Personality and your soul language?

I’ve noticed that personality seems to play a significant part of helping us choose our music, our favorite writers, even our theology. Now, this is not to say that we do not have any cognitive processes involved nor that the Spirit doesn’t speak to us regardless of our personality features but consider these T/F questions:
1. [...]

Are you a risk taker?

Better question: What risks do you take each and every day? Do you drive 70 in a 65 mph zone? Do you use your cell phone while driving? Do you eat without washing your hands? Do you eat foods beyond their expiration date? Do you drive after your gas gauge is below E? Do you [...]

Pastor conference at Biblical: March 20, 2009

Local folks, please consider coming or inviting your pastor, pastor’s spouse, or key leaders in your church to our first ever day-long conference for ministry leaders. If God has burdened you for your leaders, consider paying for their registration. This conference will provide both encouragement for the leaders of God’s people as well as practical [...]

Wasting Time?

If you are reading this, you are probably guilty of wasting time as there are likely hundreds of more important things you could and probably should be doing instead. But since you are here…
Wasting time is a rather subjective matter. While there are many things that we all would consider time wasters (e.g., reading junk [...]

Doing the unthinkable: Obeying Commands to do Evil

Have you ever wondered how a person could participate in a genocide? How was it that the average German citizen either explicitly or implicitly participated in the extermination of millions of Jews? Or consider the more recent genocides in Sudan, Rwanda, and the Congo. If you are honest, you’ve asked this question and have thought, “there’s just [...]

The God I Don’t Understand: Chapter 6

Been blogging through Christopher Wright’s book about things that are hard to understand about the Christian God. In earlier chapters he covered things that make him uncomfortable but now he gets to the third section about the cross–something that puzzles but delights him. He begins with this thought:
As I ponder the cross, three fundamental questions sum [...]

The impact of illness on marriages

One last nugget from the book Madness on the impact of serious illness on the marriage relationships. Marya explores the impact of her bipolar disorder on her second marriage and her very devoted husband who spent two years entirely focused on caring for her. When she begins to recover, she notices that he is rather a shell [...]

Madness revisited

Yesterday I made mention of Marya Hornbacher’s On Madness: A Bipolar Life. Nearing the end today and I continue to be taken with her capacity to illustrate the experience of mania, of using it to successfully do great things and of being drop-kicked into depression, of repeated hospitalizations, of the experience of being snowed under [...]

A window into the world of bipolar disorder

As a teacher I am on the constant prowl for books, movies, pictures, etc. that give a realistic and personal view of the experience of mental illness. I picked up a great book regarding the world of the Bipolar I person: Madness: A Bipolar Life, by Marya Hornbacher (Houghton-Mifflin, 2008).
Marya tells of her life in short chapters beginning [...]

Things that scare counselors…

There are certain things that scare counselors. Some things are real, others are mere fantasies. Some are big scares others are smaller ones. When I teach ethics and we talk about liability, the tension in the room increases. When I teach about suicidal clients and the need for a proper response, the tension increases.
What do [...]