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gay

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Touch

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For many men where I live, a handshake is the greeting of choice, sometimes even among close friends. One of my friends rejects this norm openly. If I reach out to shake his hand, he grabs it, pulls me in and gives me a hug. I love it. No, it’s more than that. I need it. Touch isn’t optional. I love the story of the leper who fell down at Jesus’ feet asking, “Lord, if you’re willing, you can make...

How to Keep Relief from Ruining You

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We live in a culture addicted to relief. Whether aspirin, TV, workaholism, gossip, food, or porn, we run to relief at every turn. Why not? If we can experience relief now, why would we not take it?   Because it’s ruining us. Why? Because individually and collectively we’ve elevated relief over restoration. Relief is a lessening or removal of suffering. Restoration is when something is brought...

When Experience Isn’t a Good Thing

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Nothing on earth has the authority to define you. Your identity—your true identity—is who God created you to be. And yet, what you experience regularly informs your sense of who you are. In other words, your experiences—your circumstances, interactions, feelings, temptations, actions, etc.—all give you their opinion about who you are. And as you might guess, their opinion frequently doesn’t align...

Shhhhhhhame

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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...

Why I Didn’t Want to March, and Why I Did Anyway

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Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments for two monumental cases regarding the future of marriage in our country. The court could rule in several ways, but ultimately, what they decide could clear the way for same-sex marriage to become the law of the land across the U.S. With so much at stake, people from both sides of this debate showed up in D.C. last week. I was invited by two dear...

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