If you’re anything like me, the word ‘surrender’ conjures up all sorts of thoughts and feelings. Surrender is hard. There is a tension there because it is not a once-for-all deal. This is a posture of heart that requires us to choose again and again to trust the One who invites us to walk this way. The work of surrender, it seems to me, is to hold steady to the course of trust we have set. Read more ...

My mind goes to many of the things happening in our world currently. Conflicts, socio-political realities in different countries, the ways in which one group tends to see another group. To what extent are we truly willing to open ourselves to the perspective of others? And how is my embodied experience a result of the stories I tell myself? Read more ...

We experience all kinds of pressure to be in a different place from the one in which we actually are. People may want us to be more positive or less doubtful, more visionary or with fewer questions. Here’s what I’m learning though: in God’s compassionate love and commitment to us, God wants to meet each of us exactly where we are. Read more ...

How many times do I put my focus on the present discomfort, so that I would do almost anything to remove myself from those circumstances? My misplaced focus makes it hard for me to draw upon the reserves of energy that could be available to me. The voice in my head could be either a deal-breaker or an energiser. Will I listen to the voice that tells me I've come too far to give up now? Read more ...

In our lives in general we are masters of self-deception. We live with limiting beliefs or ingrained behaviours that no longer serve us. We entertain compulsions and addictions that keep us in a state of unfreedom. All the time kidding ourselves that really we are in control of our own choices. Then some destabilising event will happen that causes us to see our true self in the mirror. Read more ...

We live in a time of unprecedented exposure to things we are supposed to want. And, whether we are aware of it or not, our appetites and desires are being constantly formed by this steady stream of things we are told make up the ‘good life.’ There comes a time to choose to feed on those things that, though they don’t immediately seem as appetising, will nourish our souls into health and wholeness. Read more ...

The quality of our rest is always important, never more so than during seasons such as this one. I feel like I’m in a round of sprint intervals, expending all I’ve got in this intense and focused moment, only to find I have an all too brief moment of respite before the next thing requires my energy. This week I share 3 things I am learning about rest during this time of exertion. Read more ...

Anger is not a very socially acceptable emotion, even when the situation merits it. But personally I don’t think that’s the only reason I avoid it: I don’t want to get in touch with the horribly difficult emotion that is anger without knowing that it’s going to be worth it, and I guess I haven’t quite believed that it is. In the end, we don’t get over pain by bypassing it, we get over it by feeling the pain and working through it. Read more ...

When I’ve been feeling fresh and capable, I've taken on a tonne of things that, when I am feeling tired and depleted, feel too much. When we feel like we can’t push any more, what else can we do but admit defeat? Well, we can deliberately lighten the load. We can reduce the pace to something that, for us in that moment, is manageable. Read more …

Growing up, we develop a resistance to feeling weak. Yet building strength is a process which forces us outside of our comfort zone, to a place where we face our lack of strength. That is, we come to outer edges of our strength and then dig deeper into depths we haven’t had to reach before. That zone - beyond our known capability and before failure - is the place of growth.  Read more ...

What happens when my habitual strengths are fatigued? When that which I normally bring to the game has been over-worked, or has come to the end of its natural capacity in a given situation? Perhaps, in a way that is similar to running, when I face my own limitations it creates more awareness in me of the need to engage at a deeper level. Read more ....

In the process of change, that is the work of a lifetime as we become more fully ourselves, we desperately need others. Sure, we are responsible for the choices we make, for the direction we choose, and then we need others to be a part of that process. Read more ...

Tough times don’t necessarily change us for the better simply by virtue of being tough. Nevertheless, it is possible to see them as a training ground, as an opportunity to build strength and determination into our attitudes. Read more ...