What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life.

—Emil Brunner, Swiss theologian (1889–1966)

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess, we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity; and in our efforts to ...

Yellow is not my favorite color. But now that I know the story of Vincent van Gogh, I have come to value yellow differently. This famous Dutch painter, sadly, tossed away the truth imparted him in his Christian home and sank into depression and destruction. By the grace of God, as he later began to embrace the truth again, his life took on hope, and he gave that hope color.

The best-kept secret of ...

America is swimming in a sea of Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil! In 2006 alone, over 190 million prescriptions were given for antidepressants. The swim is a little expensive, though. On average, each pill costs between $2-3 for the patient. To add to the burden, the side effects of antidepressants can sometimes be negative.

Researchers at Britain's Essex University have found a much cheaper alternative with ...

From his hospital bed on the eve of open heart surgery, Pastor Bruce McIver asked his cardiologist, Dr. Dudley Johnson, "Can you fix my heart?"

The physician, known for being short and to the point, said, "Sure." Then he quickly turned and walked away.

Following the 12-hour surgery, McIver asked Johnson, "In light of the blocked arteries that I had when I checked into the hospital, how much blood supply ...

Dave Davila, age 24, took a job in Chicago and had to leave his close-knit family in East Moline, Illinois. But family gatherings just weren't the same without Dave. So his mother took a digital photo of him and had it blown up to his actual height—5 foot 8 inches—and mounted on heavy cardboard from a neighbor's new stove box.

So there's Dave, standing casually, hands in pockets, a blue button-down ...

Lord, I crawled across the bareness to you with my empty cup, uncertain in asking any small drop of refreshment. If only I had known you better. I'd have come running with a bucket.

[Jonathan] Edwards first encountered God in an intensely experiential way while reading 1 Timothy 1:17: "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever." He was overcome with "a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before."

The only language that seemed adequate, as he later recorded ...

[Eighteenth century pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards'] most famous composition, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741)…is stunning: it recalls a then-current style of sermons preached to condemned criminals just before their execution, during which the minister would stress their imminent encounter with God and exhort them to repent. Such sermons were often published, so most would ...

When I was a teenager, I met a man who had this disturbing way of pointing things out that I found downright uncomfortable. In one discussion, John suggested that I didn't know as much about myself as I thought I did and, furthermore, I would probably never change. I hurled back that he was wrong; I understood myself pretty well; I was on top of things in most areas of my life; and who was he to tell ...