vision on Light

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory. Let me lear...

I have walked with people whose eyes are full of light, but who see nothing in wood, sea, or sky, nothing in city streets, nothing in books.... It were better far to sail forever in the night of blind...

Preaching Commentary Confusion about Epiphany The celebration of the Epiphany of our Lord can be at once both wholly familiar or somewhat confusing, especially for those who grew up in less liturgi...

Heavenly Father, We confess that we are not always able to see your handiwork in the people and things around us. We do not always see your image in our neighbors, and we do not always see your creat...

Textual Overview The Gospel of Luke has a clear narrative path that begins with links to Israel’s past and God’s promises to her. Those promises are now going to be fulfilled in the life, death, resu...

Textual Overview The Gospel of Luke has a clear narrative path that begins with links to Israel’s past and God’s promises to her. Those promises are now going to be fulfilled in the life, death, resu...

Preaching Commentary The resurrection was inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different f...

Holy God–Father, Son and Spirit: We come with our agendas in order to enlist you in our causes but You won’t be co-opted for our small visions. Instead, You hold out a greater vision and purpose and i...

The resurrection was inconceivable for the first disciples, as impossible for them to believe, as it is for many of us today. Granted, their reasons would have been different from ours. The Greeks did...

God, our Father: Your love gives us more than we can ever hope for, and far beyond what we deserve. You clothe us in the righteousness of Christ. You give us dreams and visions of what we can become b...

Most holy God, we continuously lose sight of your sovereign rule over our world and in our lives, and our failing vision obscures every aspect of our lives. So we come to you for grace. Forgive us for...

“You need a certain dose of inspiration, a ray from on high, that is not in ourselves, in order to do beautiful things.”

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of sil...

“…the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, s...

Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to G...

Give us, Lord, a clear vision of the truth, faith in your power, and confident assurance of your love.

Lord, you came to dwell among us, yet we did not recognize you. We still fail to recognize you. You show up in unexpected places and through unexpected people. We fail to see you in the people who are...

Preaching Commentary There they are on top of a mountain praying with Jesus. Mount Tabor in lower Galilee? Mount Hermon in the far north of Israel near Syria? Some other mount? No one knows. Sudden...

I remember once near Interlaken waiting for days to see the Jungfrau which was hidden in mists. People told me it was there, and I should have been a fool to doubt their word, for those who told me li...

I can only choose within the world that I can see.

Lord Jesus Christ, you reveal God to us, yet we are sometimes repulsed, bored, or exhausted by what we see. We become jaded to your work in the world, and our eyes glaze over rather than getting excit...

The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who...

In his excellent book, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World, Mike Cosper questions the desacralizing (removal of the holy) nature of secular life. Life is divested of mys...

The reason we are not able to see God is the faintness of our desire.

LORD, too often we live for ourselves instead of how You have called us. Please forgive us for the times when we don’t strive to bring about Your kingdom here and now. Forgive us for the lack of imagi...

Almighty, gracious God, we confess to you that we do not see what you see. You are ever-present, speaking, coaxing, prodding, leading, guiding, and motivating. Yet that is not enough. Like the stubbor...

O gracious and holy God, give us diligence to seek you, wisdom to perceive you, and patience to wait for you. Grant us, O God, a mind to meditate on you, eyes to behold you, ears to listen for your ...

Genius is only a superior power of seeing.

There they are on top of a mountain praying with Jesus. Mount Tabor in lower Galilee? Mount Hermon in the far north of Israel near Syria? Some other mount? No one knows. Suddenly, Jesus is transfigur...

A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.