Saturday Mornings

The fruit of Silence is prayer . The fruit of Prayer is faith. The fruit of Faith is love. The fruit of Love is service. The fruit of Servic...

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. --...

Last night's dark punctured, with the sky's pin-prick leakings of light. The air chilled now with October's anticipation and th...

  I have plugged for this show before . This week's episode was another really good one - very family, very human. I was prompted to...

There's a very positive relationship between people's ability to accomplish any task and the time they're willing to spend on...

What lies behind us, and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is no such thing as partial redemption. While it may be true at any given moment that it isn't complete yet, there is nothing ...

The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness. -- William Blake An odd juxtaposition of images -- glory, conquering, forgivenes...

We can't change the present or the future. We can only change the past, and we do it all the time. -- Bob Dylan , Rolling Stone ...

Two for the road today... ...much of our lives are spent trying to avoid conflict. Half the commercials on television are selling us some...

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself . -- St. Francis de Sales

...we were designed to live through something rather than to attain something, and the thing we were meant to live through was designed to c...

The heavens declare the glory of God;    the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech;    night after n...

Anthropologists tell us that "religion" is a universal cultural reality. Every culture creates a religion. We find religion all ar...

Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us. -- John Stott

Picture this: a bride and groom dashing out of the church, through the showers of birdseed and into the limo, all aglow with the light of...

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. -- Elbert Hubbard ...so, we can 'go fo...

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own . -- Benjamin Disraeli I'm n...

We get robbed of the glory of life because we aren't capable of remembering how we got here. ...stunningly true, no? When you are b...

Beware the barrenness of a busy life. -- Socrates

It is interesting how we gauge what we keep for ourselves. It seems that we often base this on what everyone else is keeping...I shouldn...

O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home. ...

Like that created by the setting sun, the older I get, the longer my shadow gets.  It takes up more space. I arrived at this thought one d...

Don't worry about the size of your platform or whether you'll have one -- you will. Instead, pay attention to the people around yo...

The pursuit of truth  and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives. -- Albert Einstein

Beauty requires no justification, no explanation; it simply is and transcends. I pay tribute to God by paying attention. All beauty i...

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Once upon a time there were two small boys who asked their fathers to take them to see the great parade that passed through the village ev...

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. -- Psalm 32:8 In the end, lea...

Must say I like this thought from OtRs latest newsletter regarding the season of Fall .  Joe Henry always thinks of September 1 as New Year’...

What is the purpose of 'college'?  We took our son to college today.  Anticipating the event, I asked myself what the purpose of do...

Going back can sometimes be the quickest way forward . -- C. S. Lewis , Mere Christianity

Not everything that is faced can be changed . But nothing can be changed until it is faced . -- James Baldwin

Every time you meet a person with great strengths, you are also meeting someone with great weaknesses . -- Peter Drucker, The Effective Ex...

As you might have gathered, I'm exploring the concepts of leadership of late. Here's one to start off this week's continued th...

Experience has taught me that the Shepherd is far more willing to show his sheep the path than the sheep are to follow. He is endlessly mer...

  Man, the old guy wasn't so old last night. He was 'feeling good' with new variations both jazzy and jammin'. What a be...

Most ideas today about leadership seem quite novel, but the more I review the topic, the more timeless the traits obviously are: If your ...

Those individuals in our organization who are inspired tend to outperform. That's because the more well-rounded you are, the better you...

Donald Miller seems to concur with yesterday's post : I don't think there is any substitute for a college education, and I regret...

Even as global literacy rates are high (84%), people are reading less and less deeply. The National Endowment for the Arts has found that ...

...when you have a lot, it is easy to not want to lose it. When you don't want to lose it, it is easy to invest effort into keeping it...

“Gratefulness allows us to understand what matters most to us and translate that to a broader goal,” offered the researcher who presented hi...

The older we get, the greater the tendency to become convinced that our path of experience and knowledge is normative for others. We must...

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him -- Psalm 37:7 We are encouraged to wait. We are challenged to wait. Wait for t...

Then Naomi said, " Wait , my daughter, until you find out what happens." -- Ruth 3:18

Click to listen while you read: I Will Wait Well I came home Like a stone And I fell heavy into your arms These days of dust Wish w...

...no one tells you that the shields you carry to keep you safe, they become the the steel cages that keep you alone. -- Ann Voskamp

We live regularly with the question of whether or not we are OK. And, most of our time is spent seeking the answer to this question from th...

There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who believe themselves sinners, and the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous. -- ...

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"We all live life asking questions, questions about how to get ahead, how to make life more meaningful, questions about how to survive ...

If all the insects were to disappear from the Earth, within fifty years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from th...

...just keep it out of sight? 'Just' makes me mad.  How much of this is going on?  ...probably way more than I want to know. Ind...

I don't think. I don't know. I don't care. I am too busy. I leave well enough alone. I have no time to read and find out. I ...

The greatest tragedy is indifference. -- The Red Cross

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. -- Mother Teresa

As I wander off the porch of a space some dear friends are sharing with us, I realize I have forgotten that it is Saturday Morning . There ...

When I go running some place unfamiliar, I take my watch.  It helps me know how far I've gone.  Otherwise, the pain in my bones, the fat...

  ...and (see post below),  beauty opens us back up to the reality of God. What is it about the lack of our movement that enables this? ...

Beauty often comes in forms greater than we can take in all at once. It soaks.  It opens.  It reveals.  Though it can take us by surprise,...

When the Farmer comes in after 11 from the field, he carries it in on his grimy shirt, a few pounds of dirt. I wonder if he feels it, the ...

Do not be angry that you cannot make others as you would wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be . -- Thomas à K...

Family ought to see a man less for what he is, and more for what the man wants to be. -- Brother Smith

Faith is about, among other things, the release of the need to control life. In fact, show me someone who has faith, and I will show you s...

He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the LORD is the key to this ...

I have never met a person I could despair of, or lose all hope for, after discerning what lies in me apart from the grace of God. -- Oswa...

What if your healing comes through tears ? What if it takes tears to turn our hearts to God? What if it is our humility that rolls '...

The soul of a true Christian, as I then wrote my meditations, appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; ...

Your future includes manna. It will come. There is no sense devising future scenarios now because God will do more than you anticipate. When...

Lose you life and you will save it. Submit to death , death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death to your whole body in...

There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is th...

[Anything you have...] It is due to the century and place in which you were born, to your talents and capacities and health, none of which y...

An attitude of gratitude creates blessings. -- Sir John Templeton Saw this one this morning; seems fitting in light of yesterday's ...

The real problem of life is never a lack of time. The real problem of life is lack of thanksgiving . Why did Jesus give thanks before H...

Growth begins when we begin to accept our own weakness. -- Jean Vanier

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. -- Proverbs 29:25

A recent review in "Books & Culture" of Victor Austin's book, Up with Authority: Why We Need Authority to Flourish as Huma...

We have become infatuated, as a culture, with being liked by our kids in all the ways that we did not like our parents. We have lost the po...

If he gives you the grace to make you believe, he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterward. -- Charles Spurgeon

Any interesting article, Risky Sex , discusses the notions of safe sex; what is and what isn't safe...about it.

If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? -- John Wooden

This seems to coincide rather consistently with a recent article in Christianity Today about The Juvenilization of American Christianity . ...

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels , it would seem that Our L...

“Many parents remarked that it takes more effort to get children to collaborate than to do the tasks themselves.” Today’s parents are not ...

Dear Mr. Fuller: I was struck (lightly) the other day by the following wonder: if lawyers become disbarred, and priests unfrocked, how mig...

Complexity is the new opacity. -- NPR program on the changes data is making on society, 6/30/12

Comforts and pleasures are not the larger part of God's goodness, though they certainly are included. I pray that I will not dis-respe...

In March of 1906, unable to preside over a public meeting of the Association for Promoting the Interests of the Blind, deafblind activist an...

The greatest poetry comes out of lists. -- G.K. Chesterton

I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD, the God of Israel, who summon...

I rest my chin on the farm gate, and exhale in one long breath while two baby calves with saucer-like eyes stare back at my daughter and me....

If there are weeds in your life, you just need to pull them. We can't just ignore them or yank their tops off at the surface. We can...

The greatest things ever done on Earth have been done little by little. -- William Jennings Bryan It might be easy to imagine this kind...

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz

Peace is the centre of the atom, the core Of quiet within the storm. It is not A cessation, a nothingness; more The lightning in reverse...

Personally, I have found the holding of these contrasts (see yesterday's post and the link below) about marriage a challenge, a defeat,...

I don't know of anyone who hasn't struggled in their marriage, at one point or another, with what it 'should' be like...to t...

My friend, Jim, sent this to me and I noted the author, since these days I am slowly reading her book . This is one of the more welcome Sat...