The Double Helix, James Watson’s 1968 memoir about discovering the structure of DNA, describes the roller coaster of emotions he and Francis Crick experienced through the progress and setbacks of the ...
Young men in his church were expected to pray aloud in Communion Services. So the young Larry Crabb felt pressured to pray, even though he had a problem with stuttering. He remembers offering a terrib...
Ray Johnston, in The Hope Quotient , shares a remarkable insight from a leading psychologist who had spent his career helping deeply troubled married couples rebuild their relationships after yea...
1 Kings 3:5-14 , Joshua 24:14-15 , Nehemiah 6:1-4, Matthew 6:33 , Luke 10:42, Psalm 27:4
You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burn...
In his book Unshakeable Faith , Max Lucado shares a true story about a friend who competed in an Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid, New York. You can compete in Ironman races around the world in p...
As a youngster I developed a thoroughly annoying and humiliating problem of stuttering…In the ninth grade, I was elected president of our junior high student body. During an assembly of the seventh, e...
In a short story, Jhumpa Lahiri writes about Mr. Kapasi, a man who translates to a city physician what rural Indian people say about their illnesses. When Mr. Kapasi complains to a friend, Mrs. Das, t...
As a youngster I developed a thoroughly annoying and humiliating problem of stuttering…In the ninth grade, I was elected president of our junior high student body. During an assembly of the seventh, e...
Leader: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, All: by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, t...
The missionary doctor Albert Schweitzer wrote in his memoir, “In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should...
Exodus 3:7-12 , Esther 4:12-16, Jeremiah 20:7-11, Luke 8:43-48, Mark 14:32-36, Psalm 27:13-14
A fourteenth-century definition of courage is “to speak one’s mind by telling all of one’s heart.” Courage is connecting one’s heart back to one’s mind, stitching together the separated parts of ourse...
Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child's life and it's like lighting up a whole roomful of possibilities.
Sisters Corrie and Betsie ten Boom were ultimately sent to the Ravensbrück after being arrested by the Gestapo in 1944 for hiding Jewish people and members of the Dutch resistance from the Nazis. In ...
Had it not been for a confident wife, Sophia, we might not have listed among the great names of literature the great name of Nathaniel Hawthorne. When Nathaniel, a heartbroken man, went home to tell h...
In an old joke, people refer to seminary as cemetery. Attending one does feel like that at times, so the last thing I expected to discover in a dingy classroom in the basement of a Pasadena seminary s...
Tracy Autler’s life changed in a very unexpected way on Thanksgiving Day, 1993. Tracy was a single mother, living in an apartment in a rough neighborhood, she was doing her best to raise a three-year ...
I am convinced that C. S. Lewis is correct in the point he makes in his remarkable speech “The Weight of Glory” that the cure for pride is not the humiliation of a person so that pride is broken. Rat...
Matthew 5:9, James 2:8, Proverbs 21:3, Romans 12:21, Isaiah 1:17, Galatians 3:28
Most of us in the United States know the famous “I have a Dream” speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave at the Lincoln Memorial as part of the 1963 March on Washington. On a sweltering, humid day in the n...
Gracious God, how often we have withheld a word of kindness, of truth and of love. We have lifted our voices in quick criticism rather than gracious encouragement. Through our actions and inactions we...
The runners for the Special Olympic, 400-meter dash were being helped to their marks. As I watched, a gentleman in a three-piece suit jumped up in the stands in front of me and began yelling, “Lenny! ...
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as som...
Pastor: May God go before you to show you the way, Beside you to accompany you Behind you to encourage you Below you to support you Above you to protect you And may He go within you to ...
I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism.
Have you ever noticed geese soaring across the sky in a V formation? Scientists have uncovered the wisdom behind this flight pattern: as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the one beh...
Tradition has it that Jennie Jerome, who would eventually become Winston Churchill’s mother, once had dinner with the British politician William Gladstone. She left the meal thinking Gladstone was the...
Psalm 62:8, Isaiah 53:4-5, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Matthew 28:18-20, James 1:5
God of Grace–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are good and You are almighty. You alone are worthy of our faith and trust and so we come to You with our hopes and hurts, our disappointments and dreams...
There is no better exercise for strengthening the heart than reaching down and lifting people up. Think about it; most of your best friends are those who encourage you. You don’t have many strong rela...