As I wrote yesterday, Luke 15 is one of my favorite chapters in all of Scripture. I have gone back to this chapter time after time, but especially to the story today beginning in verse 11 – the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the Lost […]
All posts tagged: Henri Nouwen
BFTJ – Sep 25 – Invisible Sacrament
“An outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace” – St Augustine’s definition of sacrament. Sacraments are the acts within the church that seek to be visible symbols of the grace that God is at work within us. In my faith tradition, we […]
BFTJ – Sep 14 – Remaining Anchored in Love
Sunday morning, I was reading in my devotions before I headed to worship and I came across these words from Nouwen… Jesus tells us not to worry at all and to trust that he will give us the words and wisdom we need. What is […]
BFTJ – September 13 – Hold onto Jesus
Fragility – that’s what I heard in the words of Nouwen in his devotional words from the other day. He was commenting on the fragility of life as we look at all the things happening around us – referring to the words from Luke 21 […]
BFTJ – Sep 8 – Choosing Blessings
Nouwen continues a similar theme around choosing blessings or curses in our lives – its a message of what we are focusing upon. Today he has a beautiful line as he closes the devotional: Jesus came to bless us, not to curse us. But we […]
BTFJ – Sep 2 – Choosing Life not Death
The last several days of readings from Nouwen have covered a similar theme – choosing life over death, choosing blessings over curses. As I read the devotions, the passage from Deuteronomy 30:19-20 came to mind – “I call heaven and earth to witness against you […]
BFTJ – Aug 29 – The Companionship of the Dead
Our children unfortunately never knew their great-grandparents. Only my grandmother on my dad’s side was still alive when our youngest were born. We have a wonderful picture of her, me, my father, and the newborns that we treasure as we have all four generations there. […]
BFTJ – Aug 28 – A Grateful Death
Today’s devotion from Nouwen got me thinking about gratitude. He focused on how we choose to come to our final days whether with bitterness and resentments or with gratitude and thanksgiving. As I prayed about this, I focused more and more on the gratitude side […]
BFTJ – August 25 – Love and the Pain of Leaving
I wrote briefly the other day about autumn coming around the corner. Even now, I have the windows open at nearly 9pm and a beautifully cool breeze is blowing through. Not so long from now, the green leaves will begin to change colors and fall […]
BFTJ – Aug 24 – Parents’ Grief
I have not had to face the loss of a child and I pray that I never have to face that in my own immediate family. I have, however, walked alongside many other families who have gone through that unspeakable loss. Whether it is a […]
BFTJ – August 23 – The Quality of Life
Today was one of my favorite days each year at our congregation. It was our annual Dixieland Sunday (side note: this was the 30th anniversary of it!) and the service is filled with great music and just a great spirit and energy. I love it. […]
BFTJ – August 22 – Living out our Passages Well
I wasn’t originally going to post anything on this reading – not because I didn’t think it worthy of a post, but more because I just didn’t get around to doing it yesterday. Then I was walking to worship this morning and saw this interesting […]
