living on Alertness

Introduction This text is used in the first week of Advent, but preparing for Jesus' return isn't something for just one time of the year. For a treatment that is more focused on Advent, see ...

Sometimes it takes a wake-up call, doesn't it, to alert us to the fact that we're hurrying through our lives instead of actually living them; that we're living the fast life instead of the...

Dangerous levels of exhaustion usually accumulate over a longer period of time in which we are consistently living beyond human limits, functioning outside our giftedness, or not paying attention to t...

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wi...

The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted. Indifference to the divine wonder of living is the root of sin.

I am so thankful to be alive—breathing, moving, sensing, wide-eyed, cock-eared alive—in this mysterious instant, at this luminous time, on this nurturing earth, this blue pearl of great price whirling...

It's in our biology to trust what we see with our eyes. This makes living in a carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped world very dangerous.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones. And when you have finished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake!"

Calm us now, O Lord, into a quietness that heals and listens. Open wounded hearts to the balm of your Word. Speak to us in clear tones so that we might feel our spirits leap for joy and skip with hope...

Living for what gives or maintains the greatest amount of personal comfort is our long-established habit. At the core, that’s what comfort is—it’s a habit, a way of life. Comfort has become the defaul...

There are people who do not live their present life; it is as if they were preparing themselves, with all their zeal, to live some other life, but not this one. And while they do this, time goes by an...

Lord God, refresh us with living water, Illuminate our path with your light, Speak to us with the still small voice And calm the storms of our lives with your peace.

Humble and self-forgetting we must be always, but diffident and apologetic about the gospel never.

“It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

The birth of the child into the darkness of the world made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.

God who is near at hand, Draw us humbly into your present with the expectation you will listen and we will be heard. By the power of your Holy Spirit, soften our hearts, reminding us that we are your...

To get a sense of how breathing is regarded by modern medical professionals, think back to your last check-up. Chances are your doctor took your blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, then placed a s...

Breathing is the bridge between the brain and the body.

Almost as important as oxygen for human survival is hope. According to Dr. Arnold Hutschnecker, “Since my early years as a physician, I learned that taking away hope is, to most people, like pronounci...

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...

Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can t...

Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon yo...

For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be serv...

The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day.

Sometimes, of course, the sense of God with us becomes much more distinct. My oldest brother, J. I. Willard, served for over thirty years as a minister under the blessing of God. But his entry into th...

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...

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

Risen Jesus, no one saw it coming, but your march out of the tomb has changed everything. This day leaves me breathless in wonder—death is conquered, hope lives, love wins, salvation is here! Give me ...

Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life

The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense ...