Christmas Magazine: What's the Big Deal (About Jesus)?

The questions once plagued me: What am I doing here? Does my living make any difference at all? Where am I going? And then the most important question of all: Is there a God? And if there is, what difference does it make?

As I look back over the years, a lot of events aren't clear, but running through all of them is the reality of the love and presence of Jesus. Lots of folks have lied to me, but he has never lied, not even once. A lot of people have failed me, and I have failed a lot of people, but he has never failed, not even once.

Jesus got under my skin and I can't get away from him. It's hard to get away from someone who loves you. Jesus' love is like that. Everywhere I turn, if I am quiet enough, I can hear the soft sound of his sandaled feet...

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Christmas Magazine Extra: "Resolution Solution"

By Erik Guzman

I had quite a year. I made a few resolutions at the beginning of 2009 and I've done well.

I worked out 5-6 times a week and became a vegetarian. My resolution was to become a vegan, but cheese kept finding its way into my mouth (it snuck in on veggie pizza and goldfish crackers). I also ate an egg. Then there was the mahi-mahi my wife and I ate while celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary...and the lunch meat I tasted when making my kids' lunch. (Hey, it could have gone bad. I was throwing myself in front of the salmonella bus to save the children.) But that's not the point...

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Summer Magazine: "How To Lose It"

If you are a Christian, you are radically free. No, I don't mean you are free with a number of ifs, ands, and buts. I mean you are really free. No disclaimer. No addendum. No qualifying points. You are free.

I didn't say it, Jesus did: "'If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free....So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed'" (John 8:31-32,36). Freedom is a gift from the Son of God. If he says I'm free, that ought to settle it for me. And he does say it. So I dare anyone to say otherwise.

What does it mean to be radically free in Christ? It means we are free from the rules we thought bound us to God. It means we are free from the manipulation other Christians use to make us like them-free from having to fit into the world's mold, free to be different.

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Spring Magazine: "How Could He?"

You never get used to it. War, AIDS, Darfur...starvation, suffering, persecution, sickness, death. You never get used to it.

I've been doing this for a lot of years. I've cleaned up after more suicides, buried more babies, stood by more deathbeds and watched the pain of more people than I can even remember. And each time it's fresh and horrible.

I remember when my father died of cancer, when my kid brother suddenly died at such a young age, and when my wife Anna and I nursed my dying mother in her final days, doing things for her that a son never thinks he will have to do. I remember the kind people from Hospice and the friends who tried to help, but could do very little.

You don't get used to it. You never get used to it.

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