Article & Essay Archive

Still trying to make yourself change? Jonathan Bailey opens his new book to Rapt readers with an ancient, slower path to transformation.

Ever prayed for the presence of God? Ever felt it? You can. Gary S. Selby opens his new book on C.S. Lewis for Rapt.

When time feels like it's running out, take the long way home. Timothy Willard took it under a supermoon and wrote it for you.

Opened to Rapt readers from “Authentic Communication,” this excerpt shows why speaking, listening and handling conflict well are part of Christian work.

Jim Street opens this excerpt to Rapt readers, freeing calling from career and talent so you can notice how God may work through you.

We were never meant to carry every tragedy, headline and opinion. Prayer helps us release what belongs to God and recover a quieter soul.

The in-between is not empty. Mary’s story shows how God meets us in ordinary waiting and quietly forms what comes next.

Because judgment has already fallen on Christ, guilty consciences can rest in forgiveness, acceptance and lasting peace with God.

From Picasso to Rembrandt, centuries of art can help readers notice the Bible’s grief, glory and humanity with fresh eyes.

When prayer stops feeling like something to master, silence can gather the soul and teach us how to remain with Jesus.

A garden's unnecessary beauty interrupts the rush to be useful, loosening worry and teaching us to receive each day as a gift.

When life feels dark and your way forward disappears, God has not left you alone. Joshua Giles learned to trust God in the unknown.

God never intended faith to be dry or distant. He invites you to taste his goodness, delight in his presence and discover that he alone can satisfy the deepest longings of your heart. When you slow down to savor who he is, worship becomes more than duty — it becomes a feast that leaves you longing for even more of him.

Play is more than a way to pass the time — it is one of the ways God draws us toward one another. Whether around a game board, a radio or a shared pastime, ordinary hobbies can quietly remind us that we were created for connection, not isolation. Sometimes the simplest moments of play awaken us to the deeper fellowship we were made to enjoy.

Communion isn’t just a ritual — it’s a table where broken people discover they belong, where Jesus gently restores us, even in our deepest grief.

The greatest threat to your faith may not be hostility but comfort. Long after persecution fades, the quiet pull of approval, success and worldly admiration can still steal your heart. Discover why following Jesus has always meant swimming against the current — and how true freedom begins when the world's applause no longer defines your worth.

What fills your mind shapes far more than your thoughts — it shapes your life. God still speaks, even in the quiet of the night, bringing clarity, direction and hope to hearts willing to listen. As you learn to discern his voice from every other influence, even your dreams can become invitations to know him more deeply and walk more confidently in his purpose.

Faith is not the absence of questions. Sometimes the deepest disciples are the ones who keep following Jesus even when certainty feels out of reach. If you've ever wrestled with doubt, discover why honest questions need not weaken your faith — and why surrender, not perfect certainty, has always been the truest mark of trust.

When every shortcut promises ease, discover the quiet invitation to think deeply, feel honestly and stay rooted in the voice of God.

We all worship something. But can what holds our hearts hold us? Idols disguise themselves as good but quietly demand what only God deserves.

Some wounds cannot be healed by trying harder. The poison runs too deep, and only God can provide the cure. In the wilderness, a strange command revealed an eternal truth: those who simply looked in faith were given life. Discover how an ancient bronze serpent points beyond itself to the cross — and why the same invitation still stands today: look and live.

A rainbow can be explained by physics and still inspire wonder. The supposed conflict between science and Scripture is often overstated, as if understanding how something works somehow eliminates the One who made it possible. Yet many of history’s greatest scientists saw no contradiction. Nature and Scripture are not rival stories but two ways of encountering truth — each pointing beyond itself to the mystery, beauty and meaning woven into creation.

Trying to fit someone else’s mold causes us to miss the beauty of becoming ourselves. But God isn’t asking us to become anyone else.

Kierkegaard had little patience for comfortable Christianity. Faith, to him, was not a social identity or moral polish, but the hardest work of becoming oneself before God. Pleasure could distract. Duty could impress. Neither could save. True faith required surrender beyond what society could validate or reason could neatly explain. It was costly, daily and unfinished — a leap toward God that had to be made again and again.

The Psalms assume something many of us forget: if God already knows our hearts, why hide them? Their prayers are startlingly honest — full of praise, doubt, gratitude, grief, confession and longing. The psalmists speak freely because they trust they are fully known and still welcomed. In teaching us to bring our whole selves before God, the Psalms reveal that honest prayer is not irreverence. It is intimacy.

The parting of the Red Sea is unforgettable, but Moses’ deeper question lingers: Why are we astonished when God interrupts nature yet indifferent to the order that sustains it every day? The same God who parts the waters also holds the tides in place, orders the stars and gives structure to reality itself. Miracles matter, but they point beyond themselves to the One whose wisdom upholds all things.

Some lessons arrive through books, mentors and workshops. Others arrive disguised as disappointment, success or the realization that a milestone wasn't the finish line you imagined. Scripture describes wisdom as a lifelong pursuit, one that grows through humility rather than certainty. God’s work in us rarely ends where we expect it to. As long as we’re breathing, there is still something left to learn.

A miraculous healing convinced him that God still works miracles. Years later, unanswered prayers forced him to wrestle with a harder question: Why does God intervene in some stories and remain silent in others? After witnessing both wonders and heartbreak, he discovered that faith isn't the absence of mystery. It's learning to trust God in the middle of it.

A slave alone on Irish mountainsides, Saint Patrick learned to meet God in every moment and circumstance — wind, rain, work, fear, silence.

Hope rarely arrives all at once. More often, it appears in fragments — in birdsong through open windows, sunlight on garden leaves, burnt cookies cooling on the counter, the quiet breathing of someone you love beside you in bed. We spend much of life straining for clarity while God keeps teaching us to notice beauty in the blurred edges of ordinary days. Perhaps faith is less about possessing certainty and more about learning, again and again, to believe that even fragile things still carry the architecture of hope.