preparation on Pain and Growth

Trivia time! What natural disaster is the most destructive to a forest? Chances are that the first thing that comes to mind is a forest fire. After all, fire is pure destruction to plants. What possib...

Individual disasters, too, very largely follow upon human choices, our own or those of others. And whether or not they do in a particular case, the situations in which we find ourselves are never as i...

Grateful people learn to celebrate even amid life’s hard and harrowing memories because they know that pruning is no mere punishment, but preparation."

Don’t see your struggle as an interruption to life but as preparation for life. No one said the road would be easy or painless. But God will use your mess for something good. “This trouble you’re in i...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith provides an important analogy about the importance of spiritually preparing ourselves for the adversity and challenges that come with su...

Have you ever heard of "Stein’s Law"? Named after University of Virginia economics professor Herbert Stein, it states: "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." Do you...

Preaching Commentary Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies ...

Introduction Our Gospel reading for today, the well-known “Parable of the Talents,” is one of a series of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of Matthew that focuses on what Davies and Allison rightly lab...

"Everything we encounter today is used by God to prepare us for tomorrow. he wastes no trials, withholds no blessings, nor does he hold back on the discipline of his soldiers. All He does prepare...

Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes.

Context In the Book of Mark Mark 13 contains the “Olivet Discourse,” also called “the Little Apocalypse.” At the beginning of this chapter (and our reading), the disciples marvel at Herod’s spectacu...

Context In the Book of Mark Mark 13 contains the “Olivet Discourse,” also called “the Little Apocalypse.” At the beginning of this chapter (and our reading), the disciples marvel at Herod’s spectacu...

Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation.

Ancient lens What's the historical context? Original Passover If you frequent any web sites that have thread or message board formats, you occasionally run into the acronym “OP,” meaning “ori...

We say that Nature rests, yet she is working like mad. She has only shut up shop and pulled the shutters down; but behind them she is unpacking new goods, and the shelves are becoming so full that the...

AIM commentary Ancient lens What's the historical context? Original Passover If you frequent any web sites that have thread or message board formats, you occasionally run into the acronym “...

[A gardener cultivates soil more than plants.] He lives buried in the ground. He builds his monument in a heap of compost. If he came into the Garden of Eden he would sniff excitedly and say: ‘Good Lo...

Chance favors the prepared mind.

Is Advent a preparatory fast in preparation for the liturgical commemoration of the historical birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or is Advent a season unto itself. A sacrament of the end of time begun in t...

Editor’s Note: The following was an imagination exercise used while preaching on Matthew 24:36-44, I began by inviting the congregation to close their eyes. Imagine you are a watchmen (or woman) stan...

Just as the nine months you spent in your mother's womb were not an end in themselves but preparation for life, so this life is preparation for the next.

Preparation for old age should begin not later than one's teens. A life which is empty of purpose until 65 will not suddenly become filled on retirement.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

Pentecost Came Like Wildfire I’m lying on an ice pack early this morning, doing my back exercises and listening to  Pray as You Go , a tool for meditation, with monastery bells, music, and a Bible re...

Payton Manning practiced indirection. He was the winning quarterback of Super Bowl XLI. It was a rainy night, and the ball was slippery. Rex Grossman, the quarterback for the losing team, fumbled the ...

What you call “worry” . . . I call “preparation.”

The watchman was a very common theme in Old Testament days. In Biblical days, the Jews had vineyards with grapevines. On that farm with acres of grapes, the Jews built a tall tower called a watchtower...

Christ told his disciples not to be anxious about tomorrow, but he never said not to consider tomorrow. Intelligent problem solving demands careful consideration of the future effects of present solut...

My friend Eugene has a black belt in martial arts. During a sermon taping, I once held a block of wood as tightly as I could, right in front of my face, while Eugene did a 360-degree spin and splinter...

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.