The Danger of Self-hatred

In his book All Over but the Shoutin,' Rick Bragg shares a brief story about a bird to show just how devastating self-hatred can be. He writes:

Once ...

Tolkien's Gollum Illustrates Well the Deformity Caused by Sin

Gollum. What a great name. Just from the sound of it, you can tell that it is attached to a ne'er-do-well.

Gollum is the slimiest character in J. R. ...

Suffering from Spiritual Stockholm Syndrome

On August 23, 1973, Jan Erik Olsson, out on parole from prison, attempted to hold up a bank in Stockholm, Sweden. When the police showed up, Olsson took ...

Woman Decides to "Live Otherwise" and Finds Healing

Muriel's childhood crippled her emotionally. She began visits to the hospital's psychiatric ward when she was in her teens. By her late forties, ...

Helping Others Realize They Are "Meant to House the Fullness of God"

John of Kronstadt … was a nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox priest at the time when alcohol abuse was rampant. None of the priests ventured out ...

The Necessary Shame of Being Named as Sinners

In his book, “The Great Work of the Gospel,” John Ensor writes:

When I was a teenager, I stole a hat. What is worse, I arrived at the store ...

Our Inner Eyjafjallajokull

In the wake of the eruption of a volcano in Iceland that shut down air traffic over Europe in 2010, author and speaker Gordon MacDonald writes:

I—and ...

The Woman Who Could Remember Everything

Most of us find peace over past sins by trying to forget and move on. We find comfort in the distance that comes with the passing of time. The further ...

Nine Big Questions of Every Worldview

Author Darrell Johnson, drawing inspiration from James Sire and N.T. Wright, says that every worldview is asking and trying to answer the following nine ...

Fear Releases the Tyrant Within

In his book Fearless, Max Lucado writes about the power fear possesses to turn us into beastly people:

[Fear] turns us into control freaks … [for] ...