Saturday Mornings

Ads have a tendency to promote narcissism while portraying our lives as dull and ordinary. They trade on natural desires but in a way that ...

If thou art willing to suffer no adversity, how wilt thou be the friend of Christ? -- Thomas à Kempis Dare I pray for this kind of frie...

There is something about the sweep of things, if we're honest...that illuminates day-to-day goings-on.  It also takes an honesty abou...

There is a surprising joy in giving to others.

The Pilgrims made 7 times more graves than huts.  It might be said that no Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheles...

I think it comes down to money (which is really a question of values). People would say that economies of scale of manufacturing have had...

My children, my grandfather said, you'll never see anything worse than yourselves. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson ...seems hard to believe, ...

We must lay before Him what is in us not what ought to be in us. -- C.S. Lewis

Many people believe in God because of what they think He will do for them.... I didn't know it, but I have been one of those people at...

Wow!  What an awesome morning to be alive. Perhaps due to an extra hour of sleep or perhaps due to a call I couldn't resist, I was abl...

Do you think people change ? I'd like to explore this question in subsequent posts.  I'd enjoy your thoughts / comments, too.

I don’t know about you, but in this part of the world when the leaves take the long dive, and the nights grow longer, and a chill comes int...

I've been reflecting a bit on Hugo's thought (see post below ).  At first blush, it is easy to disagree...we need money.  We have mo...

...our sense of material entitlement has had a profound impact on the financial choices of American families . Thanks to Jim for sending ...

As the purse is emptied, the heart is filled. -- Victor Hugo

I found this leaf today and became a bit enthralled by it...the symmetry, the intensity, the verigation of color.  I hel...

A friend asked me how I landed on my recent thinking about confession.  Here was my response.  I want to remember it: First of all, I was ...

So, a response to a question posed in a recent post .  The question was, "What is hiding's opposite?" Of course, there is no...

Keep praying, but be thankful that God's answers are wiser than your prayers!   -- William Culbertson

We spend a lot of time hiding. Whether choosing to withdraw from relationships, simply being silent, or working really hard to promote ours...

Money has a high price-tag on it.

At times, God blesses us simply with opportunity.

Authority is not only compatible with freedom, but it requires it, since the continued existence and excellence of the community is possible...

Has there been any truly great human...that has not been humbled along the way?

The myth of our modern world is that our lives get better the more we do. Actually, the opposite is true:  we become more real, more human, ...

What a day...click here . It was as if creation were singing at the top of its lungs, through its choir of color!

Within each of us exists the image of God , however disfigured and corrupted by sin it may presently be. God is able to recover this image t...

"I don't care anymore" is a veiled attempt to avoid hurt.  The problem is that it only adds to the hurt by lying to ourselve...

If you do not hope, you will not find out what is beyond your hopes.  -- Clement of Alexandria Half my life, I didn't even realize w...

 ...and thanks to my friend Holly for forwarding this today. I am grateful for the right description of things. I had read some of Walter...

When you're finished changing, you're finished. -- Benjamin Franklin We really don't like change too much.  Why do you thi...

What do I see that speaks to me of God?  As I contemplated this today, I found myself standing before the undulating pine...

At times, it takes losing things in order to really find things. I have noticed in my life that I have had to lose things to discover that...

No king is saved by the size of his army;    no warrior escapes by his great strength. -- Psalm 33:16 I have tended to think things lik...

There is a hard law...when an injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive . -- Alan Paton

He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass. -- George Herbert

Wow! What a game!

Perhaps it's time to for me...to remember the original goals of my 'Saturday Morning' efforts. ...which were largely to create ...

If we cannot believe God when circumstances seem be against us, we do not believe Him at all. -- C.H. Spurgeon

Coming off of a youth retreat this weekend, I am reminded that there is something profoundly true about how being outside leads you inside. ...

It is by what you follow, that you lead. Put more succinctly, who you follow.  We're not following anything, except when we're fol...

I didn't know who I really was until I could no longer define who I was by what I did.  It was when I thought I wasn't good enough t...

Recently I found myself praying something familiar...for 3 things, really 4...when facing something about which I feel tension: 1. Wisdom ...

What does 'following God' really mean?  We could probably find a thousand answers, if we want to look.  But, the only one that seems...

One of Hebrew literature’s nouns for salvation (“yeshuwah,” related to the name “Jesus”) comes from a verb root that accents wideness or ope...

In the end we’ve got to say that if God thinks the glory-filled end justifies the grief-laden means, then the choice is clear: We can trust...

