Remember that failure is predictable, but how you use it is full of possibility.
Three friends and I arrived just before 6:30 p.m. The house director greeted us at the door and quickly took us down a long, bare corridor. Over the PA system, we heard the...
Once a week at our house, my job is to clean the bathroom. Twenty-five years ago, when I first took the job...
Last week, I was listening to a dear friend in agony over the probability of war and the inevitable suffering inherent in...
The man on the front row reared back. "You mean to tell me that artists don't know what the finished product will...
Our culture puts emphasis on feelings, but the New Testament put the emphasis on thinking. Our conversion, for instance, powerfully transforms how we think: "Do not be conformed to this world but...
Several of us who were young pastors once spent an evening with the late Dr. Henrietta Mears, for many years the director...
The March day was crisp and cool, the Thursday of Easter week, when the couple received the news. They were young and with a toddler and another baby on the way. The doctor’s...
Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers...
In my first year as a volunteer at a professional golf tournament, I was assigned to carry a standard—a large board mounted on a pole. For 18 holes, hefting up that heavy and...
The ancient Greeks wrote about noble heroes brought into crisis by a single fatal flaw of character. God, on the other hand, wrote about ordinary people, full of flaws, brought through crisis to...
In late 1950, a 60-passenger freighter answered the call to a North Korean port. Ninety thousand civilians were there fleeing a Communist attack. Fourteen thousand refugees streamed on board and...
When I graduated from sixth grade, my exceptionally talented teacher gave me a palm-sized Bible and inscribed it with Matthew 5:16: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see good works...
Serious people always have one question about humor—one simple question: Why do we need it in the first place? ...
Jesus told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here...
In our world’s value system, we tend to notice the best and the brightest: large buildings, super-size products, crowded stadiums, impressive degrees, cathedral-like malls. ...
A good friend of mine died yesterday. Jill had retired early from her post as professor of kinesiology at our local university last year. Having already survived cancer and open-heart surgery, she...
In the spring of 1974, I was standing in line to preregister for fall classes at Western Washington University. I’d come at my appointed time, but knew I wasn’t ready. I had scribbled...
God’s creative thrust brought the world into an orderly, beautiful whole. Then something went terribly wrong on planet earth. It seems blown apart—the original wholeness and unity is asunder. ...
Just after Christmas, I was privileged to speak at a memorial service—celebrating the life of my dear friend, Bruce McIver. What a service! Amid outbreaks of laughter, Bruce's wife recalled his...
