Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in read more

Commemoration of Mary Slessor, Missionary in West Africa, 1915 I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of fagots, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another, which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden to the load, before we are required to bear it.

Commemoration of Anne & Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary The higher the mountains, the more understandable is read more

Commemoration of Anne & Joachim, parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary The higher the mountains, the more understandable is the glory of Him who made them and who holds them in His hand.

Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564 Therefore Adam could have stood if he wished, seeing that read more

Commemoration of John Calvin, renewer of the Church, 1564 Therefore Adam could have stood if he wished, seeing that he fell solely by his own will. But it was because his will was capable of being bent to one side or the other, and was not given the constancy to persevere, that he fell so easily. Yet his choice of good and evil was free.

Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century ... for one good never clashes with another.

Commemoration of Petroc, Abbot of Padstow, 6th century ... for one good never clashes with another.

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are read more

A child kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again," to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again," to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

Pride has a greater share than goodness of heart in the remonstrances we make to those who are guilty of read more

Pride has a greater share than goodness of heart in the remonstrances we make to those who are guilty of faults; we reprove, not so much with a view to correcting them, as to persuade them that we are exempt from those faults ourselves.

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus ventured to trust God far beyond the degree that any read more

Continuing a series on the person of Jesus: Jesus ventured to trust God far beyond the degree that any other man had trusted God. Abraham, Moses, and David were valiant believers, but compared to Jesus they were timid souls. Consider the human disappointments Jesus endured: rejected in his home town, harassed and persecuted by the religious leaders of his nation, misunderstood by his own family, betrayed with a kiss and abandoned by all his followers. Yet through it all Jesus never complained or rebelled against God; he trusted God even on the cross. Psalm 34 sets forth Jesus' pioneering discovery of God's faithfulness and delivering power. Thus Jesus was "delivered from all his fears" (v 4), "saved ... out of all his troubles" (v 6), "delivered out of all his afflictions" (v 19). Certainly Jesus is our primary teacher and example in trusting God. If David could teach his followers to trust in God, how much more Jesus. As we see the steadfast faith of our Lord through weariness, disappointment, rejection, and even death on a cross, we cannot but be encouraged to believe that God can deliver us through our small trials. That is why we should run the race set before us looking unto Jesus.

Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: The primary object of prayer is to know God better; we and our read more

Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: The primary object of prayer is to know God better; we and our needs should come second. ... The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn March 16, 2000 Continuing a Lenten series on prayer: I have called my material surroundings a stage set. In this I can act. And you may well say "act". For what I call "myself" (for all practical, everyday purposes) is also a dramatic construction; memories, glimpses in the shavinglass, and snatches of the very fallible activity called "introspection", are the principal ingredients. Normally I call this construction "me"' and the stage set "the real world". Now the moment of prayer is for me -- or involves for me as its condition -- the awareness, the reawakened awareness, that this "real world" and "real self" are very far from being rock-bottom realities. I cannot, in the flesh, leave the stage, either to go behind the scenes or to take my seat in the pit; but I can remember that these regions exist. And I also remember that my apparent self -- this clown or hero or super -- under his grease-paint is a real person with an off-stage life. The dramatic person could not tread the stage unless he concealed a real person: unless the real and unknown I existed, I would not even make mistakes about the imagined me. And in prayer this real I struggles to speak, for once, from his real being, and to address, for once, not the other actors, but -- what shall I call Him? The Author, for He invented us all? The Producer, for He controls all? Or the Audience, for He watches, and will judge, the performance?

The task of the people of God is to proclaim the kingdom of God, which is a universal kingdom extending read more

The task of the people of God is to proclaim the kingdom of God, which is a universal kingdom extending to every aspect of human life. In a secular society, religion cannot remain a department of life. It must be the expression of a faith that extends over the whole of life, or it will be nothing.