habits on Tomb

Gracious, Heavenly Father, we are people who often live our lives in routine, but who rarely enter into the fullness of the abundant life. In Easter, You accomplished the impossible. You proved Your W...

In the film  Memento , we meet Leonard, who is searching for the man who killed his wife. He appears to be the typical Hollywood hero of the early 2000s. The hair is right; the jaw line, the atmospher...

Merciful God, in baptism you promise forgiveness and new life, making us part of the body of Christ. We confess that we remain preoccupied with ourselves, separated from one another. We cling to destr...

We often get into ruts, on treadmills, caught up in patterns and habits that aren't useful. We don't stop to ask, what can I learn from this week that will keep next week from essentially bein...

I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels so much like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that have become habitual…I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the ...

Preaching Commentary Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The ...

Ancient lighting took  Work I remember watching a movie (I think it was The Mummy ) where the protagonists descended into an underground structure built by the ancients. The structure was completel...

Holy Lord, High Priest over all people, You have given us everything we need to live a life of flourishing. You have met our needs and provided a model for what a life-with-God looks like. But we oft...

In this short excerpt, author Ashley Hales describes the disembodying reality of being glued to screens, and a few ways to become back in touch with our embodied selves: Perhaps we look to a scree...

An atheist fell off a cliff. As he tumbled downward, he caught hold of the branch of a small tree. There he hung between heaven above and the rocks a thousand feet below, knowing he wasn’t going to be...

The following illustration, taken from Ronald Rolheiser book, The Holy Longing, can be applied to the idea of bad habits, that they often have a way of returning, no matter how hard we try to kill t...

A nail is driven out by another nail. Habit is overcome by habit.

Gracious God–who opens Your arms wide to welcome us just as we are but who’s too loving leave us that way: in response to Your invitation we come humbly and boldly with our broken hearts and weak hand...

Merciful God, in your gracious presence we confess our sin and the sin of this world. We are a people torn apart by racial, national, social, and theological divisions. We fail to welcome the foreigne...

Dan B. Allender, in his book Leading Character , notes that the Greek word “charaktér" was “used in connection with tools designed for engraving.” Greek philosophers noted that our past actions ...

To experience the richness of life in God's kingdom, we must reorder our lives. We need to see through the shallow promises of our culture, and we need rhythms, signposts, and practices that reori...

I read somewhere that in the early days of the Alaska Highway, tractor-trailer trucks would make deep ruts in the gravel as they carried construction equipment to boomtowns up north. Someone posted th...

Tallulah Bankhead (1903-1968) was a flamboyant actress, whom one critic called “more an act than an actress.” At the opening-night party for a play in which she was performing, she got into an argumen...

We become what we repeatedly do.

Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your d...

How do you define what it means to “make a sacrifice?” We say we sacrifice for our family, or sacrifice for our careers. We speak of Jesus sacrificing himself so that we can experience eternal life. A...

Almighty God, from the very beginning, You have designed us for glorious work. You have given us Your Spirit and spread before us limitless resources. Because You have made us a royal priesthood, we n...

Perhaps you have been ensnared by a sinful habit that you will not abandon, and your guilt is so overwhelming you are ashamed to approach Christ. Whatever the reason for your broken intimacy with God,...

Blog post adapted from Necessary Christianity by Claude Alexander, Jr. Adapted from Chapter 5, "I Must Be Diligent" The life of Jesus reveals that God’s call and God’s claim on the belie...

On retreat we stop avoiding the pain of the disconnect between our deepest desires and the way we are actually living. We have time and space to reflect on our life rhythms to see if they are really w...

The mind commands the body and is instantly obeyed. The mind commands itself and meets resistance.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

Give me chastity and continency—but not yet!

For the past two weeks, the Strachan family has been living, working, and playing in Southern California, primarily at the beach, thanks to a close friend (yes, I know how ridiculously blessed we are)...

Every habit and faculty is confirmed and strengthened by the corresponding actions, that of walking by walking, that of running by running. If you wish to be a good reader, read; if you wish to be a g...