If you're a follower of Jesus suffering from chronic pain, you may find yourself asking, where is God when I'm in pain?
As you work today, God is indeed your refuge and strength. Don’t be afraid!
The Psalms teach us to pray in many modes, including lament. When we are sad, angry, or distressed, we can tell God...
When people oppose you, remember that God is always with you. Always!
With God’s help, you can “scale the walls” set before you today.
God is honored when you keep your word, even when it hurts.
The Lord, who is known by his acts of justice, calls you to seek justice in every part of life, including your...
The Lord is a shield around you at all times as you work.
We have an honest conversation about what it's like to struggle with mental health at work. With...
John 21:15-19 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than...
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and...
There are days when everything seems to be going right on the job - and days where it all seems to go...
For this restaurant owner, the point of suffering is to acknowledge God.
Does the thought of getting out of bed and into the daily grind fill you with dread? Do you wake up feeling...
On Sunday morning, we wave our palms and sing Hosanna in the Highest. It is not hard to get caught up in...
The #MeToo movement has brought new attention to the long-standing reality of sexual harassment. Whether it’s inappropriate speech or unwelcome physical contact...
The days grow shorter, the skies grow darker, and cold and snow plague our commutes. Just as we feel the physical change...
Thanksgiving: from pumpkin pie to football and family get-togethers, American Thanksgiving traditions are well-established. But sometimes we find it hard to offer...
Ever feel like a zombie on Monday morning? Or are you spooked by troubling conflicts, bad bosses, and overwhelming schedules? This week...
If Jesus wanted to visit you at work, would you ask for some other meeting place? Many workplaces feel like ungodly environments...
A recent Gallup poll speaks of a worldwide employee engagement crisis: only 32% of U.S. employees, and 13% of working people worldwide...
Although it is often difficult, work is not a curse, Tom Nelson explains in this introductory sermon.
Denise Daniels provides a theological framework for work, as well as tips for when work feels like toil.
Genesis 3:8-21 (NRSV) Theological Point: The burden and sometimes meaningless nature of work is the curse we all know too well. Contentment...
Mark 1:9-11 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as...
Racial reconciliation takes work, and it’s work that needs doing. Amidst tragedies and protests in places like Ferguson, Boston, Charleston, and New...
Bob Sakata is one of America’s biggest vegetable growers. His farm in Brighton, Colorado, produces corn, onions, and sugarbeets. In 1999, he was inducted into the Agriculture Hall of Fame. This video was...
Al Erisman is the Former Director of Technology at Boeing. He currently serves as the Executive-in-Residence at Seattle Pacific University, Director, Executive...
One common translation of blessed is “happy.” In saying “happy are the mourners,” Jesus makes a contribution to the lexicon of oxymorons.
Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach was educated and later taught at the London School of Economics and then became dean of the City...
This week we are highlighting some favorite posts from our faithful community of writers.
He walked to the podium and paused. Then he punctured the silence with five words: “We,” he said, “are a temporary substance.”
“What they are missing, really, is a living relationship with God.”
She was the only person in the city who could do that work.
Conflict and difficulty aren’t unusual for people trying to follow God’s direction. Conflict and struggle associated with taking risks may be signs that we’re exactly where we need to be.
Do you feel alone, abandoned, and anxious? You're not alone, writes Heather Enright, and you don't need to despair. It may look...
During each of Steve Resch's heart events, he needed a place to stand. God gave it to Steve in His Word.
Jesus has been describing blessings that come to those who hand over the reins of life to his control. It’s certainly a...
We are grateful that you know precisely what our frustrated groans mean. Take our groans, and turn them into prayers, in accordance...
Am I laboring on even as darkness falls? Or have I succumbed to thinking I can wield power without humility?
We roll our bags down the entry hallway of Children’s Hospital, past a colorful abstract butterfly mural. We’re here for a scheduled...
Before Arturo Toscanini was one of the world's great musical directors, he was a cellist so nearsighted that he memorized his sheet music.
Greg Buell doesn't have all the answers, but for now he's learning to live with mystery.
Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane is, in my opinion, the most unexpected prayer ever. There is no prayer in Scripture...
This everyday work of breathing in and out and then in again is wearing me thin. And some days, I cannot bear...
An Introductory Note from Mark: ...
For many years, my only experience with jail was as a token on the corner of the Monopoly board. Sometimes I’d make...
Sometimes you run out of words. ...
The Seven Last Words of Christ for Holy Week
A week of little deaths, that’s what Holy Week is for us.
For centuries, Holy Week was the focal point of the Christian calendar.
Katherine Leary Alsdorf is co-author with Timothy Keller of Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work (Dutton, 2012). She came...
Horatio Spafford suffered three major traumas. His only son died of scarlet fever at age four. In the great Chicago Fire of 1871, the then-prominent businessman was destroyed financially. Soon...
Peals of laughter and a chorus of squeals drifted from the living room into the kitchen, where I stood with my hands...
Ash Wednesday is a day many Christians set aside as a special day. It is a day to remember our humanness and mortality. It is a day to begin the season of Lent...
Resources from The High Calling for ambitious Christians who want to serve others and glorify God through their work.
When I was thirteen years old, I invited my friend Danny to my church's winter camp. Though he was not a Christian, he and his parents were glad to have Danny join me...
It's easy to praise God when life is good. It's a gorgeous spring day . . . praise the Lord! I just...
Psalm 88 aches with dark despair.
Two months ago, I purchased a Timex watch. This handsome timepiece featured INDIGLO technology, a nifty day-of-the-month indicator and, yes, a black "genuine leather upper" band. ...
When someone loses their job, they aren’t the only ones affected. Often a spouse feels the pain...
The transfiguration is one of those events during Christ’s time on earth that registered as barely more than a curiosity for me for several years. Recently, I have developed a great appreciation...
It’s Sunday evening, the third day since Jesus of Nazareth was crucified in Jerusalem.
This parable is one of the most well-known of all the stories Jesus told. It is about...
I met Lee Hough over a dozen years ago when I was trying unsuccessfully to break into the book publishing business. He served as a literary agent for one of my friends, and...
I like to call Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, Jesus’ “stay-at-home” disciples. It seems whenever he is in...
This story of the loaves and fishes is the only miracle story of Jesus found in all...
A windstorm arose on the sea, so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves...
Have you ever experienced an earthquake, a literal earthquake? If not, it's no picnic, let me tell you.
Time and again throughout the Psalms, we read the plaintive question, “How long?”
Have you ever read something Jesus taught and thought to yourself, “I don’t get it”?
Psalm 57:5 is the basis of dozens of hymns and songs of praise, and for good reason...
Psalm 56 begins with David’s cry for mercy because his enemies are attacking him. He implores the Lord to help him and to punish his opponents. Then, with striking imagery, David recognizes that...
How long, O Lord, will you look on and do nothing?
I didn’t grow up observing Lent, and even now our family doesn’t attend a church that emphasizes the liturgical calendar. I’ve come to understand Lent mostly through watching and learning from...
When our teenage daughter left home one night without our knowing it, it began one of the most difficult times of my...
As a graduate student, one of my responsibilities is leading discussion sections for the University’s required literature class. Usually I’m working with students who are much smarter than I, or at...
When I think of suffering, I often think of Job.
I learned that gardening can be both an ecstasy and an agony.
I am three years old, and I am hungry. I sit in a honey-colored wooden chair and press the small of my back up against its hard slats. My two brothers, my sister...
Psalm 130 begins with a desperate cry for help. The psalmist calls out to God "from the depths of despair" (v. 1).
Psalm 12 begins with a dire description of a culture on the road to ruin: "[T]he godly are fast disappearing! The faithful...
I grew up in a culture, church, and family that didn't have much room for sadness. If...
One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”...
In Mark 8, Jesus uses the imagery of crucifixion to call people to follow him sacrificially. If they want to experience the...
Connections between the upheavals of the 1960s and the Occupy movement pose questions about our allegiances and our work.
Why do you forget us continually; why do you abandon us for such a long time? Lamentations 5:20 For 151 verses, except for a brief respite in chapter 3, the writer of Lamentations...
The memory of my suffering and homelessness is bitterness and poison. I can’t help but remember and am depressed. I call all...
...
My Lord has become like an enemy. He devoured Israel; he devoured all her palaces; he made ruins of her city walls...
People heard that I was groaning, that I had no comforter. All my enemies heard about my...
A young man named Don came to see me for pastoral counseling. As he shared his story, I could sense that he...
