Matthew 6:34, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7, Isaiah 26:3, Matthew 8:26, Luke 12:25-26, Proverbs 3:5-6, Jeremiah 17:7-8
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 ...
As a stranger walked down a quiet residential street, he noticed a man struggling with a washing machine at the doorway of his house. The homeowner was clearly having a hard time, so the passerby, wan...
Trust is that rare and priceless treasure that wins us the affection of our heavenly Father. For him it has both charm and fascination. Among his countless children, whom he so greatly loves and whom ...
Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 55:8-9 , Luke 9:23-24, Philippians 2:3-4 , Matthew 6:33-34, Psalm 37:5-6
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams observes that the biblical ideal is not so much that we need to deny the self as to decenter the self: To see the self in truth, as an integral member of a comm...
Matthew 6:31-34, Luke 10:41-42, Philippians 4::6-7, Ecclesiastes 12:13, Proverbs 3:5-6
Life has become a smorgasbord with an endless array of dishes. And more important still, choice is no longer just a state of mind. Choice has become a value, a priority, a right. To be modern is to be...
The apostle Paul said, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on thin...
Proverbs 3:5-6 , Matthew 5:3, Luke 12:16-21 , Philippians 3:7-8, James 4:13-16 , Psalm 127:1-2, 1 Timothy 6:17-19
Gracious God, we believe our hard work should get us comfort, conveniences, and control. We rely on our abilities to create a life independent from you. Father, forgive us, because we need you more th...
Matthew 25:, Philippians 4:6-7, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, 1 Peter 5:7, Psalm 55:22, Proverbs 3:5-6 , Exodus 14:13-14
Faithful God, we confess that we try to carry more than you ask and work hard to have our way. Help us to see and believe your goodness. Help us to lean into you and to trust that your strength will h...
Luke 18:9-14, James 4:6, Proverbs 3:34, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Micah 6:8, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Peter 5:5-6
Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...
Matthew 6:19-21, Proverbs 3:5-6, Psalm 20:7, Mark 10:17-22 , 1 Timothy 6:17, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Philippians 4:11-13
Gracious God, you love us deeply yet we take your love for granted. Rather than trusting you, we trust the gifts you have given us. We confess that our misplaced hope and reliance is on money, intelli...
James 1:9, Philippians 2:3-4, Proverbs 3:18, Romans 12:15, James 1:19
Have you ever been guilty of being a “conversational topper”? The topper is someone who, when another confides a challenge or shares an exciting event, immediately connects that event to their own li...
Proverbs 3:5, John 6:1-15, Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31–44, Luke 9:12–17, Matthew 15:32–39, Mark 8:1-9, 1 Peter 5:7, Philippians 4:19, Matthew 6:25-34
Heavenly Father, we confess that our trust in you wavers and that we are fickle in our reliance. We see you provide great things where we see little possibility; but when storms come in life, we quic...
Colossians 1:13-14, 1 Peter 5:6-7, James 4:10, Isaiah 26:3-4, Philippians 4:6-7, Matthew 6:33, Proverbs 3:5-6
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, ...
Matthew 23:11-13, Luke 14:7-11, Colossians 3:23-24, Ephesians 4:2, Proverbs 3:34, Philippians 2:13, Romans 12:1
Loving Father, You receive all who come humbly before You. Yet we approach You far too often with much satisfaction and inappropriate pride. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. W...
Almighty God, we have failed to trust you. Overwhelmed by the pains of life, we have taken charge and pushed you aside. O God, be gracious to us. Remind us of your daily mercies and redemptive power t...
Proverbs 3:5-6, Micah 6:8, Matthew 6:33, James 1:5, Philippians 2:3-4
Save us, Glorious Christ, from every false understanding and motivation Save us from the temptation to just stay on the mountain Save us from the temptation to never engage Save us from the temptation...
Hebrews 12:5-11, Proverbs 3:11-12, Psalm 94:12, 1 Timothy 4:7-8, Philippians 3:12-14, Matthew 23:23-24, James 1:22-25, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
While formally or structurally speaking, there are mechanisms of discipline operative in both the convent and the prison, in both the factory and the monastery, more specifically, these disciplines an...
Only one in a thousand sits down in the midst of it all and says—I will watch my Father mend this. God must not be treated as a hospital for our broken “toys,” but as our Father.”
W.H. Auden is one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. Auden grew up in England but spent some of his adult years in the United States. In November 1939, he found himself in a German-language mo...
Proverbs 28:26, Proverbs 3:5-6, Proverbs 14:12, Philippians 2:3-4, John 9:2-3
An American woman visiting the Philippines, observed an elderly woman on the outskirts of Manila. She looked poverty-stricken and walked with the help of a cane down into a ditch alongside a main road...
One of the best stories of humility is that of a man who arrived in 1953 at the Chicago railroad station to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He stepped off the train, a tall man with bushy hair and a bi...
In December 1666, Hugh MacHale, the youngest and most gallant of the Covenanters (a 17th century pro-Presbyterian group in Scotland), was brought to his trial in Edinburgh. He was given four days to l...
There is a tendency among readers and scholars of Genesis 2:16-17 to focus on the prohibition of verse 17: “but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” …I want to pause to cons...
Faith according to our Lord’s teaching in this paragraph is primarily thinking; and the whole trouble with a man of little faith is that he does not think. He allows circumstances to bludgeon him. . ....
Philippians 3:14, John 20:29, James 1:5-6, Romans 10:17, Matthew 17:20, 2 Corinthians 5:7, Proverbs 3:5-6
There is an iconic scene in the cult classic The Matrix that makes for a great metaphor. Morpheus gives Neo a choice between two pills: You can take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake up in y...
While global flights and online booking have made travel easier in many ways, other aspects, often related to safety and security, still create challenges. As often as I fly, I could tell you plenty o...
Mark 9:14-24, Psalm 56:3-4, Proverbs 3:5-6, Hebrews 11:null, Philippians 1:21, Psalm 20:7, James 1:2-4
You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death. It is easy to say you believe a rope to be strong as long as you are merely using i...
I started flying small Cessna planes when I was in high school, and I vividly remember one flight between McGregor, TX and Austin. We had an incredibly strong tail wind down to Austin, so we got there...