strength on Challenges

Gracious God, you are omnipotent, reigning over the universe, and ruling over us. You make a way where there seems to be no way. You expand possibilities beyond our dreams. Yet our challenges shrink ...

Resilience is not something that can be mustered in a moment of “rising to the occasion.” It is formed over a long period before the crisis of testing so that it can continue the transformation during...

Most leaders focus on how to succeed in a task. A far better approach is to focus on who you are.

On February 24, 1791, Christian revivalist and pastor John Wesley penned a letter to encourage a Christian walking through some faith challenges:  Unless the divine power has raised you up . . . I...

A group of researchers sought to study the nuances of self-control. They conducted a study with a few dozen kindergarten students and gave them a painfully boring, repetitive task designed to test how...

The key is this: Meet today's problems with today's strength. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enou...

I was listening to a show on the National Geographic channel. Two deep-sea diving experts were discussing the physics of a submarine. I found it fascinating that every square inch of a submarine’s hul...

Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; ...

Much as we long for infinities of power and duration, we have no evidence that these lie within our reach, much less within our responsibility. It is more likely that we will have either to live withi...

Success is a shining city, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We dream of it as children, we strive for it through our adult lives, and we suffer melancholy in old age if we have not reached it....

Weak and needy people finding their hope in Christ's grace are what mark a mature relationship. The most dangerous aspect of your relationships is not your weakness, but your delusions of strength...

When you face the perils of weariness, carelessness, and confusion, don't pray for an easier life. Pray instead to be a stronger man or woman of God.

One day a father decided to take his son to play at the local park. The boy quickly gravitated to the sandbox and found himself mesmerized by the colors and textures surrounding him. After a short tim...

Every weakness contains within itself a strength.

Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible—not to have run away.

I have a photo of one of my children: on a day of pure sunshine, he is running down the hillside, leading with his chest, his smile and stride wide as his speed picks up. Running is pure delight. Agai...

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...

During the interview, Simon mentions that only 10% of Navy Seals make it through the initial training process and he gives some insights as to who gets through. It’s not the big, muscle-bound guys. T...

Pastor: Oh Lord our God, we have forgotten who you are and what you have done for us. Your great and miraculous works for us are lost in the recesses of our minds, and we could not care less about you...

Father, we confess to boasting in success and security. We have denied you rather that desire you. We have cowered when we needed to be courageous. Jesus, we long to be people who follow you, no...

Trying to do the Lord's work in your own strength is the most confusing, exhausting, and tedious of all work. But when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the ministry of Jesus just flows ou...

The way most of us serve keeps us in control. We choose whom, when, where and how we will serve. We stay in charge. Jesus is calling for something else. He is calling us to be servants. When we make t...

John O’Donahue, in his book, Walking in Wonder, shares a story from India that is thousands of years old, but just as relevant today as it was back then. It’s about a man who was forced to spend a nig...

You can only build an effective Christian life when you have a “settled core”: an inner self “hidden with Christ” (Colossians 3:3). When you go to the gym or a Pilates class, your instructor might enc...

Prayer of Confession All: Certainly God is good to his people, to those pure in heart, but as for me, I nearly stumbled; I nearly lost my sure footing. I struggle with envy as I look at the those in ...

Bullying has been around as long as children have lived in groups. Often, adults minimize or ignore it, reasoning: "we all have to go through it—I did, and I'm ok" or even "it build...

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...

We readily confess our little faults in order to suggest that we have no big ones.

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living...

Every other religion and philosophy says you have to do something to connect to God; but Christianity says no, Jesus Christ came to do for you what you couldn’t do for yourself. Every other religion s...