relationships and community on Life

The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day.

Heavenly Father, our Savior told us, "Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for My sake will gain it." These are hard words. We confess that we oft...

Abba – Father: Because of Your love and strength, we trust You … believing You are faithful, true and gracious. Thank You for coming into our world when we could not and would not come to You. You wal...

Almighty and Everlasting God, in whom we live and move and have our being, who has created us for yourself, so that our hearts are restless until they find rest in you, grant to us purity of heart and...

Constant sustainer, you are the ultimate source of life. You tell us in your word that every good and perfect gift comes from you. You also tell us that even the birds of the air are provided for. But...

Ever loving and eternal God, source of the light that never sets and of the love that never fails. Life of our life, Father of our spirits; draw near to us, and by the remembrance of your ancient merc...

Father-God, our burden bearer; Jesus, God the Son and lover of our souls; Spirit of God–giver of life and power: Thank You! Thank You for those we love and those who love us. Thank You for mothers and...

Leader: Turn us again, O God; People: Let your face shine, that we may be saved! Leader: Turn us again, O God of hosts. People: Let your face shine, that we may be saved! Leader: Give us life,...

Leader: We trust in you, O Lord. People: We say, "You are our God." Leader: Our times are in your hand. People: Rescue us from the hands of our enemies and our persecutors. Leader: M...

O God, you are the sure foundation and the certain cornerstone. Building on you brings life, yet we often turn away and try to find hope by building on other foundations. Self-esteem, money, career, f...

Brothers and sisters, God does not leave us in our distress. He does not abandon us to our devilish decisions. While we choose to starve ourselves on a diet of our own making and choosing that leads t...

In your wisdom, O God, you call us here to worship you. We gather, alive to the Word of God. You call us to be fully alive with your life abundant, ready to listen and respond with heart, soul, st...

In the family, life is brought not only to our doorstep, but into our kitchens, bedrooms, and dens. In the family, life is happening all around us, and it begs to be questioned, evaluated, interpreted...

Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.

The character Quentin from Henry Miller’s Play, After the Fall explains a life without God: For many years I looked at life like a case at law. It was a series of proofs. When you’re young you prove ...

Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak arrested my heart a few years back. It begins with a poem by William Stafford, “Ask Me”, that begs this question: “Some time when the river is ice ask me mista...

Should anyone knock at my heart and say, “Who Lives here? I should reply, “Not Martin Luther, but the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The noonday devil of the Christian life is the temptation to lose the inner self while preserving the shell of edifying behavior.

Life is so constructed that the event does not, cannot, will not match the expectation.

The normal course of day-to-day human interactions locks us into patterns of feeling, thought, and action that are geared to a world set against God. Nothing but solitude can allow the development of ...

The ways Jesus goes about loving and saving the world are personal: nothing disembodied, nothing abstract, nothing impersonal. Incarnate, flesh and blood, relational, particular and local. The ways em...

Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. A...