Home & Blog | Lynne Baab

Hope on the journey

Lynne Baab • Tuesday October 7 2025

In 2010 and 2011, I had a strange medical adventure: weird symptoms, months of medical tests with nothing of note, then healing through prayer by a team of church elders. After that miracle of physical healing, the only one I’ve ever experienced, you’d think I would have been euphoric. Or filled with faith, hope, and love from God. Instead, I felt numb and hopeless, such a weird response.

I decided to start a “hope project.” I bought myself a ring with anchors on it. “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul” (Hebrews 6:19). For the next year, I watched...

Read full article »

Draw near: Praying for hope

Lynne Baab • Tuesday May 2 2023

“Hope is optimism with a broken heart.” —Nick Cave, Australian singer, songwriter, screenwriter, and occasional actor inFaith, Hope and Carnage, co-authored with Sean O’Hagan. [1]

I have written before about the toxic optimism I was raised with, an optimism that makes no room for emotions of sadness, anger, and fear. As a result of the tension between my own intense emotions and an atmosphere that negated them, I have struggled my whole life to figure out what exactly God desires related to a positive outlook, optimism, and hope.

I resonated with Nick Cave’s perception that hope is connected to both optimism and a broken...

Read full article »

Receptivity and offering: Reasonable hope

Lynne Baab • Thursday January 27 2022

Back in 2013 I attended a seminar about mind-body connections, and I learned the significance of the words we use out loud or in our thoughts and prayers. According to the leader of the seminar, when I pray, “God help me with my anxiety,” or when I refer to anxiety in a conversation, I reinforce the neural pathways related to anxiety. Talking about my desire as “freedom from anxiety” has the unintended consequence of lighting up neurons related to anxiety. When I pray, “God give me peace,” I reinforce brain pathways related to peace, and these life-giving neural pathways are beneficial...

Read full article »

Matthew 27: The question of Judas

Lynne Baab • Wednesday October 14 2020

Will Judas be in heaven? That question stimulated some creative and challenging thinking on the part of theologian Ray Anderson, my favorite Fuller Seminary professor.

Take a look at this not-very-cheerful incident from Matthew 27:1-5:

“When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death. They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor. When Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders. He said, ‘I have sinned by...

Read full article »

<< Newer | Older >>