“I feel invisible,” Angelica’s face sunk with her words. “My husband doesn’t even see me. He’s so focused on his work, his ministry projects, what he wants to do. There’s no room for me in our relationship…” After listening to her awhile, I felt like she was invisible! Really. My office was filled with his…
One thing that helped turn me around before I totally burned out was to look prayerfully at the life of Jesus. I studied the Gospels carefully and learned some surprising things that I hadn’t been taught in church. I saw Jesus setting boundaries repeatedly. I share the full results of this study into the confident…
If you’re caring for people that have been traumatized or are in crisis then you’re suffering with them vicariously. If you’re a pastor, you probably think you live in a nice city, but actually you’re in a spiritual and emotional war zone! Just being a tender-hearted person in our world today exposes you to vicarious…
We love being with family for the holidays — or maybe not! It can be stressful! And in some family relationships it’s awkward or uncomfortable. Personalities don’t mesh, or there’s distance or unresolved conflicts. Jesus experienced this. He had conflict in his family too! In my book Your Best Life in Jesus’ Easy Yoke we…
Often in marriage or another relationship we think we have an intimacy problem when really it’s more about a boundary problem. Boundaries between people get blurred if either one tries to share their “feelings” by sharing their perceptions of the other person. This blurs boundaries and leads to conflict. Instead, if you share your personal…
Setting boundaries is more than a psychological tool — it’s really a spiritual discipline that helps to establish further your self-identity in Christ.
A young pastor in one of my Soul Shepherding Groups asked all of us pastors seated around him, “Please pray for me. Everyday I can’t finish my work so I have to bring it home, but my four year old son wants to play with me. Most of the time I have to tell him no.…
We all have a certain rhythm of life, our own pattern for how we relate to people and do our work. It can become like a rut that we slide into without realizing it. Perhaps we say that we want to be more peaceful or loving, or more like Jesus, but our rhythm of life…
Many Bible students miss the importance of Jesus’ Solitude and Silence. Every pastor, ministry leader, and caregiver — any disciple of Jesus! — needs to learn from Jesus’ example of intimacy with God. I don’t want to miss this! So I went back to the Gospel of Mark and did a Bible study on Jesus’…
Today we are desperate for God’s wisdom on our sexuality. These Bible verses on sexual purity will get the conversation started on the right track. You don’t need me to tell you that our world today is really messed up in it’s understanding of sex. “Sex sells” so it’s used everywhere in our society from…