Do Not Wait For Me
The Christmas season is traditionally known as Advent, a word that means waiting. It is not only waiting for the first coming of Christ in humility but also for His coming again in power. It is this idea of waiting that has gripped me recently. What do we wait for? What do we hope in? […]
How Imaginative Prayer Can Heal
This is the 3rd is a series on how the imagination can connect a man to God. The first post offered some thoughts about the importance of the imagination. The second post shared how to use our imagination to read the Bible. In this post, I want to move in another direction: how imaginative prayer […]
Reading The Bible With Our Imagination
The NeverEnding Story is a children’s fantasy film in which a boy goes from reading a fairy tale to being sucked into the tale itself. This is as good a picture as I know of for how we are to read the Bible. It is the greatest story of all time, and we are to […]
Awakening to the Imagination
I have a confession to make: I have spent most of my life suspicious of the imagination, especially mine. I equated the imagination with the imaginary. Hence, it was unreal, untrue, and untrustworthy. It may be OK for kids to play with, but definitely not for grown men. But in the past ten years, I […]
Practicing The Presence
This is the third in a series on God’s presence. God is always inviting us into His presence (the first post). As we learn to accept that invitation, His presence shapes us into true men (the second post). But the practical question is upon us. How do we stay in His presence? How do we […]
God’s Presence Shapes Us Into Men
This is the second in a series on God’s presence. The topic of masculinity has become a hot-button, cultural discussion. Differing definitions of manhood abound, as well as programs for how to become a man. But in all of these conversations, one thing is rarely, if ever mentioned. It is God’s presence that most surely […]
Invited Into God’s Presence
Throughout most of history, mankind has felt drawn to something beyond the physical world, something more than what could be accessed with the senses. The longing for this other world played itself out in the various myths and practices of animistic religions. The spiritual world did not need to be proven. It was assumed as […]
3 Pointers To Being A Good Father
How does a man become a good father? In this last post on fatherhood, I want to answer this question with some practical pointers. But I want to begin by examining the motivation behind our desire to be good fathers. When my two daughters were born, the predominant drive to be a good father was […]
Experiencing God’s Fatherhood as a Son
This post is the third in a series on fatherhood. Experiencing God’s fatherhood as a son is simply not a category for many men. This becomes clear whenever I speak about God’s fatherhood to a group of men. The normal line of questions that come deal with how they can be better fathers to their […]
Fathers: The Blessing and the Curse
The hope for a father is etched into the masculine soul. But it is a tenuous hope, yielding joy to some and misery to others. It is the blessing and curse of fathers. In the first post on fatherhood, I connected our desire for a father with Jesus’ message about God as Father. In this […]