Our Most Powerful Companion on the Road to Easter Joy

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handAt Easter, we celebrate the ultimate victory of Joy over suffering.  Christ is Risen!  Alleluia!   Death, where is your sting?

All this hoopla must look a little silly from the outside.  Its hard to understand the thrill of Easter if you have not experienced the agony of Good Friday.  And our current culture is not high on Good Friday.  Usually, we are trying to find ways to avoid suffering.  The implicit message is often that happiness results when all suffering is eliminated or successfully avoided.  As Christians, however, we believe that the joy of Easter is possible precisely because of suffering.  This is our model: it is by dying that we can rise to new life.

At a time in my own journey when I particularly needed it, I read a book called Hinds Feet On High Places. It is an allegorical story of the spiritual life, and the main character, Much Afraid, attempts to journey to the high mountains where The Shepherd lives. One of the things that stuck with me most is that The Shepherd chose two companions for Much Afraid to help her make it through the journey: Sorrow and Suffering. Read More →

Fear of a Stingy God: Thoughts on God’s Generosity

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A few weeks ago I was wandering around the house engaged in some task (which I can’t recall now), when I had that unsettling, terrifying feeling…the 3-year-old is not making any noise! Upon reflection I’ve realized that I tend to unconsciously keep track of him by the distant sounds of “Vroom, vroom” or other various forms of screeching, laughing, and/or crying. But silence. Silence means that he is into something he shouldn’t be! He’s quiet when he is in the bathroom putting his toothbrush in the toilet bowl or squeezing all of the toothpaste into the sink while running the faucet water perpetually. Silence with a toddler screams trouble.

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