background on The Morning

What happens when you wake up in the morning? For some people, waking up is a rude and shocking experience. Off goes the alarm, and they jump in fright, dragged out of a deep sleep to face the cold, ...

Martin Luther, whose actions sparked the Protestant Reformation, recommended a very manageable start to the day. He wrote: In the morning when you get up, make the sign of the holy cross and say: I...

Kristen Welch, in her book Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World , described the growing discontent their family experienced after pursuing more and more stuff. She describes it this way with ...

The angel said there would be no end to his kingdom.  So for three hundred days I carried rivers and cedars and mountains.  Stars spilled in my belly when he turned. Now I can’t stop touching hi...

Orientation is a fascinating word based on the Latin word oriri, meaning “to rise, as in where the sun rises. The sun rises in the east. Early Christians gave great thought and intentionality to what ...

Christ the King Sunday has also been called “Stir Up Sunday” because the collect for the day in the Anglican church began, “Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people…” (The co...

I don’t have the nerve to stand up on Christmas Eve and preach about the choreography of childbirth, but I wish I did. I wish I had the nerve to preach about Mary’s increased estrogen production, a...

We have been having  epiphanies like suns, all this year long. And now, at its close  when the planets  are shining through frost, light runs like music in the bones,  and the heart ke...

We were in London watching the musical The Lion King. Surely you’ve seen the movie; the opening number is worth watching again this week to help your imagination seize the new earth with both hands. A...

One of the stunning realities of the Christian life is that in a world where everything is in some state of decay, God’s mercies never grow old. They never run out. They never are ill timed. They neve...

Your body knows about schedules. It gets used to those times of day when it says, Feed me right now. I’m hungry, and those times of night when it says, Get me to bed. I’m exhausted. Your body will spe...

Their first night home after their honeymoon, Paul set his alarm clock, turned off the lamp, fell onto the pillow, and said to his wife of six days, Rachel, “I’ve got to leave for work at six, so can ...

In the midst of a busy schedule of activities—healing suffering people, casting out devils, responding to impatient disciples, traveling from town to town, and preaching from synagogue to synagogue—we...

One Sunday morning in a more traditional worship service, a rather verbose minister stepped up to the pulpit and announced to the congregation, "I've been told that I'll be moving on to l...

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it ri...

In this first-person memoir, Pastor Peter Chin shares a story that most pastors can probably relate to, the reality vs the expectation of a church-planter or even the pastor of an established church: ...

Hope remains possible even amid our failures—whether we disappoint God, let down our families, or fall short of our own expectations—because divine compassion operates like an inexhaustible well. Each...

Pope John Paul I recounted a story about Jonathan Swift and his servant. One morning at an inn, Swift asked his servant why his boots hadn’t been cleaned. The servant replied, “I didn’t see the point,...

To make suggests making something out of something else the way a carpenter makes wooden boxes out of wood. To create suggests making something out of nothing the way an artist makes paintings or poem...

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...

The Gospel doesn't reveal to us that life isn't messy. In fact, God, in the Incarnation, joins us in the mess. Consider this illustration to highlight how the Incarnation transforms our expe...

Kevin Blue has spent much of his ministry career serving the poor in inner-city Los Angeles. In this excerpt he describes working with a war vet named Clarence: Richard, Tim, Caroline and Ellen move...

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it...

From valley to valley out over the hilltops, From sunshine to fog like the darkest of night; So we follow the Lord down life’s winding pathway, And walk much by faith and little by sight. It would be...

The marriage of Queen Victoria and Albert (otherwise known as Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel — quite a mouthful!) was one for the ages. Their love and devotion to each other was remarkable, ...

The African Methodist Episcopal Church began when Richard Allen and Absalom Jones demanded an equal place in the Methodist Episcopal Church and were refused. In their preaching and teaching, jus...

I grew up in a church where healing never happened. We had theology that Jesus healed, but I never saw anyone healed growing up in the church. One day, I’m a pastor, and I decide we have to move beyon...

In his book Scream-Free Parenting , family therapist Hal Runkel recounts a visit to the Waffle House with his family that went horribly awry. It was a Saturday morning and the place was busy beyo...

A soul without a center is like a house built over a sinkhole. “How collapsed you are my soul , and how you sigh over me.” On the other hand, the soul comes alive when it is centered on God. “Let...

Rodney King had led the police on a high speed chase through Los Angeles. Eventually the police got him to stop, and after he exited the car, he was savagely beaten by four officers. The entire countr...