Ready to Grow Big Faith?

As a child, I wasn’t taken to church, but when I was 10, a church bus came to my neighborhood one week for Vacation Bible School. I remember making a beanie cap from faux leather triangles that I stitched together. We also sang some songs and heard some Bible stories....

Jacob had spent most of his life running. He ran after blessing, grasping it through deception. He ran from consequences, fleeing his twin brother’s rage. He ran from the past he couldn’t undo. Even so, twenty years later, Jacob has a family, servants, flocks, and incredible wealth. Yet, despite his...

We live in a culture that praises the self-made, rewards the hustle, and conditions us to believe that a good life depends on how well we manage, plan, and perform. Success is measured by outcomes. Busyness is mistaken for importance. Self-reliance is celebrated as strength.

I didn’t invite these unwelcome guests into our home. Yet here they were. Haemophilus influenzae, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinitis, and streptococcus pneumoniae. The invaders were two viruses and two bacteria that infected everyone in our home.

I’m still thinking about the words God whispered into the quietness of my soul last week. “Live in the moment, not in the production.” I had just finished reading the well-known passage in Luke about the two sisters who were hosting Jesus and the disciples as they traveled to Jerusalem....

In Jesus’ parable about a father and his two sons (Luke 15:11-32), there are two other brothers, hiding in darkness: Shame and Pride. They are the unwelcome and sometimes unacknowledged guests in the parable’s family, where God is pictured as a father who loves both sons unreservedly and unconditionally.

Have you ever heard someone attribute a weakness or mistake to being human? The apostle Peter might suggest that a more accurate description of such action would be that we’ve acted inhumanely. In fact, in his second letter, we see that it is in being fully human that we most...

More than 80 references in Scripture warn against self-exaltation. In fact, Jesus spoke about humility and pride more often than any other moral contrast, perhaps because these two postures determine how well we love. Pride resists reconciliation not only with God but also with others.

This past Friday, the women in my small group and I talked about blessings. Then we blessed one another. I had written out various blessings for us, and one by one, each of us looked into the eyes of the woman on her right and spoke the blessing over her....

If you’ve read my last two stories, you know my life changed when I fell in love with Jesus (Part 1) and learned to abide and not strive (Part 2). This is the story of how I exchanged my exhausting self-effort for the power of God that is found when...

I’ve always been a rule follower, so when I chose to follow Jesus, I wanted to learn all the rules—what not to do and what to do. I worked hard to memorize Scripture, to serve God, and to study the Bible. I worked hard at being kind and loving to...

Once upon a time, I read verses like these and kind of wrote them off as something that just wasn’t typical for Christians. While I talked about God’s love a lot, I didn’t exactly feel it like that—but I dutifully did all that I thought God expected of me.

I have surprised my husband with a gift just once. “C’mon,” I told him one Christmas, motioning for him to follow me to the garage. He gave me a curious look when he saw something covered by a sheet.

Revelation 3:20 is often used as a picture of salvation offered by Jesus, but, in context, He is talking to believers. His words come at the end of His message to the Laodiceans, a spiritually impoverished church that Jesus described as “lukewarm.”

One morning many years ago when I was a new believer, I was at my desk, surrounded by theology books and notebooks, deep into writing about God. The house was quiet. I felt so focused.

It should have been a routine crossing. The disciples and Jesus were taking what was normally a two-hour trip across the Sea of Galilee after Jesus had finished a long day of teaching. But then the wind howled, lightning split the night sky, the waves spilled into the boat, and...

I turned on the light switch and nothing happened. It was 5 a.m., perfectly dark outside, and I was in the garage, getting ready to run on my treadmill before going to work.

When I was younger, I prayed for something that seemed so good that I knew God would hear and answer my prayer. I prayed fervently. I asked others to pray fervently. I made sure to end each prayer with “in Jesus’ name” to give it all the power I could....

My father didn’t have a name until he was several weeks old. He was the youngest of 10 children, and everyone just called him Izzie. “Izzie wet? Izzie hungry?” Finally, he was named Joe, not even Joseph. Joe’s parents, my grandparents, were farmers and sugarmakers from Ohio. I can still...

A charcoal fire is referenced on only two occasions in the New Testament. The first was a charcoal fire in the courtyard of the high priest who condemned Jesus to death on a cross (John 18:18 ESV). Peter was standing by it, warming his hands, when those in the courtyard...

He had a troubled beginning—abandoned by his mom and dad and then raised in a rich and powerful foster family, with great pressure on him to succeed and eventually take over their business. He ended up murdering one of their employees and then burying—literally—the evidence.

Abigail had to make a quick decision. Angry men with swords would soon be on their way to her home. And if goes against her husband’s wishes, she would have to act in secret. Oh, there was also the chance that she would die doing what was right.

Some moments in life call for big, dramatic courage—a giant to face, a mountain to climb, a hard truth to speak out loud. But most days aren’t like that. Most days are quieter: