Calm us now, O Lord, into a quietness that heals and listens. Open wounded hearts to the balm of your Word. Speak to us in clear tones so that we might feel our spirits leap for joy and skip with hope...
Never be in a hurry; do everything quietly and in a calm spirit. Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset. What is anything in life compared to peace ...
John 4:13-14, Psalm 119:105, 1 Kings 19:11-13, Mark 4:35-41, Revelation 22:, Isaiah 58:10-11, John 10:27, Philippians 4:6-7
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.
Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seem to impart a quiet to the min...
When the waves rise high above our ability to see your face… Still my soul, Lord Jesus, Calm the storm in me When the howling wind and the pouring rain drown out the sound of your voice… Still my sou...
One glorious autumn…I spent an afternoon climbing with a friend who grew up raising sheep in the Alps. We were climbing near the bottom of a ski area …[near] this steep green slope where [a] delightfu...
Colossians 3:12, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 57:15, Matthew 23:12, 1 Peter 5:5-6, James 4:10, Philippians 2:3
Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me. It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am bla...
ONE: Joseph is silent He listens and acts ALL: Lord, help us listen Still the noise around us and in us Still the urgency and anxiety Still the destruction and falsehood Lord, help us listen Break t...
In his book, Running Scared , Pychologist Edward Welch illustrates how the fear of an event is often worse than the event itself. To demonstrate this, he provides two examples of people whose lives...
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...
Matthew 27:46, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Peter 3:18, John 19:30, 1 Peter 4:13
In Elie Wiesel’s Night , Eliezer is a Jewish teenager, a devoted student of the Talmud from Sighet, in Hungarian Transylvania. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis occupied Hungary. Increasingly repressi...
1 Peter 5:7, John 14:27, Philippians 4:19, Psalm 34:17-18, Matthew 11:28-30
Our loving Father, You’ve loved us from everlasting to everlasting. While looking into the future we see only mist and shadows—you see it all with clarity and precision. That which we can only guess a...
God of the heavens and the earth, Giver of sun and showers, wind and calm: We praise You for Your grace and power, Your beauty, grace and care. You sustain us daily, and encourage us constantly. Than...
Father God: You know our thoughts, before we speak them. You know our needs, without us saying them. So, You invite us into Your presence, with arms wide open, not to hear our laundry lists of wants a...
Ephesians 2:8-9, Matthew 28:19-20, James 5:15, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19, Micah 6:8, Mark 2:1-12, Ephesians 1:7
Lord, Teacher, Savior, Friend: We need Your grace, which forgives our sins; Your truth, which anchors our lives; Your presence, which calms our fears; Your call, which gives us purpose; Your hope, whi...
All: O Lord, you declare that the forgiven person is blessed, that the person who has no deceit is blessed. We confess that we have had deceitful hearts, deceitful tongues, deceitful thoughts, and dec...
Do We Stay or Do We Go? It was June of 2020 and we had a major decision to make. As we went around our group of elders , each was given the chance to give their opinion: do we go back to worshippi...
Now assurance goes far to set a child of God free. . . .It enables him to feel that the great business of life is a settled business, the great debt a paid debt, the great disease a healed disease, an...
Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can t...
Mark 9:35, Ephesians 4:2-3, Romans 12:10, Proverbs 27:17, Philippians 2:3-4
I’m just a plow hand from Arkansas, but I have learned how to hold a team together. How to lift some men up, how to calm down others, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat together, a team. There’s ...
In this short excerpt from a journal entry by the late priest Henri Nouwen, the author describes the need to make a significant change to his life during a very difficult period in his ministry. Nouwe...
There is a story about a man who stopped in the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up a couple of items for his wife. He wandered around aimlessly for a while searching out the needed gro...
I don’t know what I did wrong. But he had that “calmer than calm” look that hid a rage inside. I picked up the phone and saw her name. Not now. I can’t handle her right now. I scanned the room, lookin...
The mind in all its intricate beauty can be a place of great anguish. Thoughts can both grip us for the good and plague us for that which is not. In Dickens’ Christmas novella, The Chimes, he describe...
Romans 12:15, Proverbs 18:13, Luke 6:36-37, Colossians 3:12, Matthew 7:1-2, 1 Samuel 16:7
Best-Selling leadership author Stephen Covey tells the following story about an incident he experienced in the New York subway system, an experience that would radically alter his perception of what i...
Isaiah 26:3, John 20:19-21, Philippians 4:6-7, John 14:27, 1 Kings 19:11-12, Psalm 46:10
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...
Mark 7:20-23, Proverbs 4:23, James 1:14-15, Luke 6:43-45, Colossians 2:23
One afternoon, I was playing with my son in our living room when I suddenly smelled something burning. I stood up and walked around, nose high in the air, sniffing furiously. My wife smelled it too, s...