What Grace Looks Like
As I watched The Empire Strikes Back again, I felt like a kid hearing Yoda tell Luke, "For my ally is the Force, and a p...
Grace
54 studies
The Unanswered Question
A friend asked if I wanted to make a donation to a cause he supports. It was a worthy initiative: caring for kids who ha...
Angry at God
In Luke 15, the religious leaders complain about Jesus: "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." In response, Jes...
Hidden Mercy
After Jesus was born, some pagan worshippers arrived in Jerusalem. We call them wise men, but King Herod and the religio...
The Scoreboard
I researched how to make a web app go viral. One website recommended adding streaks with competitions, gamification, and...
You Already Have It
When I was a kid, my mom had a tradition in which we would go to the store with her and "help Santa out" by suggesting w...
Reflect: Found by Jesus
When the Bible Becomes a Battleground
I spent years arguing about whether God chose me or I chose God. Scholars on both sides warned me that the other positio...
The Life We Are Dying to Kill
I once got incredibly angry at one of my roommates because he wrote a blog with what I considered bad theology. I felt I...
Angered By Grace
In the spring of 2009, a student I discipled, whom I'll call Rob, went on a missions trip to Honduras. Unfortunately, on...
The End of the VIP Room
One of the perks of working at RZIM was access to the Green Room. When we hosted packed events at our headquarters, it f...
When Outsiders Get It First
"I just called everyone on my phone and told them about Jesus." I was stunned. I didn't even know she was a Christian...
The World He Loved
We love John 3:16 because it feels safe. It's an inspirational thought printed on bumper stickers and In-N-Out cups. But...
When the Wine Runs Out
Sitting at Au Bon Pain in Harvard Square, I had to lead another Bible study. But I'd already studied the Bible with five...
Look!
When I was in middle school, another student loved to torment me with cruel nicknames. The one that hurt the most? "Tubb...
The Word is With Us
My Mom said the rocks would be amazing. I believed her, but sitting in the car for hours made me wish I was back home. S...
Reflect: Look at Jesus
Holiness Happens When We Stop Hiding
I was twenty-four, running through a park near Waynoka Avenue in Memphis. Mile two, maybe three. The cold air burned my...
The Debt You Could Never Repay
I was at Crunch, on the second rep of my bicep curls, and without warning, I nearly dropped the weights. "I just want to...
God's Grace Is Enough
I remember staring at my phone, willing myself to pick it up, but my arm felt like lead. I needed to raise support to ke...
The Weight of a Fresh Calendar
A fresh paper planner smells like anxiety. It's the feeling that if you can just organize the boxes right, you can final...
The Exhaustion of Self-Creation
When Facebook first arrived at my college, I remember the rush to set up a profile so everyone could know who I was, wha...
When Prayer Feels Like a Performance
My friend and I met up in Bellingrath Chapel at Rhodes College, where we'd agreed to pray together for an hour. The sile...
The Benefit of Shame
A guy once told me about the time he was arrested for drunk driving. When they put him into the jail cell, he came face-...
Horse Backwash
When I served as a campus minister at Harvard, I sometimes wondered if I belonged there. Everyone seemed to have themsel...
A New Family
At the end of every school year, I always looked forward to getting the yearbook. The first thing I did was turn to the...
One Sentence
A few years before Jesus was born, in the town of Priene in Asia Minor, an inscription was carved into stone. It celebra...
Waiting to Be Right
In Flannery O'Connor's short story "Revelation," Mrs. Turpin sits in a doctor's waiting room while gospel music plays on...
An Honest Prayer
My friend asked if he could tell me something personal and private. "Of course," I said. He told me he was interested in...
Seaweed Prayers
During ten years of campus ministry, fundraising was never fun-raising, so I avoided it. But when I fell behind in my bu...
The Worst Boast
"So, what do you do for a living?" is my least favorite question. I've found that most people change the topic when I te...
My Friends
When I studied abroad in England for six months, I wanted to make friends. I know we usually avoid investing in someone...
Blessed, Blessed, Blessed
#blessed. It's the default caption for photos of new cars, new houses, new jobs, or sunsets. The word has even escaped t...
Disgraced
After enduring spiritual abuse as an employee at RZIM, I could only trust a very small handful of people. I no longer kn...
Killers
"You might be right, but you're not doing it in the right way." When my high school English teacher confronted me on...
Not Me
From the Auschwitz death camp, the Franciscan priest Maximilian Kolbe wrote to his mother, "Do not worry about me or my...
Victory
I gasped for air and charged around a curve on a dirt path deep in the woods. To my shock, my cross-country coach was th...
Delivered Over
When I think about the people I love the most, this is the Bible study I want to write the least. How does honoring God...
But As For Me
"Bless us Lord, rain down your blessings on us, we just ask you Lord to bless us." I didn't object to the prayer in a...
The Impossible Story
In 1970, John Darley and Daniel Batson asked seminary students at Princeton Theological Seminary to participate in a stu...
Best Friends
As I turned from East Parkway onto Union Avenue in Memphis, I asked the student going to the service project with me how...
Abba
In Benjamin Franklin's *Autobiography,* he wrote that he "conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral pe...
Broken Tablets
I looked out at everyone singing and praising God. For me, silence felt more honest. After yelling at my family on the w...
Scrolling Past God
"Sometimes I'll just be sitting in the prayer room, scrolling on my phone, waiting for my shift to end." I appreciate...
Vomit Faith
In the autumn of 1784, a twenty-five-year-old Member of Parliament jolted across the stone-paved roads of Europe, bounci...
Talk Is Cheap
An anonymous poster to an online forum wrote, "I am a new Christian. I sin a lot. I am such a bad person. I insult other...
How to Live Well
In April 2026, Bryan Johnson published his simplified daily routine for maximal health. It takes four hours and forty-si...
The Good Tree
In October 1913, Henry Ford introduced the moving assembly line, cutting the time it took his factory workers to assembl...
I Quit
As the volunteer leaders gathered, a pastor exhorted us: "Remember, this event is not just about serving the community....
Sorry, Not Sorry
"After I got hurt by a church, only one person ever reached out to make it right." I thought that seemed unlikely. In an...
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