Devotion

At the prompting of commenter Susanna in the prior post, I’d like to offer some additional thoughts on the two selves: public and private. “Public” refers to the outer professional self—the one everyone sees when I show up. It’s...

When I was a boy of seven or eight years old, my dad told me a story that I never forgot. He recounted the frightening day of April 2, 1957, when his wife, “Tudy” Mattson, delivered a nine-pound baby...

____ Recently, I felt the sting of public humiliation. I was criticized and mischaracterized in a public venue by another party. This felt very unfair. Rather than writing about that incident, I wish to ask the question, As Christians,...

In Part 1 I related how my heart was touched by the holy sites of Israel. I'm definitely not above the innocent wonderment of, say, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem or the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. I...

Visiting Israel for the first time, I wondered what to expect. Would it be over-commercialized? Would the holy sites be little more than tourist traps? More lamentably, would I be too old and cynical to appreciate the simplicity of,...

I'll never be accused of having a manly body. My mom told me growing up that I had girly legs. I wasn't offended by this observation because I couldn't disagree. Why duck from the truth? One of the things...

In the prior post I mentioned three criteria for evaluating religious truth claims: coherence, explanatory ability, and evidence. These criteria, however, are mere concepts. They don't do any work in themselves. A crucial question then is, What is our...

The prior post on Discerning God's Voice is here. How do we actually hear God's voice in evangelism? I'd like to suggest that it begins a couple of steps earlier -- in private devotion. John 10:27 says, "My sheep...

In the prior post I told of an encounter I had on an airplane with a world traveler. Thinking I was following God's leading toward a spiritual turn in the convo, the traveler nevertheless stopped me out cold by...

Part 1 is here. One day on an airplane I sat next to Elam, a world traveler. His particular mode of travel, I soon learned, was quite unique. He navigated around the globe in a small sailboat -- solo....