purpose on Music

John Coltrane stands out as one of the giants of 20th-century jazz. His legacy is a generation of hearts touched and the light of God shining through his songs. Yet, for years, his work was haunted by...

Considered perhaps the greatest guitarist alive, Christopher Parkening appeared to have it all. Signed to an international recording deal as a teenager, Parkening traveled across the world playing bea...

Your life is in the pulpit with you Fred Craddock said, “Not everything that’s in the Bible is in the Bible .” That’s why we have, among other things, commentaries . The most helpful ones throw o...

Listen to your life. All moments are key moments. I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it…Taking your children to school and ki...

How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by! The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic; Our spirits resound with clashing, with noisy silences, While some...

Pastor: Go now in confidence and joy, offering yourselves as living sacrifices of worship and praise.  People: Direct our days and our deeds as we live out our calling to look, live, and lo...

If you are what you should be, then you will set the world on fire.

Preaching Commentary Calling People often give me weird looks when I talk about being “called” by God. A pastor can be “called” to devote their working time to shepherding a church. A parent can be...

It is interesting that in Scripture, in both the original Hebrew and Greek languages, the word used in speaking of the Spirit is the word that can also mean “wind.” In like manner, the Holy Spirit wor...

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”

Da Vinci painted one Mona Lisa. Beethoven composed one Fifth Symphony. And God made one version of you. He custom designed you for a one-of-a-kind assignment. Mine like a gold digger the unique-to-you...

Bit by intelligible bit, a vocation lets us express our healthiest instincts, our noblest desires… In small things and in large, we can attend to the haunting inner summons of our soul.

O God, who gives to every man and woman their work, and through their labors does accomplish your purposes upon earth: Grant your blessing, we beg you, to those who are engaged in the work and busines...

I have been moved to a different course of action, however, inspired largely by my daily exposure to college students in a great university during the course of a preaching and teaching ministry that ...

Lord Almighty, you have given us a purpose in life. You have gifted us with abilities and passions. Sometimes we choose to live according to that purpose you have designed for us. Other times we live ...

Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason.

Pastor: Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,  People: for in you my soul takes refuge; Pastor: in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,  People: till the storms...

Pastor: Gracious Father, You have chosen us for a purpose – that we might bear lasting fruit for Your Kingdom. You call us to walk humbly before You and to share in the struggle with the least of thes...

Preaching Commentary What is the meaning of life? Why is it that we exist? Or to put it in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, “what is the meaning of life?” If you ask Google, which I did, vario...

Life is always dull and insipid to those who have no great works on their hands to do and no lofty ideals to elevate their spirits.

We long to see our lives whole and 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. Are we really living...

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...

If this world was made by a triune God, a being of community, then relationships of love are what life is really all about.

Leader: God of life, when life is broken, All: we turn to you. Loving Christ, when hearts are broken, you come to us. Holy Spirit, this broken world needs us; flow through us to all the...

Success is waking up in the morning, whoever you are, wherever you are, however old or young, and bounding out of bed because there’s something out there that you love to do, that you believe in, that...

I need to have a reason why I'm doing something. Otherwise I'm lost.

At the end of the movie I, Robot (2004), the robot named Sonny has fulfilled the objectives in his design program. But now he realizes he no longer has a purpose. The movie concludes with a dialogue...

Calling People often give me weird looks when I talk about being “called” by God. A pastor can be “called” to devote their working time to shepherding a church. A parent can be “called” to invest in ...

There is a lovely book of advice for writers called Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield, which talks about how much easier it is to pursue a version of something than the real thing. Pressfield say...

Our business in the world is not to succeed to but to continue to fail in good spirits.