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This miraculous vibrating air that manifests into exquisite expression can either be a weapon or a healing salve.
The last couple of weeks have been a huge reminder to me that there is still more goodness in this world than bad.
It is always the transformation of the smallest part that leads to the transformation of the whole. 
We groan and cry out in this painful life experience together. 
The cold, hard fact is that there are prayers that God does not answer.
Who can stand before this cosmically-sized love without being completely transformed?
Either way, you will ultimately face then refiner’s fire.
The problem is that Hell is never once mentioned in the Bible.
When you are confronted with the reality of an undeserved kindness, it can be transformative.
The word wrath isn’t an unloading of God’s fury and rage on the unrepentant.
Should we pray for the president?
The judgment of God is simply giving a person what they have freely chosen.
We have only ever been alienated from God in our minds.
The most misunderstood word in all of Christianity.
But what if, in the midst of celebrating the peace of Christ through ritual and routine, we have actually neglected peace in our lives?
There are many people who struggle to understand a God who unconditionally and preemptively forgives everyone.
The forgiveness of God is unconditional and preemptive.
Where O Light are you in this darkness?
You may not trust these words now, but there is hope in your pain and suffering.
God, I am done with you.
"Thoughts and prayers" are devoid of meaning, of value, of consequence, of participation, of action, of change.
We live in an age in which stimulation and consumption are all too normal in our lives.
All you have to do is walk outside and take a deep breath and accept the invitation.
The Good News of the Kingdom of God is not one of the many things.  It is the thing.
For the words we use can be powerful weapons that wound, kill, and destroy, or instruments of blessing, healing, and life.
I can't overstate how important it is for each of us to have people in our lives that we allow to speak truth to us.
Living constantly in the burden and pain of our suffering can either become an end destination or a passageway for each of us.
It is a sad reality how weak we are, how eagerly we consume what we are being fed, and how easily we allow our moral structures to fall.
There has always been an overwhelming temptation for people of faith to fixate on and obsess over how we worship God, rather than focusing on how our worship ought to change us.
The most important thing I would tell students about living their faith at school is- live your faith without fear or embarrassment.
In private, I struggled with intense guilt, shame, and depression. I never talked about my abortion to anyone. Ever.
The homeowner took a stand against every single person who violated the covenants.
The church of the future is around a table- breaking bread and taking the cup together. It is where we move from a personal, individualized faith to a place of shared, relational, and communal faith as a family.
In a single moment of indescribable beauty, the opposing forces embraced, heaven and earth collided, and it captured our hearts with the possibilities of how things really could be, not just one day in the distant future... but today.
There is no question that we live in an incredibly unique time in history in which there is a strange mass collision of shallowness, superficiality, competing narratives that try to explain our existence, and depersonalization wrought by technology, all accompanied by a growing disdain for spirituality, in general, and religion, in specific, from a hyper-rationalistic culture.
If death is the end toward which all life is moving... then why does anything in our lives matter at all? Why ascribe any purpose to it whatsoever? It is all death in the end anyway.
Sometimes we need the desert to find our hearts and souls... and to remember who we are and what our purpose is. And no matter the endless circles and varied pathways we take in this desert life, the point at which they all converge is at the cross. For it is when we come to the cross that we choose to no longer go our own way.
We will not take part in continuing the endless cycle of death and destruction. Not with what we think. Not with what we say. Not with what we do.
We must become people of the bottom; people who are below; people who are last; people who are in the back; people who are the least.
I can courageously face another day, another week, another year because I have a family ready to receive me and shower me with love and acceptance.
Have you ever felt utterly alone and wished that there was someone else who would just recognize you, say a word to you, or make you feel welcomed?
“Oh my goodness. I thought you were some homeless guy and I wasn’t even going to pay attention to you.”
We have a tendency toward prolonging or avoiding pain because we believe it is too painful to deal with, but by avoiding it we prolong the inevitable.
The way of Jesus does not have to be defended; it must be demonstrated. It never moves out in judgment; it moves out in love. It never extends in condemnation to the world; it extends in grace and mercy. The ways of arguing, defending, judging, and condemning always build up walls and embitter those in the world who are on the receiving end.
Through worship, the Spirit of God breaks out into the world in prayer, in praise, in service putting broken pieces back together.