direction on Easter

Preaching Commentary The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved ps...

The Danger of Familiarity Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved psalm of the entire Psalt...

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 ...

God, our heavenly Father–from whom all families gain purpose, direction and life: When we need bread, you don’t give a stone; and when we ask for fish, you don’t give a snake; for you are good, you ar...

The two thieves appear to be representatives of two opposing directions. One of them founders on the cross; the other is raised up by it. The story of the repentant thief does not teach that every sco...

O God, the Father of the forsaken, the help of the weak, the supplier of the needy, you have distributed and proportioned your gifts to body and soul, in such sort that all may acknowledge and perform...

God, our heavenly Father – from whom all families gain purpose, direction and life: When we need bread, you don’t give a stone; and when we ask for fish, you don’t give a snake; for you are good, you ...

Faith upholds a Christian under all trials, by assuring him that every painful dispensation is under the direction of his Lord; that chastisements are a token of His love; that the season, measure, an...

As I repeat these words of your disciple Peter, let us believe them in our hearts: Lord, to whom can we go? You alone have the words of eternal life. Help us to hear your word and put them into prac...

Jesus gives us hope because he keeps us company, has a vision, and knows the way we should go.

Make us to know your ways, O Lord. Teach us your paths Lead us in your truth, And teach us. For you are the God of our salvation, For you we wait all the day long.

Vikings made long open-sea voyages when most European cultures were sticking close to the coasts. This allowed them to reach Iceland, Greenland, and even the tip of North America. But this was long be...

How much do churches remember the real and active role of the Holy Spirit? Do ministers rely on the Lord's guidance in their everyday operations? Francis and Edith Schaeffer conclude no, not at al...

Leader: God, You are my shepherd, I shall not want. People: You make me lie down in green pastures; You lead me beside still waters; You restore my soul. You lead me in right paths for Your name'...

Gracious God, you call us to draw near but we keep our distance. We are afraid of your direction and discipline, so we avoid honesty and confession. Father, help us trust in your goodness and your gra...

Many of us assume that our spiritual heroes do not have to experience the same inner-wrestling that we do. Mother Teresa, beloved across the world is one such figure we might “assume” didn’t have to d...

God our Father, Lord our Shepherd, Spirit of the Living God, One in Three … and Three in One: We praise You our Creator, Savior, and Provider. By Your grace, we lack nothing. You feed us in body...

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...

Within the Christian community this leads to a prominence of teaching on the will of God and how to know it. Russ Johnston draws upon his own wide experience to remark how this continues to be one of ...

Creator of all things, true source of light and wisdom, lofty origin of all being, graciously let a ray of your brilliance penetrate into the darkness of our understanding and take from us the doub...

As we travel through the New Testament, it becomes clear that Jesus’ disciples often get distracted, almost like they have a case of spiritual attention deficit disorder. They quickly lose focus and w...

I find when most people are honest about their spiritual pilgrimage, they admit to the difficulty of maintaining the habit of a spiritual discipline. What attracts me most about the Anglican spiritual...

The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man's life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to...

Do you hesitate, man, to go this way, when this is the way that God came to you?

Contemplation is waiting patiently for the gaps to be filled in, and it does not insist on quick closure or easy answers.

In this modern day parable, Alan Fadling describes a king and his two servants. Each of the servants desires to do the will of the king, but they approach their work very differently: One of the serv...

A TV reporter became interested in the Apollo trips to the moon—what did they talk about? He was surprised to find how much conversation was devoted to course corrections. Apparently, the lunar spacec...

Leader: God, my shepherd! I don’t need a thing. People: You have bedded me down in lush meadows, you find me quiet pools to drink from. Leader: True to your word, you let me catch my breath and se...

Spiritual direction, therefore, explicitly acknowledges what is often only implicit in other forms of pastoral care: that the directees' desire for more life, more integration, more union with God...

My job is not to solve people's problems or make them happy, but to help them see the grace operating in their lives.