Faith

In those times when grief accompanies us and we find ourselves alone in the middle of the night, does God shed tears with us?

"Hi, Alina! I hope you had a productive weekend" was the opening line of an email that, to me, encapsulated a whole misguided philosophy of life.

Courage is not the opposite of fear, nor of caution. True courage is what you do right in the midst of fear.

By the middle of the 17th century, German Protestantism had long ceased to be a burning torch. Accepted by the nobility and the populace, it had become an ecclesiastical, secular, and politicised institution like all the others. In the night of alienation, God brought from the ashes the light of a new dawn.

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.

As the rising sun brought life and light to the east coast of North America, it was greeted by a brisk autumn morning. Hurricane Erin was on the move in the Atlantic, creating heavy rainfall from Newfoundland to Bermuda. A cold front saved most of the eastern seaboard from the hurricane’s destruction and the resulting high-pressure front produced clear skies—perfect conditions for air travel.

I have always imagined that well-being, bright prospects, good health and a clear purpose in life tend not to inspire questions about the meaning of life very often.

“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me” (Habakkuk 2:1).

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.

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

An ordinary wooden chair is a metaphor that’s often used to talk about the key dynamics of faith. But it’s worth exploring further. Perhaps we could describe this as a process of developing the theory of a chair.

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.

“All I can do is pray and hope.” With those words, I ended an article on infertility. After years of marriage and not one pregnancy, I did one of the only things I could do to help me process the fact that my wife and I might never have children: I wrote about it. 

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.

“Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:20).