Genesis 28:10–17, Isaiah 9:2–7, Micah 5:2–5, John 1:1–14, Luke 2:8–14 , Psalm 96:10–13
Our family started watching our Christmas movies early this year. We love Christmas Vacation , Charlie Brown’s Christmas, Home Alone (one and two), Rudolph, and Frosty the Snowman ...
Exodus 6:33, Exodus 20:3, Deuteronomy 6:5, 1 Corinthians 10:31, James 1:17, 1 Timothy 6:17, Luke 14:26-27, Philippians 3:8
We sometimes imagine surrender to God as emotional starvation. Every pleasure feels suspicious, and every passion feels in competition with our love of God. We think that the more miserable we are in ...
By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. RESPO...
Luke 15:1-10, Philippians 4:4, Psalm 118:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Go, as God’s people of joy, carrying in your hearts the good news that our God delights to seek and save all who are lost. May you know how deeply Christ values each and every person who you encounter...
Indeed, there comes a time in the life of every believer and of every church where a voice inside us simply asks, Now what? After we have been introduced to Jesus and have found peace with God through...
The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we ha...
Ancient lens What’s the historical context? Wisdom Song It is not too far a stretch to imagine an eager young person sitting at the feet of a well-seasoned elder and receiving the words of thi...
Luke 24:44–53, Acts 1:1-11, John 7:33-34, Mark 6:19, Psalm 145:8, Psalm 145:18
Leader: When our Lord Jesus was about to ascend into heaven, He lifted His hands in blessing, promising to be with us always. Even though His Word confirms His presence in our lives, we are a sinful...
May you refuse to do battle against the parts of yourself that need love the most. Set down your sword. Say hello to every shard. Hello, grief. Hello, sadness. Hello, anger. Hello, madness. ...
A wealthy Dutch collector was searching for a rare diamond to complete his collection. When a renowned New York dealer located the perfect stone, he invited the man to come see it in person. The Du...
Researchers have discovered that when people sing as a group, as they would in a choir, oxytocin courses through their brains. An uptick in the hormone is a fairly reliable indicator of feelings of tr...
There is a constant mental pilgrimage towards that Mecca of the human heart—happiness. . . . Everybody wants to be happy, and thinks, strives, wishes, and lives to that end.
People are realizing that what seemed important to them in their lives-materialism and consumerism-doesn't work at all to make a happy heart. It actually makes an unhappy heart. And an unhappy wor...
We long to see our lives whole, to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Lacking a vision of a l...
John 11:35, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 6:1, Psalm 78:58, Psalm 78:40, Psalm 18:19, Psalm 25:6, Psalm 5:7, Exodus 20:5, Exodus 22:23, Isaiah 15:5, Luke 15:null, Genesis 23:2, Genesis 42:24, 1 Samuel 1:10, 2 Samuel 1:11-12, 2 Kings 8:11-12, 2 Kings 22:18-20, Mark 14:72, John 20:11, Acts 20:37, Revelation 5:4
When the Professor Weeps: A Personal Story About ten years ago, I was teaching a course on the psalms for my seminary students in the midst of a personal health crisis. It wasn’t in my notes, but I ...
[T]hose persons who are on the leading edge of evolution realize . . . that the greatest happiness in life comes, not from the comforts and pleasures that money can buy, but from the investment of the...
Dawn grew up in a family in which she felt she had a fairly happy childhood. But in her adult years she struggled greatly with emotional, psychological, and physical maladies. She never felt a sense o...
One day an ad from one of my favorite stores showed up in my email inbox. Splashed across the top in big letters was the phrase “JOY MAKERS.” Of course, the ad was pointing shoppers to deals on toys, ...
Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds and glitter for the moment. Cheerfulness keeps up daylight in the mind, filling it with steady and perpetual serenity.
It is a mark of the essential morality of fairyland (a thing too commonly overlooked) that happiness, like happiness anywhere else, involves an object and even a challenge; we can only admire scenery ...
Psalm 19:1, Romans 1:20, Isaiah 6:3, John 1:9-10, Colossians 1:16-17
"God's joy," said by the Persian mystic Rumi, "moves from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell. As rain water down into flower bed. As roses up from ground. Now it looks ...