faith and work on Grumbling

In his Rule for monasteries, St. Benedict considered grumbling a serious offense against community life. He wrote, “If a disciple grumbles, not only aloud but in his heart … his action will not ...

Almighty God, from the very beginning, You have designed us for glorious work. You have given us Your Spirit and spread before us limitless resources. Because You have made us a royal priesthood, we n...

When the telegraph was the fastest means of long-distance communication, a young man applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was liste...

Thankfulness is a soil in which pride does not easily grow.

Prayer of Adoration God, Almighty – holy, gracious, truthful and loving, we’re drawn by Your invitation to enjoy Your love, an invitation to feel Your touch and hear Your voice, to taste and see tha...

Gracious God, we confess that we do not always listen to your calling for us. Instead we carry on with our busy lives, not being mindful of your voice, calling us to live for more than ourselves. Plea...

The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for “religious” things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed b...

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

If the Book of Job reaches across two and a half millennia to teach anything to men and women who consider themselves normal, decent human beings, it is this: Human beings are sure to wander in ignora...

Charles Fulton Oursler Sr. (1893–1952) was an American journalist, playwright, editor, and writer. Like many Southerners of means, he was cared for as a boy by a nurse who had been born into slavery. ...

We may have more disagreements with nonbelievers, but our disagreements with fellow believers are more problematic and more emotionally charged.

Don’t underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.

Whether we are easily swamped or nearly waterproof, there’s one wiring challenge we all face: Bad is stronger than good. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt elaborates: “Responses to threats and unpleasantnes...

Though he works and worries, the farmer never reaches down to where the seed turns into summer. The earth grants.

It is wicked to wrong God; but still worse to think oneself wronged by God. And men and women think this oftener than one would suppose.

Praying to an invisible God does not bring forth the same feedback you would get from a counselor or from friends who at least nod their heads in sympathy. Is anyone really listening? As Ernestine, th...

If you go against the grain of the universe, you get splinters.

Let no man be disheartened nor discouraged if he have brought a good conscience and faithful labor to the service of the Lord. Let him not think his wages the worse paid if God do mingle bodily sickne...

Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you h...

But you take pleasure in the faces Of those who know they thirst.

In Guilt and Grace , Swiss physician and Christian, Paul Tournier, writes… I cannot study this very serious problem of guilt with you without raising the very obvious and tragic fact that rel...

O God, Giver of all good, and Fountain of all mercies, in whom are all the springs of our life; all glory, thanks and praise be unto thee for thine unfailing goodness; for thy faithfulness which is fr...

In Circle of Quiet , Madeleine L’Engle describes how her young adult novel A Wrinkle in Time was dismissed by eight publishers before it eventually landed with the publishing house of Farra...

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have r...

My thought it is a wanton ranger,  It skips away;  I fear 'twill bring my soul in danger  On Judgment Day...

We must do our business faithfully; without trouble or disquiet, recalling our mind to GOD mildly, and with tranquility, as often as we find it wandering from Him.

In spite of sorrow, loss, and pain, our course be onward still; we sow on Burmah's barren plain, we reap on Zion's hill.

Lord of the Sabbath Prince of Peace Lead us away from our work for rest Our world is so fast So noisy So full Help us stop and rest with you Our world is so pressured Work, work, work Buy, buy, buy ...

Underneath our frantic pace is a question: Is this work I do good enough?

When a man's pride is subdued it's like the sides of Mount Aetna. It was terrible during the eruption, but when that is over and the lava is turned into soil, there are vineyards and olive tre...