Suffering and Grief
Suffering Suffering can be good. It can take us to places where one more season of “comfort” cannot. But suffering can also be terrible. Destructive suffering inflicts evil on a person’s heart and soul and is totally outside God’s desire. Although God can bring good out of the experience, the experience itself is no good […]
Guilt and Forgiveness
Is what you know in your head about forgiveness different from what you feel in your soul? Do you still feel guilty about something you have done even though you know you are forgiven? You are not alone. I have talked to many people who ask God for his forgiveness, receive it, and then find […]
The Holy Spirit
What if Jesus came to your house today for a visit, and you told him you wanted to grow. What would you expect him to do? Heal you? Teach you? Challenge you? Give you new talents? Think about it. I can come up with many things I would want him to do, and I can […]
The God of Grace
One of the biggest obstacles of growth is our view of God. If we are going to grow in relation to God, then we must know who God is and what he is really like. I have been amazed—in my own life as well as in the lives of others, at how unnatural it is […]
The Big Picture – Act Three: Redemption
God in Christ is “reconciling” all things. He was and is bringing it all back to the way it is supposed to be. He redeemed, or got back, his creation and is putting it all back in place. How did he do this? God paid the price to gain it all back. The holy God […]
The Big Picture – Act Two: The Fall
Spiritual growth is not only about coming back into a relationship with God and each other, and about pursuing a pure life, but it is also about coming back to life—the life God created for people to live. This life of deep relationship, fulfilling work, celebration and more, gives us the life we desire and […]
The Big Picture – Act One: Creation
Many times, in the process of helping people grow (or in our own growth), we forget the big picture of what God is doing in the human race. We get caught up in the particulars of helping someone restore his or her emotional or spiritual health, heal a hurting marriage, or make life work, and […]
“Harder than I thought”
It was my first day on the job in a Christian psychiatric hospital. I was like a kid on Christmas morning. I had been taking college and seminary glasses and reading all that I could get my hands on about Christian counseling for about four years, and I was ready to put my knowledge into […]
When You’re Small, You’re Bigger
By Henry Cloud, Ph.D. Overview: This character trait has to do with the degree to which the person sees himself or herself as the center of the universe, vs. being a small part in much larger realities. Is he about just serving himself, and having life serve him? Or does he humbly take a place […]
Oriented Towards Increase
By Henry Cloud, Ph.D. Overview: People of healthy, integrated character are people of growth. They increase good things as a result of who they are. They do this in themselves, with others, with their companies, their careers, their relationships, and all the other areas of their lives where they apply themselves. This tendency to make […]