A Purpose Beyond the Paycheck
Around a fire one night, two entrepreneurs wondered aloud if less ambition would mean less success. But the question isn’t whether we stop striving — it’s what we’re striving for. When our lifestyle requires less, our work can aim higher. Instead of building bigger barns, we’re freed to serve a better Master. Purpose begins to outgrow the paycheck, and ambition finds a deeper home.
The Questions We Outgrow (And Shouldn’t)
We praise childlike faith, but we often forget childlike curiosity. Jesus welcomed children knowing they’d bring questions — honest, unfiltered, sometimes inconvenient ones. Somewhere along the way, we learn to stop asking, to smooth over what doesn’t sit right. But faith grows when we stay curious. The questions we’re tempted to outgrow may be the very ones that keep us awake, attentive and open to deeper truth.
The Art of an Apology
In a busy home, apologies come often — and not all of them land well. A rushed or defensive “sorry” can leave real harm untouched. A true apology takes courage: naming what we did, honoring the other person’s pain, committing to change and asking for forgiveness. When we do that kind of work, humility opens the door to healing — and relationships begin to breathe again.
If It’s Broke, Keep Breaking It
Addiction didn’t arrive as a choice — it arrived as a lie about what could make me whole. Crystal meth promised relief, creativity, life. Instead, it hollowed everything out. I built a world around pain and called it survival. Looking back, I see a pattern familiar to all of us: broken people making broken choices, trying to fill a void that only grows. Darkness multiplies when we keep breaking what’s already broken.
Too Busy for God?
Busyness has a way of crowding out what we say we want most. We’re tired, overextended and surrounded by more than we can manage — yet still thirsty for God. Scripture names that thirst clearly, even when our lives don’t. When our homes and schedules are packed tight, silence becomes scarce. Sometimes the most spiritual move isn’t adding another practice, but removing what keeps us from paying attention.
The Mysteries of Life, Turn and James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’
On cold winter nights, James Joyce’s “The Dead” returns with quiet force. It lingers over an ordinary party before unveiling something devastatingly human: love given too late, lives misunderstood, the living haunted by the dead. In its final snowfall, Joyce dissolves our illusions of permanence and self-importance, reminding us how thin the line is between longing and loss — and how mysteriously we all belong to one another.
The Grace of Cold Water: Finding Comfort in Discomfort
Cold water has a strange kind of grace: it teaches us to meet discomfort without panic, to breathe instead of brace. Small, chosen stress can form resilience — body and soul — preparing us for heavier suffering we don’t get to schedule. In the chill, we practice surrender, learning that God is present not only in warmth and ease, but in the hard moments that deepen endurance and quietly grow fruit.
The Bible Is an Onion, not a Lemon
Some of us approach the Bible like a lemon — something to squeeze quickly for an easy takeaway. But Scripture is more like an onion: layered, textured, asking for patience. Its message is clear enough for anyone to meet God, yet deep enough to keep drawing us further in. Reading well means slowing down, peeling back assumptions and letting the mystery of God shape us over time.
The Power Of Sign Language Bibles
For millions of Deaf readers, Scripture has often arrived as a closed door — text-heavy, audio-dependent, preached but not truly heard. That’s why sign language Bible translation matters: it meets people in their heart language, through expression and story. The Deaf Bible app gathers signed Scripture in one place, turning verses into living communication. For many, it’s not a tech novelty — it’s the first time the Word feels personal, clear and fully theirs.
To be Perfectly Human
In the dark before dawn, I feel how miraculous it is to be here — skin tingling in the cold, sky turning from ink to pink, everything quietly holy. My thoughts still scatter, crowded and clumsy, but I speak them into the air and ask Jesus to be with me here. In movement and stillness, garden and keyboard, I’m learning a simple practice: be present, receive the sacred and call it home.
‘Jesus Calling’ — Peace for the Worn-Out Soul
"Jesus Calling," Sarah Young's 365-day devotional written as meditations in Jesus' voice, grew out of the private prayer journals she kept during years of chronic illness and has sold more than 45 million copies worldwide. The book offers brief daily readings focused on peace and God's presence, drawing readers who find in its pages a quiet companion for seasons of grief, anxiety and exhaustion.
Da Vinci Is Not Hanging in the Louvre: The Creator/Creature Distinction
It’s tempting to blur God into nature, into ourselves, into everything — until the Creator becomes just another part of creation. But Scripture insists on a difference: God is the artist, we are the art. The mountains are radiant, but they are not God. Holding the Creator-creature distinction protects wonder without collapsing into worship of ourselves or the world. Da Vinci isn’t hanging in the Louvre — and neither is God.
Sam Kinison: The ‘80s Preacher-Comedian
Sam Kinison didn’t start in comedy clubs — he started in church, trained to preach with heat and conviction. When ministry collapsed under money trouble, heartbreak and a crisis of faith, he walked away, but the pulpit never quite left his voice. Onstage, his fury sounded like lament, his jokes like distorted sermons. And in his final moments, the shouting stopped — replaced by a quiet, startling surrender.
The Shopkeeper: A Short Story
A shopkeeper builds a beautiful mountain world indoors — streams, cliffs, seminars, certificates, the best maps money can buy. People come in droves, hungry for the peaks and leave with souvenirs that look impressive on a shelf. One day, someone asks about actual excursions. The answer is telling: guiding is inefficient. And quietly, the mountains remain mostly untouched — real, risky and waiting.
Rooted in a Restless Age
Outrage feels like the air we breathe now — at meetings, online, even in church. We brace for defensiveness, settle into cynicism, and call it normal. But Paul says this restlessness has a root: life “in the flesh,” where neglect grows weeds fast. The Spirit offers another kind of cultivation — belonging, surrender and a steady step-by-step walk that forms real fruit in us.
Suffering and the Providence of God
Providence isn’t a theory meant for armchairs — it’s the difference between living landlocked in fear and living anchored in hope.
I Know What I Need to Be Doing
Every January, I come back to three risky prayers — because they invite Jesus to disagree with my plans. When I finally asked with real openness, one word surfaced: with. Then a face: my 89-year-old dad. The invitation was simple — Friday lunch — and it reshaped my year. The third answer surprised me too: silence, walking my neighborhood with God.
The Year Faith-Based Films Finally Grew Up: The Top 10 Movies Of 2025
In 2025, faith-based movies didn’t just get louder — they got better. The big releases still gave audiences what they came for, but the craft finally started catching up to the subject matter. Meanwhile, Hollywood kept circling religion with fresh seriousness, especially in horror and thrillers. For the first time, this list isn’t about picking the least embarrassing option — it’s about choosing between genuinely good films.
Rethinking New Year’s Resolutions
Bob Stephens’ elliptical has become a coat rack, which is honestly how most resolutions die — quietly, under the weight of real life. But he’s back at it, not to earn God’s favor, but to steward what he’s been given. That’s the shift. The new year invites a reset, but the gospel reminds us we’re already loved. So set goals, yes — measurable, humble ones — and let them serve your people, not your ego.
The Story of the Christian Canon
A Baptist buys a Bible without wondering who decided these books belong together. A Catholic opens a hotel Bible and senses something missing. A student discovers extra pages in the “required” Bible for class and panics. Canon questions have been hiding in plain sight. Canon once meant a reed — a measuring stick — and eventually, a standard. The canon is the Church’s straight edge for truth.