Her adversaries have become rulers; her enemies relax. Certainly the LORD caused her grief because of her many wrong acts. Her children...
“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done...
The cup of Jesus will involve suffering, to be sure. Yet “cup of suffering” doesn’t quite get what Jesus meant when he...
He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed. Luke 22:41 From the top...
Toxic bosses lie, shift blame, and hurt your career. If you have to report to a toxic boss, how do you do it?
But I keep praying to you, LORD, hoping this time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O God, answer...
It’s just a shoe, a pink baby shoe, but it shatters me like glass on the road where I walk, and I can’t go on.
We collapse in the dust, lying face down in the dirt. Rise up! Help us! Ransom us because of your unfailing love. Psalm 44:25-26 Has your life ever been so difficult that you...
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God! Psalm 43:5 If Psalm 43 seems strangely...
Everyone was gripped with great wonder and awe, and they praised God, exclaiming, "We have seen amazing things today!" Luke 5:26 This...
O LORD, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way? Psalms 13:1 Psalm 13 is a desperate cry to God. It is an example of the...
Bad Blake is my favorite Hollywood pilgrim of 2010. When I first met him through a RedBox-acquired DVD of Crazy Heart, I didn’t see a pilgrim at all. Blake just smoked, chased and...
In Psalm 143, David cries out to the Lord for help.
The first line of Psalm 130 is one of the most frequently quoted of the Psalms: “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD” (130:1, KJV).
After decades of faithful ministry as God’s prophet, Jeremiah’s life wasn’t turning out as he might have hoped.
You might expect confession and pardon in church movies, but not in Hollywood. At least not as the climax. This Oscar winner kneels until its sins are no more.
A friend of mine owns a company, and his employees get a little on edge when they see him coming their way. ...
I have a little garden plot in the alley behind our house where I try to grow a few vegetables throughout the...
In an old sitcom, the running gag was a mechanic saying to his boss, "It's not my job." The expression became popular for shirking responsibility.
These are worrisome times we are living in. We are living in the midst of a global financial crisis, a never-ending war, and layoffs are being announced every day.
A hard, cold winter greeted the Pilgrims who reached Plymouth Rock in 1620. Miles Standish was Military Captain for the Colony and one of the few to escape illness. His wife, Rose, was less...
For years, Moses sojourned in Midian, having fled from Egypt because the Pharaoh sought his life. During this period, the Israelites continued...
I grew up in a culture that was uncomfortable with sadness. When children cried, they were urged to stop. If adults broke...
We are in difficult financial times, and our own emotional well-being often sinks with the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In times such...
Today I want to base my reflection on two verses from Psalm 22. In the first verse, the psalmist laments God’s lack...
In this section of Romans 9, Paul is explaining God’s freedom and authority to do what he wills, even if it doesn’t quite make sense to us. Though we may not especially like...
Yesterday we focused on Romans 8:23, where it says that we join creation in groaning. Though life can be filled with many blessings, there are times when we suffer and when we cry...
In yesterday’s reflection, we noted the “groaning” of creation as it experiences the wreckage that comes from sin. In Romans 8:23, we join creation in groaning. Even though, through the Holy Spirit...
Three times within ten verses, Romans 8 uses the unusual language of groaning. In today’s reflection, will focus on the first of these instances. Future reflections will examine the other two.In...
The Servant of God in Isaiah is a “man of sorrows.” The Hebrew phrase (’ish makh’ovot) means, literally, “man of pains,” and...
The prophecies of Isaiah testify to the “deep waters” and “fires” of Israel’s experience. Because of her persistent rejection of the Lord...
As Jesus suffered on the cross, he cried out to his Heavenly Father with familiar words: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” This question is the opening line from Psalm...
Ever since sin broke God's perfect world, sadness pervades our existence. Oh, to be sure, there are times when we rejoice. But we also experience times of mourning, even extended seasons of...
Suffering and death remain a mystery. We can understand some kinds of suffering as the result of human freedom and choice. But other suffering is so great and so unfair and so terrible...
My friend Don heard two men discussing Father Mychal Judge, the New York Fire Department chaplain who died in the World Trade Center collapse. One man said, “Wrong place, wrong time!” Don jumped...
Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard.
