Dear Friends, I had the privilege of spending the past few days at a workshop for pastors on how the church can be a more effective tool in working for peace in their local communities. It was an interesting topic, and I heard a lot of good information - but I think my favorite part of the workshop was when the speakers took time to share some of their own, personal journey of walking with God. However, one of the speakers made a comment that really stuck with me, as she opened up her time by saying: “Before I was a Christian, I had an unbelievable life - making lots of money, going to exclusive parties, and traveling the world. But I gave it all up to follow Christ!” To be honest, the c

Dear Friends, Recently I've been pondering what it means to love God. It's been on my mind a lot because Easter is not very far away, and so I've been studying the death and resurrection of Christ in preparation for our church services. As I've studied what Christ went through in the week leading up to His crucifixion, I keep thinking, “He must have loved God a lot!” Now, to be honest, this is a somewhat unusual thought for me. Typically when I think of the crucifixion, I think of how much Jesus must have loved us, because He went through so much agony on our behalf. But for some reason, this time around, I keep thinking of how much He must have loved His Father, because after all, it wa

Dear Friends, Today is Ash Wednesday, which in many faith traditions is the beginning of the season of Lent. Not being raised in a church that celebrated Lent, over the years I have studied what the tradition is all about, and why it’s celebrated. As I’ve done so, I’ve come to learn that Ash Wednesday is a day set aside as a time of confession and repentance for believers. So with that in mind, today I decided to spend some extra time during my morning devotions to focus on doing both of those things. To help with that, I decided to use a short book of confessional prayers that someone gave me a few years back. It’s not the sort of thing I normally use, so I enjoyed the change of pace.