Sometimes the church looks strong on the outside, but inside, you can feel the pressure—tired leaders, distracted hearts, quiet offenses, prayerlessness, and people carrying heavy private battles. And the truth is, many of the things the church needs most cannot be fixed by better organization or more activity. They need God. That is why intercession…
There is a question that sits beneath almost every expression of spiritual pain. It shows itself in different forms — as the sense that prayers are not reaching God, as the nagging feeling that something essential has been lost, as the inability to feel what you know should be felt in worship, as the distance…
You see your pastor for a few hours a week. You see him preach, prepared, collected, bringing the Word. You see him at the door afterward, warm and present. You see him at the hospital when someone from your church is sick. You see him at weddings and funerals and the events that mark the…
There are commands in the Bible that are comforting. And then there are commands that stop you cold. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” — Romans 12:21 — falls into the second category. Not because it is vague. Because it is completely clear, and completely contrary to every instinct the…
Someone has just looked at you across the table and said the thing that fills certain people with quiet dread: “Would you mind closing us in prayer?” The closing prayer of a meeting matters more than it is usually treated. It is not a formality to discharge before people reach for their coats. It is…
Grace is one of the most used and least understood words in the Christian faith. It appears on church signs, in worship songs, in sermons, in greetings at the start of every one of Paul’s letters — so often that it can begin to feel like theological wallpaper. Background. Expected. There. But not really seen….
Most of us come to God the way we go to a doctor. We walk in with a list. We explain our symptoms — the relationship that needs mending, the financial pressure, the fear about a diagnosis, the child we are worried about, the dream that won’t come true, the peace that will not come….
Most articles about prayer for work address the morning. Give you a prayer to say before you leave the house, something to settle the nerves and set the tone, and then send you out the door. Which is helpful. But the workday does not only need prayer at 7am. It needs prayer at 9:30 when…
Father God, whatever the last week looked like — whatever it produced or failed to produce, whatever happened that I wish had not — this week is genuinely new. Not recycled. Not the same week with a new date. New. Your mercies arrive fresh this morning and I receive them. Set the tone in me…
Before the first human being ever drew breath, before the garden was planted, before the first word of creation was spoken into the void — there was already a war. Not a war of armies or nations. A war of wills. A revolt of the most glorious creature ever made against the One who made…