Miracle of Forgiveness

It was five days before Christmas when a stranger approached ten-year-old Christopher Carrier, claiming to be a friend of his father. "I want to ...

Carrying Blessings and Burdens

There is an old legend about three men and their sacks. Each man had two sacks, one tied in front of his neck and the other tied on his back. When the ...

God's Gracious Surprises

Years ago, I had a small hobby of collecting baseball cards. I collected favorite players and teams, and occasionally for investment. But as my college ...

An Unforgiven Prodigal Son

An ancient Asian legend tells the story of a man who had a wild and impetuous son. Curtis E. Liens, in The Man with Dirty Hands, says:

The boy became ...

Worldly Achievements Not Important

The late Henri Nouwen, a best-selling author and professor, recalls his first days at L'Arche, a community for the mentally and physically disabled, ...

Fruits of the Spirit

Love, joy, and all that other good stuff are the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of our efforts. We can't produce them on our own. Period. The ...

Good Works Inadequate

When a pastor named Michael was still in seminary, he took a required course in "clinical pastoral education." Each seminarian was assigned ...

Mixed News of Gospel

In the gospel, we discover we are far worse off than we thought, and far more loved than we ever dreamed.

Uniqueness of Grace

In What's So Amazing about Grace, Philip Yancey recounts this story about C.S. Lewis:

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts ...

Six Degrees of Separation

Pulitzer Prize winning playwright John Guare, in his play Six Degrees of Separation and the subsequent movie of the same name, proposes the theory that ...