The Hope of Healing

The longing for things to be good again is making us vulnerable to all sorts of compromises. I can help you with this. First, let’s remove the shock and shame of those moments when hard-pressed you suddenly rages, binges, goes faithless, or simply shows up as a very unappealing version of you. Salvation is a process, not an event. Oh yes—salvation is a homecoming to be sure. That is the event. Our salvation begins when we first turn toward Jesus with an open.…

Many years ago, Joni Mitchell wrote a song called “Woodstock” in which she saw the human race trapped in a “bargain” with the devil. Urging her listeners to seek a simpler, more peaceful existence, she sang of a return to “the garden.” Mitchell spoke for a generation longing for purpose and meaning. Mitchell’s poetical “garden” is Eden, of course. Eden was the paradise God created for us back in the beginning. In this,…

Of all that God created, one thing did not meet with His approval. With regard to Adam, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). The Creator designed people for emotional, mental, and physical intimacy—to share their innermost selves with one another. Jesus taught His disciples that they should love each other as He had loved them. (John 15:12). In a God-honoring friendship, two people build each other up and spur one another toward.…

Whatever else it means to be human, we know beyond doubt that it means to be relational. Aren’t the greatest joys and memories of your life associated with family, friendship, or falling in love? Aren’t your deepest wounds somehow connected to someone also, to a failure of relationship? That you were loved but are no longer, or that you never have been chosen? One of the deepest of all human longings is the longing to belong, to be a part of things, to be…

Have you ever found yourself simply standing in front of the refrigerator, not looking for anything specific but wanting to fill a longing? At other times, our craving involves something other than food, such as a career, possessions, or relationships. Our souls are continually trying to find satisfaction, but nothing in this world will fill the void. Since we were created for relationship with God, He placed deep within us a yearning for Him. Though we may not recognize it…

Now—what is your part? What is your role in the Story? In truth, the only one who can tell you that is the Author. To find our lives, we must turn to Jesus. We must yield our all to him and ask him to restore us as his own. We ask his forgiveness for our betrayal of him. We ask him to make us all he intended us to be—to tell us who we are and what we are now to do. We ask him to remove the veil from our eyes and from our hearts.The Story God is telling&mdash…

The more you know yourself, the more this will prove an immensely helpful category. (And please, as Socrates urged, do not live an unexamined life; know yourself.) What are you historically prone to do when it comes to making decisions? If yours is a story filled with indecision, that “confusion” might have nothing to do with clarity and everything to do with fear, or shame, or a wounded heart. A young man afflicted with relational paralysis (he just couldn&rsquo…

Denial is a favorite method of coping for many Christians. But not with Jesus. He wants truth in the inmost being, and to get it there he's got to take us into our inmost being. One way he'll do this is by bringing up an old memory. You'll be driving down the road and suddenly remember something from your childhood. Or maybe you'll have a dream about a long-forgotten person, event, or place. However he brings it up, go with him there. He has something to…

First thing in the morning I scan emails and read a few inbox devotionals, always Jesus Calling. This morning I had to stop and consider just how profound this paragraph is for all believers in Jesus Christ. As if to quote Jesus, Sarah Young said this, “I am pleased with you, My child. Though you are still a work in progress, you desire for Me to sanctify you—to make you holy. . . . However, as long as you live in this world, you inhabit the not yet of brokenness&mdash…