philippians on Radiance

Have you ever met someone and known instantly, or at least guessed, that they were a fellow believer? When I was in college, I lived abroad for a year in Germany. We always had Fridays off so that we ...

A Great (and Weighty) Work of Literature That Will Delight Like Moby Dick and War and Peace , Les Misérables is a hefty novel. Affectionately known as the ‘Brick’ for its formidable length, it c...

O Lord our God, who first made light to shine out of darkness and now awakens us again to praise your goodness and ask for your grace: accept now, in your boundless mercy, the offering of our worship ...

God of light and truth, you are beyond our grasp or conceiving. Before the brightness of your presence the angels veil their faces. With lowly reverence and adoring love we acclaim your glory and sing...

It is the prerogative and charm of beauty to win hearts.

If the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the . . . unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar...

Sisters and brothers, if the torch of your faith is lit right now, it might fizzle out within fifteen minutes of leaving here today. So refill the oil of your faith. Trim the charred ends away from yo...

When we lose sight of beauty our struggle becomes tired and functional. When we expect and engage the Beautiful, a new fluency is set free within us and between us. The heart becomes rekindled and our...

If you lacked simplicity, how then should this fall to you that midnight skies are a shine with? God, who stoked at men mild in you now comes to mortal eyes. That he’s not more great—does this surpris...

Lord God, refresh us with living water, Illuminate our path with your light, Speak to us with the still small voice And calm the storms of our lives with your peace.

The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation - This story begins and ends in joy.

Gracious God, You have called us out of darkness and into the light of Your love. You have redeemed us and made us whole in order to set us free from bondage. The challenge You place before us is to d...

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same."

Holy God of light and glory: You alone are good. You alone are pure and righteous. And, therefore, You alone are worthy of our praise, our devotion and honor. In the brilliance of Your light, we are r...

Breath has a rhythm to it, a cadence of inhales and exhales. Prayer has a rhythm too, a cadence of inhaling God’s grace and exhaling our fears.

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...

How beautiful you appear to the angels, Lord Jesus, in the form of God, eternal, begotten before the daystar amid the splendors of heaven, “the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his...

Leader: We are people of the resurrection. Witnesses to God’s glorious victory in Jesus Christ, which brings peace and transforms the power structures of this world. But we also know that we live in ...

Long since on Mars and more strongly since he came to Perelandra, Ransom had been perceiving that the triple distinction of truth from myth and both from fact was purely terrestrial-was part and parce...

A holy life will make the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns, they just shine.

Our God, we come weary from the weight of burdens you never asked us to carry, while neglecting burdens you have called us to. Holy Spirit, we need your guidance and leading. Hear our confession, and ...

We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to r...

An ancient legend tells of a well-respected rabbi who would vanish from his synagogue for a few hours each Sabbath. His mysterious absences sparked curiosity among his students, who wondered if their ...

There is something in humility which raiseth the heart upward.

Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; ...

In this short excerpt, the scholar and Anglican clergyman N.T. Wright discusses the famous “weight of glory” passage in 2 Cornthians 4:17: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an ...

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...

Most Holy and Most Gracious God, who turns the shadow of night into morning, satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad throughout the entire day. Lift the light of your faith o...

In A Life Worth Living , C.A. Roberts tells of meeting W.C. Coleman, founder of the Coleman Lantern Company. At eighty-four, Coleman recalled how he went from pauper to millionaire overnight. ...