The great poet John Milton, author of the epic Paradise Lost, was totally blind by age 41. But he learned to compose poetry in his head. In a famous sonnet titled "On His...
Father Alfons Wachsmann was a Catholic priest in Berlin when Hitler gained power, and the clergyman made the mistake of allowing and...
Illuminated by streetlights and oncoming headlights, raindrops chased each other down the window of the car. This isn’t happening. I studied the raindrops bumping, merging, and colliding, as if I...
Two women; two friends; two life stories of deep wounds and profound loss. The first, a minivan-driving, kid-shuttling, suburban mom of two—and rape survivor struggling to return life to some...
Joseph’s stint in Potiphar’s employ gave him a wide range of fiduciary responsibilities. At first, Joseph was...
The penitent words of the brothers led Joseph to one of the finest theological points of his life and, indeed, much of...
The rebellion of the first humans (Genesis 3) had a catastrophic effect on all of creation—not just their relationship with God, but also their capacity to draw provision and create wealth from the...
We can seek guidance about provision from God and expect that doing so will help us meet our needs, the needs of...
Nowhere in Scripture does God promise that his followers will escape the effects of the fallen world...
The problem of pain comes when times are hard. When we are passed over for promotion or lose a job, when we...
Job is able to endure overwhelming loss without compromising his “integrity” or blamelessness[1](Job 2:3). But Satan does not give up. Perhaps Job...
With Satan having done his worst, Job could really use some support. Job’s three friends enter the story and are depicted as...
There is nothing left for Job but to lament. He refuses to incriminate himself falsely, and he refuses to blame or abandon God. But he does not hesitate to express his anguish in...
Regrettably, Job’s friends are not able to endure the mystery of his suffering, so they jump to conclusions about its source. The...
Like Job’s, our sufferings often begin with difficulties at work. But seldom are God’s people equipped — or even willing —to help...
The new emphases in Job’s second lament (Job 29-42) are nostalgia and self-justification. Job “longs for the days when God watched over...
While we seek to honor God in our work, this does not mean the road will be easy.
What are we to make of this mix of good and ill, meaning and vanity, action and ignorance, which the Teacher finds in life and work? Work is a “chasing after wind,” as...
For an explanation of the themes in and structure of Daniel, see the section "The Big Picture...
Good work is possible even in the midst of difficult circumstances.
We live in what theologians call “the already, but not yet.” The kingdom of heaven has already been inaugurated by Jesus in...
The eighth and final beatitude may strike us as negative. Up to this point, the beatitudes have...
Learning to Save My Students Instead of Judging Them (Click Here to Read) An encounter with the words of Jesus in John 12 encourages a teacher to change his approach to his relationship...
After the conflicts in Philippi and Ephesus, Paul receives threats of imprisonment (Acts 20:23, 21:11) and death (Acts 20:3, 23:12-14). These threats are not idle, for indeed two attempts are actually made on...
Paul needs every ounce of courage because of the heavy sufferings he knows his work will bring. “The Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for...
In Romans 5:1–11 Paul offers more encouragement by reminding the Romans that through Christ we have already “gained access” to God’s “grace...
Paul contrasts life in the Spirit with life under the Jewish law. Paul says believers have received...
Lech Walesa Lech Walesa’s path to becoming the president of Poland reached its pivotal moment on August 14, 1980 when he jumped...
Hebrews moves from providing examples of faithful saints to providing challenges for the people of its own day. Like the rest of...
Fish Guts and the Kingdom of God Nancy Matheson Burns, CEO of food distributor Dole & Bailey, describes reconsidering her career choices...
The job of a Christian is to live in a strange land as its servant until Christ comes back.
David Hataj, CEO, Egerton Gear, Inc., on Non-Judgmental Corporate Culture Change I returned home after 8 years to assume leadership of my...
The biblical writers are very realistic in their appraisal of what work can be like as a result of the Fall. Take...
Depression is the most common and often most misunderstood of all the painful emotions.
Draw closer to God by learning about suffering in the Bible.
This is the third sermon in the series: “Inspired: The Whole of Life with God in the Picture.” It was delivered by...
This content is part of the Ruth and Parables curriculum, an 11-week integrated sermon and small group series on faith and work...
This is the ninth sermon in the series: “Inspired: The Whole of Life with God in the Picture.” It was delivered by...
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