God has made [our] fantasies … so preposterously unrewarding that we are forced to turn to him for help and for mercy. We seek wealth and find we've accumulated worthless pieces of paper. We seek security and find we've acquired the means to blow ourselves and our little earth to smithereens. We seek carnal indulgence only to find ourselves involved in the prevailing erotomania.

—Malcolm ...

Most people are afraid of the unknown. Those things we have never seen or experienced can seem overwhelming.

On the old maps, back before the world was understood in modern terms, cartographers, map makers, would put down what they knew, but at the edges of the map, beyond which they had no knowledge or understanding, they would often write, "Beyond here, there be dragons."

In his book Passed Through Fire, pastor Rick Bundschuh tells the story of Hawaiian surfer Eddie Aikau:

If you ever visit Hawaii, you may notice a plethora of bumper stickers, most affixed to rusting, surfboard-laden cars, proclaiming, "Eddie would go!" This curious saying is a tribute to the courage of Hawaiian waterman Eddie Aikau.

Aikau was a lifeguard and big-wave surfer on Oahu's treacherous North ...

In the summer of my 11th year of life, I learned the power and joy of surrender. It happened in Minnesota at the Edina community swimming pool high dive. For five summers I had watched—in admiration and terror—the big kids climb 35 steps into thin air, walk a long concrete diving board, and then jump into the cool water below. For a few agonizing seconds they disappeared in the deep end ...

On September 30, 2007, Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre broke Dan Marino's record for throwing the most touchdown passes in football. His new record stands at 421 passes and counting.

Two weeks later, Favre broke another record. His 278 picked passes made him the most intercepted quarterback in National Football League history.

Brett Favre reminds us of another famous athlete. Babe Ruth once ...

The movie Behind The Sun follows the story of Samir Majan, a young man born and raised a Muslim in the Middle East. After attending college in the United States, he has done the unthinkable: he has become a Christian. It's a costly decision for Samir, because few things are more offensive in the eyes of a Muslim family than Christian conversion. In this scene, Samir has come back home, and one of ...

When you try to go to another world, there is incredible danger.

In January of 1967, there was a launch pad test of Apollo 1, which was to be the first flight of a three-man Apollo capsule into Earth's orbit. Somewhere in the capsule's 31 miles of wiring, a wire had been stripped of its insulation. The bare wire happened to be near a cooling line, and there was a violent chemical reaction between the ...

"We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world."

—G. K. Chesterton

Philip Yancey on the redemptive work of God:

I once was part of a small group with a Christian leader whose name you would likely recognize. He went through a hard time as his adult children got into trouble, bringing him sleepless nights and expensive attorney fees. Worse, my friend was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Nothing in his life seemed to work out.

"I have no problem believing in a good ...

Thousands of Chinese Christians were killed during the Boxer Rebellion—a nationwide effort to snuff out any foreign influences in China that were political, cultural, economic, or religious. Though the rebellion was relatively short, the intense persecution it started persisted for years—most notably under the later Communist leadership of Mao Zedong.

A Christian evangelist who called himself ...