Shame hurts. And when you’ve done something wrong, that’s a good thing. Like all pain, it’s meant to tell you something’s amiss and needs attention. When a splinter enters a person’s hand, pain sensors alert the person that there’s a problem by making the hand hurt. When the splinter’s removed, the wound is cleaned, and the cells regenerate, the hand no longer hurts. Likewise, when shame is...
It's so much greater. Changing our thinking about sex could change our world.
When it comes to change, pain isn't usually the problem. How we interpret pain is.
If this sounds disappointing or discouraging to you, pause for a moment and consider this question: Do you think God wants you to use him? The desire to be used by God sounds good on the surface. Noble even. But it’s not what He’s after. This is good news because at our core, we don’t want to be used. We want to be loved. We want our work to matter to someone because we matter to them. We want...
Ever look around church and feel like you must be the only one who’s not getting as much from God as you want? The truth is we all long for more of God than we experience. We want God to show up, to love us in the places that yearn for Him most, to make a difference we can feel and see. Waiting for God can be like waiting for sex. (Bear with me.) Consider a bride-to-be who can’t wait to come...
All I did was ask for half caff. Our waitress glanced toward the kitchen miserably, like I’d just added an hour’s worth of work to her day. I looked around at the spattering of others in the restaurant (hardly a rush); then, when she walked away, I leaned across the table and whispered to my friend, “She’s a grump.” Maybe. But this was also an opportunity for me, and I missed it. Two days later I...