Empathy is not the same thing as knowing how someone feels. You can’t know exactly how someone feels. And their knowing that you felt the same way isn’t what they need anyway. Empathy is appreciating the need for presence and support that others need in their pains, fears, and losses. Our pains, fears, and losses …
Confession, repentance, and lament can lead to us feeling exposed and fearful about what will happen when we expose ourselves so completely before others. When it comes to God though, we have no reason for fear. When we confess, repent, and lament before God we know that whatever follows it will conclude with the loving …
The wonder of the incarnation is that Jesus lives human emotion. We cry out to a God who doesn’t just know how we feel in our heights and depths. God has felt how we feel in our heights and depths. Hebrews 4:14-15 tells us that we have a great High Priest, Jesus, who sympathises with …
Authenticity is the buzzword of the age. Yet the aim of being authentic involves either conforming to certain social norms or displaying what are presented as faults, but only faults that bring no harm or are not immortal. More like the ways we indulge ourselves. Church websites will have attractive photos and paragraphs, none of …
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