I love to soak in a story about Jesus in one of the gospels. A while back, I spent quite time reflecting on an early encounter of Jesus and one of his first followers, Peter. As you read this story, see if you can imagine the scene:

¹One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. ²He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. ³He got into one of the...

A new year has begun. A new decade is here. I’ll turn 59 this year. Part of me still feels thirty-something inside, but my body reminds me more and more often that I really am in my late fifties. 

Aging sometimes makes me nervous, even fearful. There’s a far better chance that I’m in two-thirds life rather than midlife at this point. (There’s always the thin chance that I’ll end up breaking the world record for longevity!).

But you know what the good news is...

Forty years ago, in my early years as a new Christian, I found myself in a Christian tradition that preached the virtues of avoiding drinking alcohol in any form—wine, beer and certainly strong spirits. The usual reasons were given: the dangers of addiction, the desire to avoid tempting those among us who may have had a leaning towards addiction, and such.

Today, I find myself an Anglican priest who is honored to occasionally preside over the Lord’s Table in which we use real wine...

Welcome to an Inhaling Grace audiobook episode of the Unhurried Living podcast. Here are the next three devotionals from Inhaling Grace. May you sense the real presence of God shepherding you as you listen.

In early 2016, when Gem and I launched Unhurried Living, I spent a few days on retreat with a small group of Christian leaders. We met at a little Episcopal retreat house called St. Columba’s in Inverness, CA. It overlooks Tomales Bay on the Pacific Coast just above San Francisco. I’m grateful for little holy places like this where we can rest, reflect and pray.

While I was there, I found myself reading a few lines from the letter to the Hebrews:

Therefore he had to become like...

We often talk here about how a hurried soul costs us more than we realize, and that an unhurried soul is a way of following the genius of Jesus’ way of life and work. But there is a hurry that is actually holy, and there is a way of being unhurried that is actually unholy. We’ll tackle this pair on today’s episode of the Unhurried Living Podcast.

• Unholy hurry is that variety of soul hurry that we must ruthlessly eliminate as Dallas Willard urged us.

• Holy...

We may be familiar with some of the Hebrew names for God: Elohim, El-Shaddai, Yahweh, Jehovah and Adonai. But what about the regular, day to day terms God uses in scripture to describe himself?

Today’s email is a little different than usual. I’d like to invite you to spend a few moments here engaging with this list of descriptive words. It will likely take just as long as it would take you to read one of my regular emails. Give yourself the gift of engaging here for a moment.

...

We have all felt embarrassed, humiliated or ashamed one time or another, and questioned our identity in those moments. Today on the podcast, we’re looking at the vulnerability that accompanies those dynamics and how Jesus himself can meet us there.

When we think about this question of identity, we envision a simple dot in the center of a dotted circle going around it’s periphery. The dot at the center is our actual, simple identity as beloved sons and daughters of God. The dotted...

Are you hungry to hear from God? Do you long for a closer, more conversational relationship with him? Today we are talking about how Jesus offers a personal invitation to listen to his voice and live in a remembered companionship of Christ.

God’s Spirit gives God’s people real, workable, useful knowledge—if they will listen. He desires to teach us how to live—really live—and to live well. God is speaking to us by his Spirit to give us counsel and insight...

A visit to a museum provides the backdrop for a conversation on what it means to be an apprentice to a master.

We made our way through quite a few rooms of the Hermitage. The interiors were jaw dropping, the paintings gorgeous. And, as Alan said, he had been there before, so he knew when we were nearing the original painting we were most looking forward to seeing, which was Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son. He gave me a brief warning as we turned the corner, “Get...