philippians from isaiah 26

With the global coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, life stopped. Overwhelmed by the threat of a disease we couldn’t stop and for which we didn’t have the hospital capacity, everyone moved work and s...

The peace of Christ be to thee,  The peace of Spirit be to thee, During all thy life, All the days of thy life.  The keeping of God upon thee in every pass,  The shielding of Christ upon thee in ev...

One day, a house-dog, standing at the window, was barking his head off at a passing mailman. The dog's owner, irritated, asks the dog, "Why do you always bark at that poor mailman?" The ...

May the Spirit of God bless you with insight and revelation as you take this journey toward peace.  May you be led by Jesus to glimpse a new world where love is the language we speak and shalom binds...

Theophan the Recluse…is well recognized in Eastern Orthodoxy, specifically the Russian Orthodox tradition. Theophan was a complex and intriguing personality, but today we know him mostly because of hi...

Two Hebrew words deeply inform and enrich our understanding of meditative prayer: haga and siach . Our English Bibles most often translate both of these words with the simple word “meditate...

A man who worked at an aviary in a bird park went to an outdoor wedding. He kept looking up until a friend finally asked him why. The man replied, “Sorry, I’m used to looking up to avoid falling bird ...

Call to Confession In Philippians four, we are called to take everything to God in prayer. This includes our inadequacies, our fears, our anxieties, our shortcomings, and our sins. Let us take our b...

King Jesus, We confess that we are quick to put our hope in places other than You. We are often more driven by our fears than by our faith in You and Your Kingdom. We place our trust in health, jobs, ...

Father, Son, Holy Spirit–our God, Mysterious, Awe-Inspiring, Wonderful, One-in-Three/Three-in-One: You surprise us not with flashing lights, loud crashing noises, and constant activity. You surprise u...

Most Holy God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We celebrate Your presence and rejoice in Your light that shines in our lives and our world. Thank You for Your sustaining presence in the past year...that w...

O God who is greater than the most powerful forces in this world, enable us to be still and know that You are God. O Lord who answers out of the whirlwind of everyday life, breathe in us Your Holy Sp...

As you go forth from here, may you go forth with the heart of the Psalmist, in humility, seeking the will of the Lord in all you do, and in confidence, knowing that the Lord is our rock and redeemer. ...

Go in the peace of Christ that is beyond our understanding, and plant this peace by word and deed in this world of turmoil and uncertainty, depending on that all-sufficient grace. Amen.

Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of truth and peace proceed; kindle, we ask, in the hearts of all people the true love of peace, and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counse...

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual...

In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake u...

On a daily basis we’re faced with two simple choices. We can either listen to ourselves and our constantly changing feelings about our circumstances, or we can talk to ourselves about the unchanging t...

A mind is more like a pile of millions of little rocks than a single big boulder. To change a mind, we need to carry thousands of little rocks from one pile to another, one at a time. This is because ...

The word eccentric comes from a combination of the Greek terms ex (out of) and kentron (center). When combined, ekkentros means “out of center.” The term gained currency in the late Middle Ages, when ...

The man of pseudo faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get into a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself...

Desire lies at the heart of who God made us to be, who we are at our core. Desire is both our greatest frailty and the mark of our highest beauty. Our desire completes us as we become One with our Lov...

A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act.