There are several Canada goose families with baby geese at the pond near our apartment complex The little goslings are so fluffy and cute it rsquo s hard not to watch them when I go for a walk or run around the pond But I rsquo ve learned to avoid eye contact and give the geese a wide berth mdash otherwise I risk a protective goose parent suspecting a threat and hissing and chasing me The image of a bird protecting her young is one that Scripture uses to describe God rsquo s tender protective love for His children Psalm [... more]

It was impossible not to tear up at my friend Ira rsquo s status update Posted in only days after she rsquo d left her home in the besieged capital of Ukraine Kyiv she shared a past image of herself lifting her country rsquo s flag after completing a running event She wrote ldquo We are all running to the best of our abilities a marathon called life Let rsquo s run it these days even better than that With something that never dies in our hearts rdquo In the following days I saw the many ways my friend continued [... more]

Christian consciousness begins in the painful realization that what we had assumed was the truth is in fact a lie rdquo Eugene Peterson wrote in his powerful reflections on Psalm Psalm is the first of the ldquo psalms of ascent rdquo Psalms ndash sung by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem And as Peterson explored in nbsp A Long Obedience in the Same Direction nbsp InterVarsity Press nbsp nbsp these psalms also offer us a picture of the spiritual journey toward God That journey can only begin with profound awareness of our need for something different As Peterson puts it [... more]