renewal on Margin

People in a hurry never have time for recovery. Their minds have little time to meditate and pray so that problems can be put in perspective. In short, people in our age are showing signs of physiolog...

Your mercies are new every morning, oh Lord. You renew us on a regular basis. Every day we fall short. You have made us righteous through the power of Jesus, but take Jesus’ sacrifice for granted. Ple...

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

jobs concluding, stages finishing, grieving over, grudges over, blaming over, excuses over. O God, grant me your sense of timing. In this season of ...

Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength... It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.

O God, too often we turn to You when we have no other place to go, but your arms are always open wide. Forgive us for using you as our last resort when you ought to be our first. We confess that you h...

As fall temperatures drop, trees begin to lose their green (chlorophyll), and their fall foliage of vibrant red, yellow, and orange appears. Earlier in the year, maples have dropped seedpods (sometime...

Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest

Gracious God, on Sundays we come to this place and you fill us up with your goodness and light and we are renewed. But when we go out into the world, we fall short in so many ways. We confess that we ...

And so we arrive at autumn, the conclusion of our ordinary time in the land. The seeds planted at the start of our pilgrimage have produced a harvest in fields, homes, and towns. Farms display God’s a...

Thank you, Lord, for this season of sun and slow motion, of games and porch sitting, of picnics and light green fireflies on heavy purple evenings; and praise for slight breezes. It’s good, God...

We know we need rest, but we can no longer see the value of rest as an end in itself; it is only worthwhile if it helps us recharge our batteries.

When we hear the word retreat many of us think of the military use of the word, which refers to the tactic troops use when they are losing too much ground, when they are tired and ineffective, a...

A heart renewed--a loving heart--a penitent and humble heart--a heart broken and contrite, purified by love--that and only that is the rest of men. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life...

God of love, you call us to repentance: you offer us love we decline to receive and fail to share with others. Help us reclaim your love in our hearts. By your loving spirit re-shape us as vessels of ...

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...

Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart Could have recovered greenness?

Use what you have, use what the world gives you. Use the first day of fall: bright flame before winter's deadness; harvest; orange, gold, amber; cool nights and the smell of fire. Our tree-lined s...

Sabbath honors the necessary wisdom of dormancy. If certain plant species, for example, do not lie dormant for winter, they will not bear fruit in the spring. If this continues for more than a season,...

Pastor: Heavenly Father, as we live through the remainder of this Ash Wednesday, may the crosses of ashes that mark our foreheads be a reminder to us and to those we meet that we belong to your Son....

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding ways to rest and relax as part of a healthy, balanced life: I once read a book in which the author sa...

If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with you, therefore you are feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul waits. I hope in his word. My soul longs for the L...

Merciful God, we humble ourselves in your presence, confessing our unworthiness and our sinfulness in your sight. We have broken your holy law. We have not sought first your kingdom and righteousness....

Leader: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. People: Wash me through and through from my wickedness and cleanse me from my sin. F...

Father, we thank you that you are a God who provides second chances. You called us to go and we ran. We ran as far from your presence as possible. You pursued us in our abandonment of your call. Like ...

Leader: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy, blot out my transgressions. People: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my si...

Contempt is so painful To be dismissed, disregarded Questioning instead of dignity Accusation instead of personhood I have felt its sting and hollowness As have you, my Jesus Help me hear the needed m...

Jesus, we receive your blessings and pray for the Holy Spirit to make them real in our lives. Renew a right spirit within us, a poor spirit, a spirit that knows our deep need of your grace and deliver...

Lesslie Newbigin, the great missiologist and missionary, shares a powerful analogy of repentance from his days serving as a missionary in India. I remember once visiting a village in the Madras di...

Leader : Let us go before our God, confessing the ways we have dismissed His plan for internal peace from our lives. Leader : Heavenly Father, we crave rest and seek it everywhere but with You...