Faith

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.

Although we experience more positive than negative elements in life, we are still more intensely and more quickly affected by the unpleasant ones. How can we protect our joy of living despite the problems that beset us?

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

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.

As strange as this question may seem, it is also difficult and has consequences that are not at all negligible. Even if it is not always phrased like this, or perhaps not even spoken out loud, this question arises in every home.

Let's go back in time to the day when Jesus spoke His apocalyptic words. At that time, rather than giving a revelation about the future, He was more concerned with warning about the dangers of deception.

“Is God dead?” was the question on the cover of Time magazine on April 8, 1966. Three-and-a-half years later (December 26, 1969), the publication changed that to: “Is God coming back to life?”

Sinking into darkness, after 14 years of enjoying all the spectacles of grace and beauty in which our world is enveloped, can be the beginning of tragedy. Or it can be the moment when you begin to discern, nuance by nuance, the splendour of a reality that healthy eyes so often miss.

I don’t remember much about the moment. I remember its warmth, and the way it glowed with purpose and spirit. But the stage is blurry. The song which pulsed out from it is uncertain. I know it came from a good friend of mine, one whose spot-lit glory provoked in me no jealousy, no feeling of being left out.

Richard Dawkins is arguably the world’s best-known atheist. His 2006 book The God Delusion was a runaway success and widely influential. That’s why theologian Alister McGrath was surprised when a young man told him he became a Christian after reading The God Delusion.

In the heart of the Garden of Eden, where everything seems perfect, there is an ancient struggle between freedom and restriction—a struggle we have all experienced.

To nothing else is the name of God so often linked in our human discourse as to suffering and deliverance. This locus is a huge and complicated intersection of our existence.

Motto: "Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision." (Winston Churchill)

The effect or influence that a particular thing has on us depends largely on where that thing falls on the scale of our values. It's one thing to lose your folding fan in a foreign country and quite another to lose your passport.

"Where is God?" is the question that arises in the face of inexplicable tragedy. When even a high-ranking clergyman is plagued by this question, the natural response is to conclude that something does not add up.