To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here There has never been a shortage of utopian dreamers – individuals who believe they hold the key to humanity’s ultimate happiness. One of them was Alexander Scriabin, a Russian musician who became convinced he had been chosen to write a masterwork that would usher in the very end of history. Born… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Anne Rice stunned the literary world in 1998 when she announced she had become a Christian. As a self-described “pessimistic atheist” and the author of the supernatural thriller Interview With the Vampire and its sequels, Rice seemed to be one of the least likely celebrity converts. She acknowledged that many of… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Who’s the most dominant American individual in the history of the Summer Olympics? Sportscaster Mike Greenberg teases that question in Got Your Answers, a book that endeavors to settle “the top 100 greatest sports arguments.” Track and field superstar Carl Lewis comes to mind. So does gymnast Simone Biles. How about… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Almost 30 years ago, I attended a Promise Keepers gathering of about 40,000 pastors in Atlanta. It was an assembly that represented hundreds of different church groups and denominational affiliations. We heard speaker after speaker. After a while their messages, many of which were genuinely inspiring, began to blend together. I… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Scientists called it the Anthropause. The rest of us called it the life-altering, routine-disrupting, hope-challenging COVID-19 pandemic. Five years ago, the World Health Organization alerted humanity to the highly contagious virus that has now claimed more than 7 million lives. Medical personnel labored beyond the point of exhaustion. Schools, churches, and… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here None of the seven astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger survived the explosion that tore it apart just 73 seconds after launch. But something traveling aboard the shuttle did survive. Workers tasked with recovering fragments of the ship discovered a black duffel bag floating in the Atlantic. Inside was a soccer… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Pope Francis, who stepped into the next world just a few hours after Easter, was a different kind of leader. In a world where presidents, pastors, and CEO’s all too often become autocratic and self-absorbed as their power increases, Francis grew steadily “smaller.” The 12 years of his papacy were characterized… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here All of us make mistakes. With grace and grit, we can learn from our mistakes. And then there are those of us who actually earn from our mistakes. That brings us to Bette Nesmith Graham, an executive secretary in the mid-1950s for the Texas Bank and Trust. Bette had a great… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here There is no more exasperating and wrenching human reality than suffering. It’s safe to say that “the problem of pain” has historically been the number one obstacle to trusting God. Theologian John Stott put it this way: “The fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith, and… Read more »
To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast, click here Each day this Lent we’re looking at major “turning points” in Christian history – moments or seasons in which the story of God’s people took an important and often unexpected turn. The sneaky thing about history is that it’s always happening. It may feel entirely safe to curl up in… Read more »
