personal development on Taking Inventory

Many years ago a senior executive of the then Standard Oil Company made a wrong decision that cost the company more than $2 million. John D. Rockefeller was then running the firm. On the day the news ...

God’s dealings with us are always on the order of what he did with Abram and Sarai. He makes his promises, and he will keep his promises; but just how and when he will keep them is something for which...

For all our time and attention, no matter how carefully we curate our stuff or how much we might enjoy ourselves along the way, we’re all merely stocking and staging someone else’s opportunity for bar...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we often place value in things that are important, but which may not be fully reflective of your desires. We admit that we settle for things that seem good, but don’t ...

Here’s a story about tithing - giving away 10% of one’s income, from of all places, Forbes magazine. In the article, the writer tells the story of Greg Gianforte, the founder, chairman and CEO of Rig...

In this context (Matthew 6)…storing up treasures focuses particularly on the compassionate use of material resources to meet others’ physical and spiritual needs, in keeping with the priorities of God...

Almighty God of creation, please forgive us for the times when we’ve squandered the gifts you’ve given us. You give so freely, so abundantly, that we sometimes take your gifts for granted. For the tim...

Be less concerned with what you have than with what you are.

Holy God, we come to You confessing that we never have enough. We are never satisfied with what You have given us. We look at others with envy and we want more, even when our homes are overflowing wit...

Have you ever seen an episode of the A&E TV show Hoarders? It’s a show about perfectly normal-looking people who live in perfectly normal-looking houses who become overwhelmed by their possessions...

It's increasingly common for Christians to ask one another the tough questions: How is your marriage? Have you been spending time in the Word? How are you doing in terms of sexual purity? Have you...

A first-century Hebrew walks alone on a hot afternoon, staff in hand. His shoulders are stooped, his tunic stained with sweat. But he doesn’t stop to rest. He has pressing business in the city. He vee...

Several times during the day, but especially in the morning and evening, ask yourself for a moment if you have your soul in your hands or if some passion or fit of anxiety has robbed you of it.... If ...

The examen makes us aware of moments that at first we might easily pass by as insignificant, moments that ultimately can give direction for our lives.

Merciful God, We come before you with thankful hearts. Thankful for the many gifts you have given us. You have clothed us and given us shelter. You have given us food to fill our stomachs, friendship...

As a five-year-old at Christmas I remember how excited I was to get my first bike. It was a yellow BMX Huffy, a mean machine for a kid in the late 70s. It is one of my fondest memories because I remem...

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...

It is a spiritual disaster for a man to rest content with his exterior identity, with his passport picture of himself. Is his life merely in his fingerprints?

One helpful, practical tool to understand our blind spot is what’s called the Johari Window, an image developed as a counseling tool in the 1950s. Subjects were given a list of fifty-six adjectives, a...

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...

In navigation, the term reckoning, as in dead reckoning, is the process of calculating where you are. To do that, you have to know where you’ve been and what factors influenced how you got to where yo...

I must register a certain impatience with the faddish equation, never suggested by me, of the term identity with the question, “Who am I?” This question nobody would ask himself except in a more or le...

O Giver of every good and perfect gift, we confess that we are poor stewards of your bounty. You give us time, but we waste it. You give us life, but we use it to glorify ourselves. You give us wealth...

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

Lord, we come here with lots of things on our minds, but now we turn our focus to you. Help us to put aside our schedules and "to do" lists, and replace our worry with peace. Guide us as...

All idols begin by offering great things for a very small price. All idols then fail, more and more consistently, to deliver on their original promises, while ratcheting up their demands, which initia...

Ruler of all, we live each day as if we’ll live forever, yet none of us know how long we have. We are sorry for squandering our days, our resources, and our abilities. Please renew our sense of urgenc...

We can rightly ask, What does it mean to take responsibility for my life in response to the way God has made and called me? The response to this question is that we learn how to work with the hand tha...

Rest and be thankful.

God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.