to live this year well—to live it …
It’s a question I have been asked many times since Nick went to heaven. It’s a question that has been asked by some who profess faith in Christ and some who do not, by some who believe in the God of the Bible and some who believe in more of an eastern notion of spirituality. It’s a question that is framed in many ways, but usually something like this: Does Nick send you signs? People most often wonder if Nick …
I once read of a terrible tragedy at sea, a shipwreck in which many were swept into the ocean and lost. As the ship foundered and splintered, as first the lower decks and then the upper succumbed to the winds and the waves, most of the passengers sank into the depths. But still fighting for their lives were a father and son who had been traveling together from the Old World to the New. As the ship slipped lower and …
Those who have lost a child, or who have lost another loved one, inevitably face the pain of separation and the longing for reunification. In my own sorrows I have often been comforted by some sweet words written by Thomas Smyth, a man who on one day laid two precious children in the very same grave. Though he writes specifically to bereaved parents, his words will resonate with all of those who have loved and lost. Can we not with …
Like most major airports, Toronto’s Pearson International divides the arrivals area from the departures so that one is a level above the other. I have passed through both of them hundreds of times and have made this observation: The upper level is a place of sorrow while the lower level is a place of celebration. The upstairs departures area is distinguished by family members weeping and saying farewell, the downstairs arrivals area by family members waving and hugging and crying …
There is a sense in which we are less familiar with death than our forebears, more insulated from its horrors. Of course the death rate in the twenty-first century is identical to every century before and every century to come—“it is appointed for [each and every] man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” So perhaps it is better to say we are less familiar with what we consider premature death—the death of infants, children, and young adults. Because …
The young boy had a privileged upbringing and spent his childhood on a fine estate that boasted a large and carefully-tended garden with bright flowers, cobbled paths, high walls, trimmed lawns. He spent hours of every day playing in this garden, exploring it, and delighting in its many wonders. But there was one part where he never ventured to go. At the very end of the garden stood a grove of trees that grew tall and full and cast dark …
Of all the divine thoughts recorded in the pages of sacred writ, of all the promises God provides to humanity, perhaps none is more moving, none more blessed, none more needful than this: He gives his beloved sleep. What would we give to those we love if we had all the power of God Almighty, if we could dispense any gift from his endless storehouse? We would give the courage of a hero, the voice of an angel, the wealth …