Skip to content ↓

Explore Articles

  • A Manifesto for Times of Suffering

    A Manifesto for Times of Suffering

    In the relatively early days following Nick’s death, I understood that I would face a number of temptations—the temptation to sink into unremitting despair, the temptation to descend into self-pity, or the temptation to charge God with wrong. I knew also that God was calling me to carry a deep sorrow for a long time…

  • Thankful

    Today … I’m Thankful

    It’s Thanksgiving today here in Canada. Because we like to get this holiday out of the way long before the Christmas season begins, we celebrate it in early October as opposed to late November like our neighbors to the south. But apart from the different date and the different national history, it is otherwise much…

  • Christian When Persecution Comes Embrace It

    Christian, When Persecution Comes: Embrace It

    The Christian faith is counterintuitive in any number of ways, but perhaps none so much as in its perspective on suffering and, particularly, its perspective on suffering persecution. We may see this most clearly in the actions of the apostles who, after being imprisoned and beaten, “left the presence of the council rejoicing that they…

  • So You Think You're Facing Persecution Do You

    So You Think You’re Facing Persecution, Do You?

    Jesus tells us to expect persecution. This is something I attempted to prove in an article a couple of days ago when I showed that at both the beginning and the ending of his ministry he warned that there would be a cost to following him. Yet Jesus knows that not everything that may look…

  • Christian Do You Expect To Face Persecution

    Christian, Do You Expect to Face Persecution?

    There’s an old story that tells of a missionary—a missionary who became convinced the Lord had called him to go to a foreign land. Obviously, he first needed some training, and as part of that, he collected books about the country and he studied them very closely. He began to learn its language and to…

  • 7 Beautiful Things

    7 Beautiful Things

    As another week drew to a close, I found myself pondering beauty and wanting to reflect on some of the beautiful things I had encountered in the previous 7 days. Here are the ones that came to mind. 1. Fall Colors. Autumn in Ontario is almost breathtakingly beautiful during those few weeks when the leaves…

  • Our Understanding of Earth and Our Assumptions of Heaven

    Our Understanding of Earth and Our Assumptions of Heaven

    I think we are all guilty at times of importing our understanding of earth into our assumptions of heaven. We are all guilty of importing our understanding of how things work here to how they will work there. We look at the world we know and extrapolate to the one we don’t. I sometimes fear,…

  • Idolatry is Futility

    Idolatry is Futility

    We are all prone to idolatry. We may consider ourselves far too advanced to bow before an idol of wood or stone, to bend the knee to the image of an animal or man. But none of us is immune from bowing before the idols of our dreams and desires, before the idols of our…

  • A Late Summer Family Update

    A Late Summer Family Update (+ a few more LOTR thoughts)

    We are now two weeks past the launch event for Seasons of Sorrow and one week past the official release date. Overall I think things went well. The Getty Music Sing! Conference, where we held the launch event and where I led a breakout session, was my first conference in more than two years and…

  • Emerging From Our Trials Unscathed

    Emerging From Our Trials Unscathed

    It’s undoubtedly one of the most-told and best-loved stories in the entire Old Testament. It has all the hallmarks of a great tale—heroes and villains and peril and deliverance. It tells of faithful young men who faced unjust persecution, faithful young men who were sentenced to die a horrific death—to be consumed by flames in…

  • Not a Matter of Pitch or Tone

    Not a Matter of Pitch or Tone

    God commands us to sing. Yet while some of God’s people are gifted singers, the plain fact is that others are not. In any congregation it’s likely that some have near-perfect pitch while others are functionally tone-deaf. Those who struggle to sing may be self-conscious, tempted to stay quiet or to do no more than…

  • Are You a Peacemaker or a Troublemaker

    Are You a Peacemaker or a Troublemaker?

    I recently spent some time studying one of the simplest verses in the New Testament: “blessed are the peacemakers.” There are no tricky words in this verse, no difficult Greek to parse. To be blessed means to be happy or to experience God’s favor; to be a peacemaker is to (wait for it!) make peace.…

  • The Rings of Power

    On What Basis Could The Rings of Power Completely Fail?

    I first encountered The Lord of the Rings during the loneliest year of my childhood. My family had moved, my friends had been left behind, and I was lonely. The one friend I did make that year was an avid fan of the books and pleaded with me to read them. I did so and…

  • A Few Handfuls for Weary Little Listeners

    A Few Handfuls for Weary Little Listeners

    Ray Van Neste recently appealed to pastors to ensure they don’t neglect the children in their preaching. “Preacher, don’t assume children can’t or won’t listen,” he said. “Many things will escape them, but they understand more than we give them credit for.” Hence, “you should speak to the children in your sermons.” I very much…

  • So Youve Been Told You Should Read Some Old Books

    So You’ve Been Told You Should Read Some Old Books…

    A reader of this site recently got in touch to ask me for some book suggestions. She has been a believer for quite a long time and along the way has heard of the value of reading “Christian classics.” Yet she hasn’t been sure where to begin and asked for some guidance. I was glad…

  • Blessings

    When God’s Blessings Flow

    A few months ago I stood upon the rocky shores of Malta and gazed out to sea. I pondered what it must have been like nearly 2,000 years ago as the Apostle Paul leapt from a battered, broken ship and made his way ashore. There are a number of spots on Malta that claim the…

  • Teaching Others to Sing Sweetly

    Teaching Others to Sing Sweetly

    The story is told of a musician—a particularly skillful musician with a highly-developed ear for pitch, tone, and harmony—who visited a new church for the first time. He arrived a little late and entered the sanctuary just as the congregation was beginning to sing the opening song. To his chagrin, the singing was badly out…

  • The Day We Became Homeschoolers

    The Day We Became Homeschoolers

    We have unexpectedly become homeschoolers. After having two children get all the way through twelfth grade in the public schools, we had expected that the third would follow suit. But over the summer Michaela expressed her interest in making a switch as she heads into her final two years of high school; Aileen and I…

  • One String to the Bow

    One String to the Bow

    We have been blessed with a number of books that adapt and share the prayers of the Puritans. The Valley of Vision is the most famous of these of course, and Piercing Heaven is another. I was glad to see that we will be spoiled yet again, this time with Tim Chester’s Into His Presence…

  • When Pastors Need To Be Extra Cautious

    When Pastors Need To Be Extra Cautious

    I once read of a pastor who made the commitment to spend several days out of every month with his parishioners at their workplaces. He made it his habit to arrange visits to their factories and offices, their stores and schools. He had a specific purpose in mind and one he believed would make him…