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What if the circumstances DON’T change?
Part of a hidden belief (or sometimes not so hidden) in American Christianity is that somehow coming to Christ will help some situation get easier. Or better. Or the bad situation will at some point go away. What if the circumstances don’t change?
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The journey to Troas — Listening Prayer
I have two main problems with Mark Batterson. Correction. I have ONE main problem with him and then I have a major problem with his current book, Whisper: How to Hear the Voice of God. (Now that I typed out that title, make it two main problems.)
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The hope of human flourishing
A challenge I like to bring to people from time to time is this question: “Is it well with your soul?”
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We settle for so little
I am working my way through The Great Divorce by C S Lewis. I’ve finished McGrath’s biography of Lewis, so reading Lewis more in historical context is slightly more helpful. I’m just not a great reader of “literature.” I love reading about Lewis, but reading Lewis is just plain slogging at times. The stories bring to life great truth. In one scene…
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We need a thirst to KNOW God
There are those places, those authors, that continually take my breath away. I can’t hustle through their work. I am beginning the slow journey through the classic Knowing God by J.I. Packer. Third page in: Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfold, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding…
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To the desert go prophets
I picked up a copy of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, which is a fascinating read. At the beginning of each chapter he has some great quotes and I loved this one by Paul Shepard (from Man in the Landscape: A Historic View of the Esthetics of Nature) “To the desert to prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims…
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Jesus in Charge
I have started into Wright’s book, Simply Jesus. I have grown to really like his writing and am challenged by his thinking. To start off this book, it is about recognizing Jesus is in charge. It was dangerous talk in Jesus’ day. It’s not very welcome in our day, either. “Our culture has become used to thinking of Jesus as a ‘religious’ figure…
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The perseverance of prayer
My goal this year is to attempt to re-read some key books that have influenced my life and to slow down on the number of books I read this year to try to read deeper. I am not sure how the “slower” is going to go, but I did finish Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain as my first book. If I do a…
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Withdrawal is not the same as retreat
Several years ago I was sharing with a historian in our denomination my work on the monks of the 4th Century in Egypt and what I was learning about their “Pentecostal” experience. He dismissed it quickly, saying that he wasn’t interested in people who retreated from culture and the world instead of engaging it. We really need to give up…
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Merton and “Conversion”
What has attracted me to Seven Storey Mountain over the years is the process of coming to faith. Merton sees his life in process and even when he “comes to faith,” it’s a process. The passage of his confession and baptism into the Catholic Church is still one of the most moving passages I have ever read. He details the weight that is lifted off…
Category: Reading