Do you remember how on earth there were things too hot to touch but you could drink them alright?   Shame is like that. If you drink the cup...

Borrowing a bit on yesterday's post , why is it that those pretending to be strong cast down the weak?  While the truly strong don't...

I would highly recommend this movie -- for history, education, and humanity.  Some of it made me sick, some of it ...

After my thought the other day on the relationship between blindness and sin.  Another one crossed my mind regarding sin and the blindness ...

              Amazing! And the stories...ah, the stories of people's lives. What a mess, what a wonder. Click here (...

There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ.......

What a powerful story of some of the largest dialectics of life.  I highly recommend this one.  Thanks, Blake, for inviting me to watch i...

I am really proud of my wife for doing this.  Today she starts a 60-mile walk with a few thousand others in Chicago.  Thank you all for mak...

Is the greatest lever in my forgiving someone else, the specific knowing of how I have been forgiven? ...I suspect a low awareness of wher...

Over the years (millenia?) there has been much debate (discussion) about the strength of our personal faith.  Like, do we have enough of it?...

In darkness there is no choice. It is light that enables us to see the differences between things; and it is Christ who gives us light. --...

A snippet from OtR's latest newsletter: Woke up this morning on the farm, on the blurry edge of the world, mist rising off the fields,...

As we wait , we can fix our eyes on Jesus as a companion who empathizes with our suffering and a Savior who is working behind the scenes. Di...

...one amazing experience tonight! Words fall short....

One great power of sin is that it blinds men so that they do not recognize its true character . -- Andrew Murray  This seems quite true, ...

Our circumstances are not an accurate reflection of God's goodness. Whether life is good or bad, God's goodness , rooted in His ch...

If there were no mystery man would not feel his corruption; if there were light man could not hope for a cure. Thus, it is not only right bu...

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who ...

Amazing summer snow ...flake. See more amazing here ...a short picture-story, if you will.

More root beer please! ...click pic for more pics.

One of the naturally most compelling forces in life is true strength.  It is hard not to admire it, whenever we see it.  Perhaps even more p...

For certain things are not refused us, but their granting is delayed to a fitting time. -- St. Augustine

Worry is a misuse of imagination. -- Dan Zadra ...got this one from a good friend, Jim Eisenbraun. I suspect this isn't what Dan...

One thing [Peterson's life story] makes clear is that vocation is not so much about what we want as about how we respond to God's ...

There is nothing destroyed by sanctification but that which would destroy us. -- William Jenkyn

In anticipation of a good friend's wedding yesterday, I was thinking about why I like weddings.  There are many things, but the thing th...

The beauty of this day already has my eyes full of water, tears of gratitude that I could even take such things in so deeply.  Tears of joy ...

I was talking with a friend today about life, and things that we would like to be doing...job-wise, study-wise, other-wise.  We agreed that ...

No one can know what secret inner ripening can come from suffering and sorrow. All we know is that every individuals life is priceless - tha...

Jesus continually communicated freedom -- not freedom to go your own way but freedom to relate to God through the intimacy of grace. -- ke...

We just don't know what will happen in life, we just know what's at the end.  And that should make all the difference...!

What's your 'take' on this subject? What are we translating to our kids regarding what they are facing into today's 'mar...

Beauty is often only considered skin-deep in our culture. No wonder we often live like that is all there is...because we seem to think that...

...even think of such beauty?

I DON’T PRAY to a sanitized God, an airbrushed God, the God of the silver screen. I pray to the God who put the green into nature and fire i...

I often feel quite self-conscious after speaking in church...which I did that recently. I put a lot of time into it and only a couple of pe...

A child does not thrive on what he is prevented from doing, but on what he actually does. -– Marcelene Cox

When is the last time you felt really listened to?

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind a...

Faith, to me, seems to be something along the lines of...the willingness to acknowledge the uncertainties of this life (uncertainties about ...

...if there were such a thing, what do you think 'emotional constipation' would be? Here's a stab at it:  The inability or unw...

The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man go blind. -– Emily Dickinson

...another fun day at Wrigley. Yes, they lost again.  But, the peanuts were good...they just seem to taste better at the ballpark.

The main problem with this culture...the thing that will destroy evangelical christianity in the next 25 years is it's willingness to be...

Draw on the surface of things in life, in order to go beneath it.

Never put a period where God has put a comma. -- Gracie Allen

The philosophers of old made reason the sole ruler of man and listened only to her, as the arbiter of conduct. But Christian philosophy make...