courage on Space

And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love.

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves; when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little; when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lo...

Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; ...

There is plenty of courage among us for the abstract, but not for the concrete.

In the final pages of his great epic The Lord of the Rings, J.R R. Tolkien writes of his heroes, Sam and Frodo, and their desperate quest to reach the cursed Mount Doom to cast the ring of power, a de...

O Holy One, we call to you and name you as eternal, ever-present, and boundless in love. Yet there are times, O God, when we fail to recognize you in the dailyness of our lives. Sometimes shame clench...

Just remaining quietly in the presence of God, listening to Him, being attentive to Him requires a lot of courage and know-how.

Though God is at work, God hides… You have a choice: see God here or not; see salvation, or see only human courage; see the divine subtly at work, or see chance, luck of the draw on this day of lots.

I’d grown up in a Boston suburb where people’s homes were set behind deep hedges or protected by huge yards and neighbors hardly knew each other. And they didn’t need to: nothing ever happened in my t...

May the peace of the Lord Jesus Christ go with you wherever he may send you.  May the Spirit ground you in the truth that you were created with divine purpose.  May you take up your God-given vocati...

The things we say yes to and the things we say no to determine the terrain of our future. My convoluted journey is posted with invitations, and my RSVPs account for the twists and turns. Sometimes, ha...

Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than w...

When you start showing up, you learn that some of the most beautiful things only happened because you found the courage to exit your own head and just do the next necessary thing.

Our God, we have been slow to stand and slow to act. We have been unmoved in the face of wrongs. Rather than welcoming others, we have put up walls. We have served this god of self-preservation. But y...

Every now and then it shows through the clouds that are moving across its face. One moment it looks like the eye of a hawk in profile. The next it looks like the eye at the top of the pyramid on a dol...

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

Leader: Through the grace and righteousness of Jesus Christ, the plan of the Father, and power of the Holy Spirit, you who trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins—your sins are washed away! All: ...

Courage is putting one foot in front of the other when all you can see is a faint outline of the future.

Pastor: "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him." (Jn 3:17) All: His love endures forever Pastor: "...

Silence is evil's closest ally.

Loving God**, we reflect on the times when we took too long to obey you. Give us courage next time.(silent reflection)** Merciful God**, we reflect on the instances where we failed to see your leadin...

Leader: The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? People: The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Leader: One thing I have asked of the Lord, that I will se...

A truly remarkable example of sacrificial courage took place in Folsom, New Mexico, in 1908. When a flood was racing toward the valley, a resident from the hills warned a local woman, S. J. Brooks, th...

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

On the evening of October 15, 1940, London experienced one of the fiercest attacks of the Blitz. A total of 480 German aircraft dropped approximately 386 tons of high explosives and 70,000 incendiary ...

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothi...

Gracious God, thank you for the responsibilities you have entrusted to us and for all you have given us to fulfill them. Sometimes, Lord, we can feel overwhelmed by the challenges. A part of us wants ...

Everyone knows that during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis we were perilously close to WWIII and nuclear Armageddon. Most people don’t know HOW close we were. Or how much we owe to Vasili Arkhipov. Ark...

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond al...