Faith

Jim Ayer was, for most of his life, a slave to his own dreams—a fisherman of thrills and addictions. From when he was a child, he attached a ball and chain to each ankle, closed himself up in his own world, and threw away the key.

The first part of my life was marked by multiple barriers that placed me in a minority status.

For me, 2022 was the year of waiting—a word that managed to define our lives, thoughts and actions to an unexpected degree.

From my experience and the conversations I have had so far, I have found that there are two major categories of people who come to doubt the existence of God.

Anecdotally, they say that fear of public speaking is the biggest fear of mankind, after fear of death. Everyone smiles at this order of priorities, but no one disputes or discusses the fear at the top of the ranking.

Faith is a commonly used concept, but it is rarely understood in its rich semantics and philosophical implications. Christian faith rises above being defined by lists of doctrines, beliefs, moral principles, commandments, and liturgical rituals in the communicator's mind for its nature and content to be faithfully represented.

It’s hard to read the description of Jesus’ life in the Gospels and not wonder what the many supernatural healings and other miracles performed by Him mean for us today.

If there is a crossroads where both the path of faith and the path of doubt or unbelief begin, it is prayer.

If we take an honest look around us and within ourselves, we discover that the gulf between the mentality of those who choose prayer over medical treatment and the essence of the Christian mindset is not as deep as it seems. But it remains a gulf nonetheless.

Towards the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there is a final showdown between Frodo and Smeagol. Smeagol tries to regain possession of "My Precious", and when Frodo resists, Smeagol tries to strangle him. One scene in this part shows Frodo shocked that Smeagol has broken his promise and, though on the brink of death, sees fit to plead for honour:...

Many people know the Lord’s Prayer, having learned it from a parent or grandparent. But few know that it was given as a response to the disciples’ request for Jesus to teach them how to pray.

What do you imagine heaven will be like? American science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov famously said, “For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.” Although I love Jesus, I think I am a bit afraid of getting bored there too. There’s a prevailing picture of heaven as being some sort of suspended animation, which may play into this.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Max Lucado wrote an article summarising the spiritual lessons we can learn from an event that the news described as a "once in a thousand year flood".

I was a pagan as a child. Not by choice, but as a consequence of lacking any access to the Word of God. In the 1980s Romania, catechizing an Orthodox child (whose parents were members of the Communist Party) was a highly unlikely event Pavlik Morozov’s myth, the hero-child that denounced his own father, generated caution.

I was twenty when I first became curious about God. I was fortunate to see His presence in the lives of my friends and longed for that same presence in my own life.