Have you ever been caught in the battle between knowing the right thing to do and having everything you feel say, “Don’t do it”? We all face those moments, and they can be so hard. Our minds may know what needs to happen while our emotions resist with everything they have. Consider an elderly woman facing the sale of her childhood home. She co-owns the house with her siblings, but no one lives there anymore. It has been empty for some time, the roof leaks, and its condition continues to...

Have you ever watched someone overinflate a balloon? Each breath adds a little more air. For a while, the balloon stretches and makes room. Then one final breath causes it to burst. The final breath may appear to be the cause, but it is only the last part of the story. The balloon was already full. Sometimes our psychological capacity is exceeded in much the same way. Stress often accumulates gradually. We hold the weight of work responsibilities, financial concerns, caregiving demands,...

Some of us have spent much of our lives trying to be good. We try to make the right choices, meet every expectation, care for the people who need us, and avoid disappointing God. When we fail, we promise ourselves that we will do better next time. Without realizing it, we can begin to treat grace like a ladder, believing that if we try hard enough and climb high enough, maybe we will finally earn the title "Good". Matthew West’s song “Good” begins with that struggle. He describes trying to...