There is a difference between a merciful impulse and a merciful posture. An impulse is occasional — something moves us and we respond with kindness. A posture is the direction your life is inclined toward, the default setting of your heart toward people who are...
Jacob walked away from his encounter with God with a limp. He had wrestled through the night and prevailed in the sense that he received the blessing he sought, but he did not emerge unscathed. The socket of his hip was put out of joint. He would carry the mark of...
Martin Luther coined a Latin phrase that cuts to the heart of Israel’s spiritual condition and our own: incurvatus in se, curved in on ourselves. The image is of a person so bent inward, so consumed with their own situation, their own comfort, their own...
God’s answer to Israel’s doubt is, on the surface, a strange one. To prove his love for Jacob, he points to his rejection of Esau. Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? declares the Lord. Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. For a people questioning whether God loves...
God’s opening statement in Malachi is not a rebuke. It is a declaration. Before he addresses Israel’s apathy, before he names their half-hearted worship, before he calls out their spiritual drift, he says four words: I have loved you. In the original Hebrew, the verb...
