Stasi – my source of great worship music – just played a new song for me last night that captures something God put on our hearts in a big way these past few months. It’s called “Suddenly” (by Daniel Bashta) and the opening lines go like this:

We are longing for your coming

We are desperate for your presence

And the refrain goes,

Suddenly come, suddenly come, suddenly come just like you promised.

Oh friends, it is nearer now than ever.

Back in November we held a small retreat here in Colorado. As the event drew near, Jesus gave us a new topic, and in doing so we knew that he had something on his heart for us. Not just for us at the retreat, but for all of us who...

"Why God?"

The young man was lying on the bathroom floor, in a foreign country; he had passed out and was covered with yuck. He is a beautiful young man, a friend of my sons, a follower of Christ, bright, creative, gifted. He has also known more than his share of strange physical afflictions, and this one—passing out in a sketchy bathroom and hitting his head far too hard on the tile floor thousands of miles from home, on a trip that was supposed to be hopeful and adventurous and maybe even romantic—this brought the cry from his heart. The first thing he said when he came to was, "Why God?!"

The story broke my heart. This young man does not need one more reason to doubt God. And so the story...

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity. (Yeats, The Second Coming)

Evil struck again.

And while I would prefer a solemn silence—the only good thing Job’s counselors offered him—so many unhelpful things are being said and suggested around the Newtown massacre I found myself compelled to write. Because the question of evil may be the greatest question the world faces today. How do we deal with evil? How do we prevent such tragedy?...

So, I've been captured by two verses recently. The first goes like this:

"We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf" (Hebrews 6:19-20).

My first reaction was, No we don't; I hardly know anyone who actually has this anchor for the soul. If there is anything that characterizes the souls of this postmodern age, it is adrift. Not anchored. Anchorless. But God promises we CAN have this anchor, this hope, if we choose so. What is the hope? The Kingdom of Jesus; the sure and certain reality of the Kingdom of God, and the coming of that Kingdom. If you put your hopes in that, it...