psalms on Happiness

George MacDonald, The Scottish author who had a profound effect on C.S. Lewis among others, once wrote a letter to his father about what he believed would be a great obstacle to his faith; that once h...

Creation as it felt to God — since then every artist has felt an echo, a sympathetic vibration: a craftsman who squints at his finished product and reckons, “Very good”; a performer who cannot suppres...

Katja, our seven-year-old granddaughter, stepped in it, as they say. She had doggie droppings on the bottom of her tennies. Not just one foot, mind you, but both. Her mother, Maureen, suggested she le...

I am abashed, solitary, helpless, surrounded by a beauty that can never belong to me. But this sadness generates within me an unspeakable reverence for the holiness of created things, for they are pur...

Every person enjoys dignity and suffers from depravity. The structure of personality is a result of the interaction of these two dynamics.

Two Latin words are used to describe useful and beautiful things: util and frui. Util means useful, beneficial, helpful. Frui means enjoyable, pleasurable, and delightful. The created world is both fr...

Two things fill me with constantly increasing admiration and awe, the longer and more earnestly I reflect on them: the starry heavens without and the Moral Law within.

Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good new...

J.M. Montgomery’s novel Emily of New Moon has a passage that conveys the attractive and terrifying aspects of the mystery of God: It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, th...

The soul is healed by being with children.

In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas codified beauty as being directly connected to Jesus Christ with three characteristic features. He wrote, “Species or beauty has a likeness to the property of...

All-powerful God, overwhelmed by the sorrows and pains of the day, we are prone to doubting. We search for your goodness yet we cannot perceive it.  We long for your greatness but we disbelieve it.  H...

The only reason God would have had for creating us was not to get the cosmic love and joy of relationship (because he already had that) but to share it.

God sings his love to you in birdsong. God smiles at you in maple trees. God charms you with the color green. He gave you eyes to see sunsets, ears to hear rainfall, a nose to smell a rose. God’s mass...

Because of His measureless love He became what we are in order to enable us to become what He is.

One discovery was a time-released revelation to me. On my way to classes each week, I had been passing Emerson Hall, the building that houses the philosophy department at Harvard. The enormous inscrip...

Preaching Commentary Plenipotentiary Anyone know what a “plenipotentiary” is? Try that compound Latin word on for size! It is derived from the Latin words plenus “full” and potens “power.” It r...

Lord our Lord – How majestic is Your name in all the earth. The sun’s light is but a dim flicker next to the brightness of Your glory. Your care is far more intimate than that of a mother sparrow hove...

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise. How can we praise you In life’s...

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.

O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise. There is glory within ea...

O Lord, Our Lord, how excellent is Your Name in all the earth! When we are faithless – You are faithful. When we wander – You come after us. When we’re alone – You draw near to us. When we are caught ...

I found what I was looking for and purchased a paperback copy of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot. The Idiot was published in 1868 and was Dostoevsky’s attempt to create a perfect soul in the character of Princ...

Ancient Lens What’s the historical context? Background Structure This Psalm of David is unique. “It is the only hymn in the Old Testament composed completely as a direct address to God.” [1] It e...

It is as if in creating us God asked a question, and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.

Prayer of Adoration Lord, our Lord – How excellent is your name in all the earth. Because of who you are – we praise You. Because of what you’ve done – we thank You. You are a Father to the fathe...

People: Oh God, You have been so kind to give us Your word and to make Yourself known through it. Not only this, but You have given to us Your Son, Jesus Christ, and His precious name. But often our h...

Leader: Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! People: You have set your glory above the heavens! Leader: From the lips of babes and infants you have established strength, ...

One day, as Leo Tolstoy, the renowned Russian author, was walking down the street when he encountered a man in worn, shabby clothing. The homeless man asked him if he had any money to spare. Tolstoy s...

Lord, our Lord – How excellent is Your name in all the earth! From star to star and galaxy to galaxy, From pole to pole and horizon to horizon There is no place where Your glory is hidden, No-one and ...