Faith

When I was 20, my spiritual life felt like an exam where I had been given a topic I hadn’t prepared for.

I have always liked to participate in public worship and to practice some of the spiritual disciplines. I did not experience a stormy conversion. God revealed himself to me, instead, like “a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12).

Rediscovering the blessing that resides in the little things of life has been one of the challenges of every season I've lived through. This is the conclusion I always come to when I take a moment to reflect.

Fathers are an important part of their children’s lives. Good dads can provide stability, protection and love in a child’s life.

Divorce, widowhood, or celibacy are just a few of the faces of loneliness, an experience which Christians also deal with at some point. Those who have often crossed paths with it, say that loneliness is truly a flowering wilderness: a place that is isolated but where deep spiritual lessons are learned.

The book written by John Ortberg, All the Places to Go... How Will You Know? invites us to reflect on the discerning of God’s will for our lives.

When we are isolated with our family, problems that are sometimes easy to ignore become more acute, and the need to receive and offer forgiveness to those around us becomes increasingly evident.

Paul was imprisoned by the Roman Emperor. He was on Death Row. Every morning, when he opened his eyes, he didn’t know if this day would be his last, and whether he would be thrown to the lions or burned.

“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength,” says Corrie ten Boom, thus underlining a truth all Christians burdened by worry should remember.

Edinburgh Castle sits proudly on the hill overlooking the city. Buildings and tourist shops crowd its feet, right up to the gate, where the square is being prepared for the famous Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

Science and faith, as important tools in the knowledge process, are often perceived to be in a tense relationship with each other, because of the fundamentally different worldviews that characterize them. The implications for life’s big questions are obvious—and sufficient to rob someone of the comfort of indifference towards such high-stakes conclusions.

Dr. John Ashton of Newcastle, Australia, is a compelling example of a serious research scientist who bases his beliefs regarding the origins of the universe and life on the Bible.

Their common dream was to take the Gospel to the far reaches of the earth. In the early 1950s, young men Jim Elliot, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint, and Roger Youderian were with their families in South America, working in Christian missions. The future was to bring them together in an extremely dangerous dream.

Soviet soldier Bakhretdin Khakimov was declared missing in action during the war in Afghanistan, which claimed the lives of 15,000 USSR soldiers and more than a million Afghans. Thirty-three years later, his family found out he was alive, living as a true Afghan among his former enemies.

I was descending from Omu Peak, in the Bucegi Mountains, with a few dozen young people. It had not been an ideal hike, and we were behind schedule. The forest made the darkness even thicker as it began to cover the mountain, and slowly, our minds as well.