vision on Self-Centeredness

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...

Pragmatism may be defined simply as the approach to reality that defines truth as “that which works.” The pragmatist is concerned about results, and the results determine the truth. The problem with t...

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with...

If you let your circumstances define the way you see God, you are a prisoner of perspective. Or worse, a prisoner of your past mistakes! But if you let God define the way you see your circumstances, y...

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...

In the land whose founding metaphor was the mutuality of John Winthrop’s seventeenth-century vision of a “city set on a hill,” we live more and more in estranged, hostile, exclusive enclaves, linked o...

O God of the ages, you have created each of us uniquely. We each have so much that makes us interesting and unique! Yet at times, even against our own wishes, we find ourselves falling prey to the -is...

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...

When my grandparents were in their eighties, their television developed a fault that made the screen permanently bright green. It was good for viewing garden shows or nature programs, but it was prett...

Gracious God, sometimes I think that I can figure out all the consequences of my decisions. I can become overly impressed with what I perceive to be my strategic vision and analysis. Forgive me for my...

Emerson once observed, Do you love me? actually means Do you see the same truth? Or at least . . . Do you care about the same truth?”

Clutter is the enemy of clarity.

In this modern day parable, Alan Fadling describes a king and his two servants. Each of the servants desires to do the will of the king, but they approach their work very differently: One of the serv...

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

Seeing is not a passive act: the grid that was formed in the past plays an active role in shaping what we see in the present and how we see it. We see what our grid has predisposed us to see. For exam...

People only see what they are prepared to see.

Right around six years into what would become a thirty-three-year ministry at Bethlehem Baptist Church, John Piper was stuck. His board wanted to enact some significant changes and he felt like he had...

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 author and pastor Louie Giglio isn't the type of runner who enjoys the scenery—he's just trying to survive his workouts. And when he's running in freezing rain? He's barely thinkin...

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...

Leaders are rarely the first ones to see an opportunity. They are often the first ones to seize an opportunity.

Great God our Father, Savior and Holy Spirit: Our hearts are filled with gratitude for your grace and faithfulness. Thank you for caring about those who we care about–for those who are sick or injured...

What I really lack is to be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know…The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do…to find the idea for which I can live and ...

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...

Author and Episcopal priest Stephanie Spellers suggests that instead of imagining a kingdom, a better way for us to understand what Jesus had in mind when he spoke of this script, this new way of livi...

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 liturgical traditions. What ca...

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...