Personal Development on Seasons

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Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something's time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a...

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Different Seasons, Different Challenges

Author

Ronald Rohlheiser

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Scripture

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Luke 15:11-32, Proverbs 20:29, Psalm 90:10-12

Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment ( Thou shalt not commit adultery ) and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth comma...

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Author

Nicki Koziarz

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Hard seasons can cause us to look at God in an unhealthy way. Instead of asking God what He needs us to see in these seasons, we may constantly find ourselves asking Him if He really knows what He is ...

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Author

Charles R. Swindoll

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When you accept the fact that sometimes seasons are dry and times are hard and that God is in control of both, you will discover a sense of divine refuge, because the hope then is in God and not in yo...

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Author

Morgan Harper Nichols

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Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Genesis 2:2-3, Psalm 104:

Turn to the sun rising above your head or the leaves of the deciduous trees falling to the ground and think, "In the same way there is a rhythm to nature, I have rhythms too."

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Heavenly Father, we stand in awe of

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Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

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John 14:6, Genesis 1:1, Psalm 19:1, Isaiah 40:28, John 14:6, Psalm 100:3, Colossians 1:16, Romans 5:8

Heavenly Father, we stand in awe of Your creation. You are the master of design. You know the change of seasons, You know the orbit of planets, and You know exactly what human beings were made for: a ...

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Gracious and loving God, Father, Son

Author

Richard Herman

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Scripture

James 5:15, Psalm 147:3, Galatians 3:28, Matthew 5:44, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Corinthians 15:54-55, Ephesians 4:32

Gracious and loving God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We praise you for how wide, how high, and how deep is Your vast love for all people. Incarnate in Jesus, You offered Your life for the healing of ...

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Throwing Away Valuable Resources

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Psalm 42:, Philippians 3:13-14, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 2 Corinthians 11:24-30

In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...

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Digging Down Deep

Author

Bianca Juarez Olthoff

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John 15:5, Proverbs 12:3, Isaiah 61:3, Matthew 13:5-6, Ephesians 3:17-19

I’m more of an aboveground type of girl, as in, I like the stuff you can see. Flowers, trees, and vegetation symbolize life, growth, and transformation. The problem with focusing on external manifesta...

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Topsoil and Christ

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Wendell Berry

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The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experienc...

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Sabbath for Pastors: Why Is It So Hard to Rest?

Author

Dan Baumgartner

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If you are a pastor…this one’s for you. Sabbath. So many things have been written. Most of us have taught our people or preached about Sabbath, and underscored how busy people in our churches re...

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Author

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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Direction

You may readily judge whether you are a child of God or a hypocrite by seeing in what direction your soul turns in seasons of severe trial. The hypocrite flies to the world and finds a sort of comfort...

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Whatever You Do…

Author

Mark Batterson

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Scripture

Colossians 3:23

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart,” said the apostle Paul, “as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Colossians 3:23) ...[H]ow you do anything is how you’ll do everything. Dr. ...

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Discipling Football Players

Author

Mark Batterson

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 6:6–7, 2 Timothy 2:2, Proverbs 22:6, Daniel 6:3–4, Matthew 28:19–20, Psalm 78:4–7

The U of C [University of Chicago] has produced ninety-eight Nobel laureates, but I’m not sure any of them left as big an imprint on that university as its famed football coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg. Sta...

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Identity and Pastors: Struggle, Success, and the Silent Battle

Author

Geoffrey V. Dudley

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"Not Against Flesh and Blood..." There is an unspoken battle that every pastor faces—a battle not against flesh and blood , nor merely against the seen forces of ministry challenges, but...

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Casey at the Bat

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Proverbs 16:18, Proverbs 11:2, Proverbs 29:23, Proverbs 8:23, James 4:6, Proverbs 16:5, 1 John 2:16, Philippians 2:3, Jeremiah 9:23, Daniel 4:28-33

“Casey at the Bat” has got to be the most well-known sports poem in American history. The “Mudville nine” are down four to two, with one inning left with two outs. Two men wait at second and third bas...

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Great Coaches Bring out the Best in their People

Author

John Maxwell

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Good leaders are like good coaches. They know how to bring out the best in the people on their team. That’s what John Wooden did. It’s also what legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi did. When he took ov...

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Prep for Pentecost

Author

Jack Levison

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Pentecost Came Like Wildfire I’m lying on an ice pack early this morning, doing my back exercises and listening to Pray as You Go , a tool for meditation, with monastery bells, music, and a Bible re...

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The Importance of Listening to God

Author

Alan Fadling

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Scripture

Ecclesiastes 5:1-2, John 10:4

Over the years, I have led hundreds of retreats that have at their center a few hours to be alone and quiet in listening prayer. At one such retreat, one participant shared a conversation she had wit...

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Do You Know Where You Are Going?

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Charles Swindoll

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In his book Growing strong in the Seasons of Life , the author Charles Swindoll tells a story about the 19th Century agnostic Thomas Huxley. The story goes like this – Huxley was in Dublin and was ru...

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Waiting Forces us To Reckon with the Deep Questions of our Identity

Author

Ashley Hales

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But as we grow older, waiting feels like an inconvenience or affront. We take out our phones when we’re waiting in the grocery store aisle for two minutes. We listen to podcasts on our commute. We lea...

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5 Great Worship Resources on the Psalms

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Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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October 2018 For centuries, the Psalms have been the songbook of the church. From metrical settings of Psalms (think, “Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow” or “The Lord’s My Shepherd, I’ll Not Wa...

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Pete Carroll’s Call and the Error of “Resulting”

Author

Annie Duke

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Scripture

Matthew 7:24-27, Galatians 6:7-8, Proverbs 16:3, Psalm 119:105, James 1:5

One of the most controversial decisions in Super Bowl history took place in the closing seconds of Super Bowl XLIX in 2015. The Seattle Seahawks, with twenty-six seconds remaining and trailing by four...

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The Perfect Storm

Author

Andy Cook

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To understand why the Andrea Gail never had a chance, one needs only to search the clues along the shoreline of the Eastern Seaboard. At first, it went by the name of the “Halloween Storm,” given its...

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How we Deal with the Desert

Author

Bianca Juarez Olthoff

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Scripture

Proverbs 3:5-6, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Hosea 2:14, Isaiah 43:19, Psalm 63:1, Matthew 4:1, Deuteronomy 8:2

We all go through desert seasons and have the opportunity to determine how we will respond. The cyclical frustrations I faced in regard to my desire for control, fear, and the longing to feel chosen w...

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Author

Karel Čapek

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We say that Nature rests, yet she is working like mad. She has only shut up shop and pulled the shutters down; but behind them she is unpacking new goods, and the shelves are becoming so full that the...

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The Wisdom of Dormancy

Author

Wayne Muller

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Scripture

Genesis 2:2-3, Exodus 20:8-11, Leviticus 25:4-5, Mark 2:27, Isaiah 40:30-31

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season,...

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Author

Algernon Charles Swinburne

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Scripture

Revelation 21:5, Romans 12:2, Isaiah 35:1, Psalm 30:5, Ecclesiastes 3:1

And time remembered is grief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

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Author

Jan L. Richardson

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Scripture

Exodus 33:21-23, Isaiah 40:3-5, Psalm 27:14

The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you ...

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God Who Brings the Cleansing Rain

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

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God who brings the cleansing rain saturate our thirsty bones with the milk of mercy sweet with the blood that brings us home God who rules the fiery sun kindle now our brittle hearts set ablaze our t...

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