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I was at mile twenty and pretty sure there was no way I could finish. Mile twenty has a name for marathoners: “the wall.” It’s when you think you can go no further. I was there. I was spent, all out of juice, dead in the water. It is commonly said that faith is at mile twenty; it's dead on arrival, a dying trade, a disappearing, unnecessary artifact from a bygone era. The culture is like the voice in the runner’s head: it’s time to quit! Atheists think faith has had its day. Sam Harris says that our faith is "the permission that religious people give one another to believe things strongly when reasons fail" In a recent book called, Faith verses Fact , Jerry Coyne says, “Faith may be a gift in religion, but in science it’s poison, for faith is no way to find truth.” The story of faith is the ultimate underdog story: the team that everybody expects to lose is the team who wins it all But you have to get through the wall.  Jesus' friend, Peter, knows abou...

Have you ever had a winning streak? Squash player, Jahangir Khan, once had  a 555 game winning streak . From 1981-1985 he never lost a single game! Once in 1982, he won the International Squash Players Association Championship without losing a single point. When you are on a winning streak—everything seems to be going perfectly—you do everything you can to stay on it. Winning streaks are marked by attention to doing the same thing, an attempt not to jinx the outcome: In this pursuit of perfection, nothing was ever left to chance - Borg's Wimbledon routine was the same every year: the same hotel in Hampstead, the same locker, the same chair, the same number of towels on Centre Court. The same abstinence from shaving and sex for the duration of the tournament. And the same result When a winning streak ends, the player wonders what changed. What made him lose. After a six-game winning streak last year the Miami Dolphins were beaten by the Ravens in Baltimore. Listen ...

Daniel Daniel was in a tight spot. He was huddled in the corner of a pit. Above the pit there was a high wall and across from him was a wooden wall in the pit with a gate in it. and then the door to the outside with a huge boulder preventing any thought of escape. The last face he had seen was the face of the king. He could see the pain in his face, the anguish of one who is regretting his own decision. What had he said? “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” That was what got him put here in the first place. The fact that he served continually. That was the trouble with refusing to bow before that statue of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel had always prayed. He knew this was the most important thing in his life. He could be all the CEOs rolled into one, but without prayer the whole lot would be useless. Jeremiah the prophet had taught him that. Daniel had his book back in his room. It says, “Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hea...

STORY: Have you ever been made to feel unsure something that you thought was obvious, but are led to doubt? I once saw a film of a classroom in which the teacher asks the children to put their had up if they think Mexico is north or south of the United States. Everyone except one kid put their hands up for north. After looking around confused, the one child puts his hand up as well. The experiment was supposed to show that peer pressure is so powerful that it will get us to give up even the most obviously true beliefs. All the children except one were told to put their hand up for north. The one child left out was so influenced by the crowd that he was prepared to accept a wildly false claim. You may think that that would never happen to you. You would stay with the true belief even if no one else joined you. But consider the following. What if the belief was something less obvious to people? What if the belief was something like the second coming of Christ? Would you be so sure? P...

Once I sat on a beach and watched my wife, Sarah, fly a kite. The kite was broken and was wet (it had fallen into the sea several times). I had long since given up, but Sarah kept going. She kept picking it up, fixing it, throwing it into the air, and watching it break that little bit more. I had no hope. This thing is dead, I thought, why bother with it? We’d be better off getting a new kite. Perhaps you feel like the kite. You are broken, tired, and wet from whatever troubles life has thrown your way. In a sense you have quit, given up on the spiritual life. You feel there is no way to fly so you carry on with life just as you can. You have enough to get by; there is no drama, no excitement, but you live, keeping your head down, keeping calm and carrying on. God sees us do this. He sees us like Sarah sees the kite. He sees that we are broken, but rather than go and get a new kite he picks us up and fixes you, brushes you off and throws you into the air. You might feel like y...