As a child, I was captivated by Jesus' words on prayer [in Matthew 6:5–6]. …

In the wee ranch house where I grew up, my bedroom was my sanctuary. But my real "inner sanctum," the only space that made me feel uninhibited enough to unload my youthful angst onto God, was my closet. Crouched in its dark, tiny confines, I'd spill tears of anger and words of confusion over childhood slights and perceived ...

As a young Michigan Congressman, Gerald Ford met a gospel-film executive named Billy Zeoli who stopped by his office and gave him a Bible. Over the next few years, the two men became close—so close, in fact, that Ford came to call Zeoli "an alter ego, a second self."

Among their bonds was a love of sports: Ford had been an All-American football player, and Zeoli created a ministry for professional ...

The summer drought of 2007 allowed scientists and archaeologists in Florida to look through a window into the state's past and uncover hidden treasures just below the surface of Lake Okeechobee.

Okeechobee is the nation's second largest lake. Because of the drought, the lake hit its lowest level on record. In some areas the shoreline receded more than a mile, creating areas of dry lakebed where historical ...

After spending Thanksgiving with family in Seattle, Washington, the Kim family began their long journey back to San Francisco on November 24, 2006. James and Kati, along with their daughters Penelope (4) and Sabine (7 months), traveled south on Interstate 5 until late in the evening, intending to exit onto Highway 42 and spend the night in an upscale lodge. But they missed their turn.

Instead of backtracking, ...

2006 was a year of surprises for Sylvester Stallone. First, he surprised the entertainment world by resurrecting his iconic movie hero, Rocky Balboa, for one last film. Then, while promoting the film, Stallone shocked Christian fans with the revelation that his faith in Jesus Christ had not only impacted the writing of the first Rocky film, but also that his decision to create the final movie was ...

Tim Sanders—former chief solutions officer at Yahoo! and author of Love Is the Killer App—shares the following thought about establishing priorities:

Take your life and all the things that you think are important, and put them in one of three categories. These three categories are represented by three items: glass, metal, and rubber.

The things that are made of rubber, when you drop them, ...

Parishioners of a conservative, small-town church in rural Indiana were surprised one Sunday when a biker came to visit. He stuck out like a sore thumb—pony-tailed, tattooed, and wearing bikers' colors. But the church came alongside him and showered him with love and acceptance. He kept coming back and eventually became a Christian.

But there was one lingering question: Why did the biker always ...

In John Paul the Great, author Peggy Noonan describes a friend who asked the question, "How do you find God?" Noonan replied with the following:

Finding God is not hard, because he wants to be found. But keeping God can be hard. He wants to be kept, of course, but for most of us, finding him and keeping him is the difference between falling in love and staying in love. The latter involves a decision ...

I was born in the waning days of vinyl records. I would watch as my father pulled them from their sleeves and placed them on the turntable. When the needle dropped into the record's grooves, the speakers popped to life with a tide of white noise that was chased away by music. Some records were so worn that they hiccupped along or—even worse—repeated a section, over and over again.

The sound ...

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 ...