Thoughts and Prayers
“You’ll be in my thoughts and prayers.” If you hear those words, you might wonder if the person really means it. But you never ...
Onwards! Unswerving
In his poem “Rest,” nineteenth-century minister John Sullivan Dwight gently challenges our tendency to separate “leisure”...
Keep Your Guard Up
A man and several friends went through a ski resort gate posted with avalanche warning signs and started snowboarding. On the second trip down, s...
Using Your Voice
Since age eight, Lisa had struggled with a stammer and became afraid of social situations that required her to talk with people. But later in lif...
The Love of God
In 1917, Frederick Lehman, a California businessman beset by financial setbacks, wrote the lyrics to the hymn, “The Love of God.” His...
Small Kindnesses
Amanda works as a visiting nurse who rotates among several nursing homes—often bringing her eleven-year-old daughter Ruby to work. For some...
Both Are True
After three decades, Feng Lulu was reunited with her birth family. As a toddler, she was kidnapped while playing outside her house, but through t...
The Source
It was 1854, and something was killing thousands of people in London. It must be the bad air, people thought. And indeed, as unseasonable heat ba...
Legacy of Friends
I met him in the 1970s when I was a high school English teacher and basketball coach, and he was a tall, gangly freshman. Soon he was on my baske...
Wise or Unwise?
When I was ten, I brought home a tape from a friend at youth group that contained the music of a contemporary Christian band. My dad, who had bee...
Loving Our Neighbors
In the days of self-isolation and lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, words by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail...
Thankful for Monday
I used to dread Mondays. Sometimes, when I got off the train to head to a previous job, I'd sit at the station for a while, trying to delay reach...
Hope from Gehenna
In 1979, archaeologist Gabriel Barkay unearthed two small silver scrolls. It took years to delicately unroll the metal scrolls, and each was foun...
Running the Race
The careers of most National Football League players are remarkably brief: just 3.3 years on average, according to statista.com. Then there&rsquo...
God Redeems Our Pain
Olive watched her friend loading her dental equipment into his car. A fellow dentist, he’d bought the brand-new supplies from her. Having h...
Hearing Christ, Not Chaos
After watching cable news for hours each day, the elderly man grew agitated and anxious—worried the world was falling apart and taking him ...
Grasping God’s Word
A rugged, cast-iron ring stood strong against the harsh Minnesota winter as it hung on the doorframe of my great uncle’s old farmhouse. Mor...
Better Together
Marie, a single working mom, rarely missed church or Bible study. Each week, she rode the bus to and from church with her five children and helpe...
Opportunities to Shine
In March of 2020, while walking his dog in New York City’s Central Park, Whitney, a retired financial expert, saw trucks, stacks of tarps, ...
Hope in God
As the holiday season approached, package shipments were delayed due to an unprecedented influx of online orders. I can remember a time when my f...
When Weakness Is Strength
Drew had been imprisoned for two years because he served Jesus. He’d read stories of missionaries who felt constant joy throughout their in...
For the Sake of the Gospel
The year was 1917. At only twenty-three years of age, Nelson had just graduated from medical school in his native Virginia. And yet here he was i...
Sister to Brother
When a leader asked if I’d speak with her privately, I found Karen in the retreat center counseling room red-eyed and wet-cheeked. Forty-tw...
Walk On
Walk On is the fascinating memoir of Ben Malcolmson, a student with virtually no football experience who became a “walk on”—a n...
