We don’t know how bad we are until we try to be good. Nothing exposes our selfishness and spiritual pwerlessness like prayer.

Prayer is asking God to incarnate, to get dirty in your life. Yes, the eternal God scrubs floors. For sure we know he washes feet. So take Jesus at his word. Ask him. Tell him...

…Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest”(Matthew 11:28, NASB). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness....

When confronted with suffering that won’t go away or with even a minor problem, we instinctively focus on what is missing,…not on the Master’s hand. Often when you think everything has gone wrong, it’s just...

In order to pray like a child, you might need to unlearn the nonpersonal, nonreal praying that you’ve been taught.

As we wait and pray, God weaves his story and creates a wonder. Instead of drifting between comedy (denial) and tragedy (reality), we have a relationship with the living God, who is intimately involved with...

To be cynical is to be distant. While offering a false intimacy of being “in the know,” cynicism actually destroys intimacy. It leads to a creeping bitterness that can deaden and even destroy the spirit…A...

Cynicism creates a numbness toward life.Cynicism begins with a wry assurance that everyone has an angle. Behind every silver lining is a cloud. The cynic is always observing, critiquing, but never engaging, loving, and hoping….To...

God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden… The best gift of the desert is God’s presence… The protective love of...

Prayer is a moment of incarnation – God with us. God involved in the details of my life.

Sometimes when we say “God is silent,” what’s really going on is that he hasn’t told the story the way we wanted it told. He will be silent when we want him to fill in...

Prayer mirrors the gospel. In the gospel, the Father takes us as we are and gives us his gift of salvation. In prayer, the Father receives us as we are because of Jesus and gives...

If you wait, your heavenly Father will pick you up, carry you out into the night, and make your life sparkle. He wants to dazzle you with the wonder of his love.

The kingdom comes when Jesus becomes king of your life. But it has to be your life.

Self-will and prayer are both ways of getting things done. At the center of self-will is me, carving a world in my image, but at the center of prayer is God, carving me in his...

Learning to pray doesn’t offer us a less busy life; it offersus aless busy heart.

Everything you do is connected to who you are as a person and, in turn, creates the person you are becoming. Everything you do affects those you love. All of life is covenant.Imbedded in the...

We have an allergic reaction to dependency, but this is the state of the heart most necessary for a praying life. A need heart is a praying heart. Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer.

God is a person, and his universe reflects his personhood. The closer something is to the character of God, the more it reflects him and the less it can be measured. Things such as integrity,...