Faith

I doubt there’s a person who hasn’t heard of the Boston Marathon bombing, which took the lives of three people. As runners entered the home straight, with the finish line in sight, first one then another explosion ripped through the happy, watching throng.

The question of human suffering concerns atheists and believers alike. For the former, the search for an answer drives them to the heights of despair. For the latter, suffering inevitably poses a dilemma: why is there so much suffering in the world if the God who created it is loving and omnipotent?

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.

Contemplating a God who forgives any sin, no matter how monstrous, can be a stumbling block to those who believe there must be some reasonable limits to forgiveness. But it is also a reason for hope for those who might otherwise feel too sinful to seek Him.

Live every day like it is your our last! Many use these phrase as a prop for their riskiest decision, or simply to justify a recklessly extravagant lifestyle. But what would our lives look like if we were to really live each day fully aware that it might be our last?

Every time I look through the lens of a microscope, I am struck by the realisation that beyond what the naked eye can see lies a universe far deeper and richer.

These days we all need to hear good news—that life will soon return to normal and that we will be able to return to the troubles of yesterday, which now seem small to us. In the meantime, our lifestyle has seen changes that we could not have imagined just a few weeks ago.

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.

The greatest tragedy of life is not unanswered prayer, but unoffered prayer. – F. B. Meyer

Living one day according to God's plan is a good idea to start with. But learning to live in such a way every day is something else.

We’d been married only a few weeks when we discovered that growing our spirituality as a couple was going to be much more complicated than the instructions on the packet suggested.

On the night when heaven descended among mortals, it was not the high priests or scholars who were the first to see God, but some lowly shepherds.

It is hard to remain indifferent to a life story like that of Terri Roberts, the mother of a young man who, in a still-unexplained moment of madness, stormed into an all-girls Amish school and began shooting, killing five of the students before killing himself.

Ask any cinematographer what gets them excited, and I guarantee there’s a fair chance they’ll answer with “lenses”. Having spent many years studying film and many more practising it, I can safely say that I now understand why this is—and it’s probably the first response you’d hear from me if you asked me the same question.

Every human being, without exception, is a potential suicide. If we look at suicide as a process of self-judgment, condemnation, and execution, every human being walks down this path, at least some of the way.