strength on Discouragement

Jesus–our Lord, Savior and Friend: Come into our hearts to save us and to rule. Come into your Church to direct and empower us with Your Gospel and Your Spirit. Come into your World to redeem the Lost...

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.

Burnout is the disease of our age. Time magazine had an editorial way back in the 1980s about “the burnout of just about everybody.” I concluded that the metaphor of burnout was not quite right, parti...

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...

If someone is criticizing you and the criticism is mostly mistaken, identify the 20 percent of the indictment that is fair. Without excuse be willing to take it to heart. The strongest Christians are ...

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; ...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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....

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the...

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...

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives powe...

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...

We confess, loving God, that all too often we do not open our lives to the power of your Holy Spirit. We tend to ignore the Spirit rather than call on its fire to burn within us and strengthen us for ...

One Sunday morning a number of years ago my wife piled the children into the family car to come to Sunday school and worship. When she turned the switch to start, the engine wouldn't even grunt. T...

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...

Lord Jesus, your life shows us how you want us to live. So often we know exactly what it would take for us to become more like you, and yet we sit back, rather than taking a step toward your holiness....

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...

Pastor: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. All: Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. Pastor: A g...

Know this, the Lord is slow to condemn and swift to forgive and so we can claim the words of the psalmist who declares, “Therefore my heart greatly rejoices. The Lord is their strength. He is a strong...

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...

O LORD GOD, The first act of calling is by your command in your Word, ‘Come to me, return to me’; The second is to let in light, so that I see that I am called particularly, and perceive the swee...

Gracious God, forgive us today for the times when we don’t trust You to help us grow. Even though You nurture us daily, we often choose to live in our own strength, ignoring the plans You have for us....

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

Where there’s humility there is majesty; where there’s weakness, there’s might; where there is death, there’s life. If you want to get these things don’t disdain those.

Dear Heavenly Father, we lower our heads before you and we confess that we have too often forgotten that we are yours. Sometimes we carry on our lives as if there was no God and we fall short of being...

Pastor: God is our refuge and strength, People: a very present help in trouble. Pastor: The Lord of Hosts is with us; People: the God of Jacob is our fortress. Pastor: Be...

Even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.