• eternal
    Abundant Life,  Holy Spirit,  soul,  Spirit

    Start Living Your Eternal Life

    The Lord recently gave me a picture of the eternal in a prayer time. I like to picture myself standing with Him in a shallow river. I gradually give Him my burdens which I carry in baskets on my back and He, in turn, sends them down the river. But this time, the river looked very different. The water was deeper, darker and flowed much faster. While I could see to the other shore, it lay much further away than my little prayer river. Jesus was larger, too.  He sat in the river and though His legs were bent, they reached clear over to the other side. He beckoned, so…

  • self
    Featured,  Self

    Finding Your Self and Why it Matters

    In the religious stream in which I grew up, finding your self was synonymous with narcissism. Whenever so and so mentioned that their friend or relative was embarking on a quest to find themselves, the adults would snicker. Then they would throw out the Bible verse that says, he who would find himself must first lose himself. That is not quite the way the original reads. I grew up thinking that having a self must be a bad thing indeed. Jesus would not approve. Now my theology has changed rather drastically. That I even have a self is a miracle. In fact, I am pretty sure that it is the greatest…

  • silence
    Silence,  Spiritual Disciplines

    How Silence Affects Your Body, Soul, and Spirit

    When I think of silence, the first thing that pops into my mind is the Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel. The line that most impacted me in my childhood was Silence like a cancer grows… Our society apparently took the warning very seriously because now silence is disappearing altogether. I remember once reading that thirty seconds of silence can really make a classroom uncomfortable. I tested that theory frequently and found that my students could generally withstand twenty seconds before someone raised their hand to dispel the awkwardness. As for myself, I filled my solitude with music. That the music was usually worship or at least spiritual didn’t…