“Mom, you are making me feel dumb” my son said quietly.

I drew in a quick breath and exhaled. My heart was pierced by his words. I looked over at my son. He stood there staring at me, the hurt stretched across his young face. I had just repeated an instruction to him for the third time because the first two times he didn’t seem to understand. Yet I didn’t simply restate the instruction, my tone was condescending and belittling.

“I’m sorry I spoke to you that way. You are not dumb. Will you forgive me?” I responded, hugging him close.

My son is eight and our conversation was deeply convicting. It was the first time he had ever voiced to me how my speech makes him feel. I wondered how often…

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Earlier this year, a grieving mother, who recently had given birth to a stillborn son, wrote to me asking for counsel and comfort. The team at Desiring God thought this letter might be helpful to some others, whether other mothers who have lost infants, parents who have lost young children, or perhaps even more broadly.

Dear _____,

This loss and sorrow is all so fresh. I hesitate to tread into the tender place and speak. But since you ask, I pray that God would help me say something helpful.

First, please know that I know I don’t know what it is like to give birth to a lifeless body. Only a small, sad band of mothers know that. I say “lifeless body” because, as you made clear, your son is…

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People continue to ask me how it feels. “You were a pastor non-stop for 33 years. Now you’re not. How does it feel?”

I have been tongue-tied too many times. So I have tried to come up with the shortest possible sound-bite answer. And the second shortest. The shortest is “Leap and Weep.” The second shortest is “Burden Lifted, Blessings Lost.” They refer to the same paradox. When a burden is lifted, you leap. When blessings are lost, you weep.

Paul said to the elders of Ephesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). I have lost a lot of steady-state giving. Weekly preaching is weekly giving. Weekly staff-meetings are weekly giving. Regular elder meetings are regular giv…

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What happened in Boston on Monday was demonic. The thief (John 10:10) killed three precious lives, wreaked physical destruction on scores more and spiritual destruction on thousands. And he stole not only the joy of the race for millions, but far worse he stole trust. This will have widespread social and cultural repercussions.

This Boston massacre makes visible a spiritual reality. When the bombs exploded, the Boston Marathon stopped and everyone fled for cover. Likewise, when terror grips the human heart, we abandon the faith race. We just want to hide. Nothing stops the legs of faith like fear.

That’s why the devil seeks to terrorize you. He wants you to abort the race. Short of that, h…

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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)

Sometimes the darkness is overwhelming: The Chinese health ministry reported that more than 336 million children have been eliminated through abortion since 1971. Joe Carter recently put that number into its gruesome context. Then there’s the horrific practices of Kermit Gosnell being exposed — seven babies, born alive, that he brutally killed. Late-term abortions still make Americans uneasy, but so does having a child with a disability. More and more companies are developing early tests to identify genetic anomalies. “Screening” for Down syndrome and other genetic anomalies is growing rapidly.

The Story of

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Not long ago, we learned that Kermit Gosnell had been killing babies in the third trimester and even after they were delivered, for decades. Just this week, we watched as bombs ripped through an unsuspecting crowd in downtown Boston. They’re not the same, but they are horrifying and mouth-stopping evils.

It’s enough to make us cry out to God, “Arise, O Lᴏʀᴅ; O God, lift up your hand; forget not the afflicted. Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, ‘You will not call to account’?” (Psalm 10:12–13). Why God? Why allow Gosnell to gruesomely murder these innocents? Why allow the explosions to maim so many innocents, and even kill three? You are God, right? You won’t let them get…

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Joseph’s brothers realized something we should never forget.

It comes at the end of the story in Genesis 50. This is a long time after the brothers conspired together against Joseph. A lot had happened since then — since they hated their brother enough to sell him to Midianite traders for twenty shekels of silver (Genesis 37:28). That was the evil that started it all.

They grieved their father, Jacob, with a lie about Joseph’s death (Genesis 37:32–35). Joseph eventually was enslaved to Potiphar in Egypt, that is, until Potiphar’s wife slandered him (Genesis 39:11–20), had him thrown into prison (Genesis 39:19–20), and the cupbearer forgot him (Genesis 40:23). Years passed and then the fami…

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Word of the Boston bombings hit Twitter before they hit CNN or any other news network. And as the video clips of the bombings began to emerge, my heart responded in shock and horror. Our hearts are wired to respond to atrocities like this, whether we’re near or far from the scene. Humans are complex creatures with a remarkable range of emotions, even at the same time. The Bible helps us understand the right way to react, and in the midst of tragedy, I want to respond appropriately. But I also know a simple response will not do.

Here’s something of a play-by-play of my own heart-response from yesterday afternoon and evening and today, and I’ll post my thoughts not as a model to be followed …

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EDEN PRAIRIE, MN—There are a few rare cases where the legacy of a faithful preacher is marked by his books. Think of the shelf-filling works of a Martyn Lloyd-Jones or a Charles Spurgeon. Maybe the same will be true of John Piper.

But on Sunday night all three campuses of Bethlehem Baptist Church gathered in one auditorium to witness to the impact of John Piper’s 33-year preaching legacy in the Twin Cities. The evening included testimonials, congregational worship, an orchestra and adult choir, a children’s choir, and one choir comprised of 70 children adopted during Pastor John’s tenure at Bethlehem.

Pastor John has his own growing legacy of books, of course, but for two and a half hour…

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“I feel like I’m 22 again,” says the newly transitioned John Piper.

Now that his pastorate at Bethlehem Baptist Church has officially ended, Piper says he feels like a recent college grad who is free to do anything God lays on his heart. “When you have that much freedom, you’re really faced with significant ‘don’t waste your life’ choices.” He plans to seek God in a focused way in the next year as to how to invest his next 10 or 15 years, if God would give that many.

This past week Piper sat down with Collin Hansen of The Gospel Coalition to talk about his hopes for the future, including some reflections on his past 33 years as a pastor and how that has shaped him for what’s next.

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