Good morning... The life-changing influence of my favorite book continues to expand. In the fall of 2007, I met the first edition of The Hidden Life Awakened when Becky Anderson, the beloved scribe of Christian mystic Betty Skinner, spoke at our church on the newly released book chronicling Betty's journey up from the valley of clinical depression to the peak [...]
Good morning... In the midst of my prayer time, God is growing in me a fresh thought, a new-to-me idea, the spark of the small, simple diagram pictured above. I am certain that this line of thinking has been explored by other curious brains, as Ecclesiastes 1:9-10 (CEV) reminds us: Everything that happens has happened before; nothing is new, nothing under the [...]
Good morning... "You’ve always given me breathing room, a place to get away from it all, a lifetime pass to your safe-house, an open invitation as your guest," says Psalm 61:3-5 in the Message translation. "You’ve always taken me seriously, God, made me welcome among those who know and love you." Morning by morning, we curl up on [...]
Good morning... After being shaped by the diligent joy of writing to you each morning, I often go back into our blog post and edit as the Spirit moves. Yesterday that happened. Making our message more concise and most life-giving, I re-wrote our final sentence to read: "As we stay right in the center of God's endless love, [...]
Good morning... 2 Corinthians 8:10-20 The Message So here’s what I think: The best thing you can do right now is to finish what you started last year and not let those good intentions grow stale. Your heart’s been in the right place all along. You’ve got what it takes to finish it up, so go to it. [...]
Good morning... "Christ is the one whose center is everywhere," says St. Bonaventure, "and whose circumference is nowhere." Intriguing dichotomy, right? Center - everywhere. Circumference - nowhere. As I ponder the possibilities, into the subject line of Biblegateway.com I type this phrase: "center Christ." Three Scripture verses pop up and beg for our attention. All this energy issues [...]
Good morning... In my quiet time of prayer I think about our Jewish friends who witnessed the stabbing of hatred in the safety of their rabbi's home, the shock of Sunday morning worshippers fired upon by a gunman in the sacredness of their small sanctuary, and the complex grief of the family and friends of those misguided men [...]
Happy New Year... "I cannot pray at night in bed," many people confess to me. "I just end up falling asleep. I feel so bad falling asleep on God." In response I always say, "The way I see it, there is no better way to fall asleep." Drifting to sleep sharing thoughts with God, what could be better? In fact, [...]
Good morning... As 2019 tips into 2020, today is a day of looking back before we move forward. As I reminisce about the experiences of our online community this year, there are three things for which I feel most grateful. This is the year we shifted from me taking summers off from daily blog writing to become an [...]
Good morning... I was looking forward to our time together, sharing face-to-face, one-on-one. I was hoping for an important, intimate conversation. I was anticipating wonderful, but completely against my will wonderful changed its form. I was disappointed. Frustrated. Mad that my well formed expectations were not being met. If I had stayed angrily stuck on how I thought [...]
