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"Come Follow me." These welcoming words from Jesus brought a better life and a brighter hope to the discouraged and downtrodden of His day, and they have done the same for millions more in the centuries since He spoke that invitation.
Freedom means many things, depending on our age and our circumstance...on our experience and perspective.
Think back on it—back to the time when the only sound here in the American Rockies was the whine of wind through the lordly pines, back to when the waters of the Mississippi saw only teepee and open camps, and the rooftops of Manhattan and Chicago were lower than her trees.
One of the most intriguing paradoxes of human nature is our capacity to encompass virtue and vice, strength and weakness, righteousness and sin in a single soul. Each of us is not merely strong or weak, but strong and weak, depending on the moment and the challenge.
When we were young, most of us were admonished by our parents to eat our vegetables before the dessert. As adults, we are counseled to put business before pleasure. Most of our accomplishments follow this pattern. We put the time, the effort, the expense into a project, and then we reap the rewards and benefits. Those are the rules of life, we are told. But sometimes it seems life doesn't follow its own rules.
The present has an endless feel about it. When it is summer, the sun seems like our natural inheritance, and we can hardly believe that a few months ago we were battling snow. When our children are smaller, running helter skelter through the house until we long for quiet, we can hardly believe that one day that quiet will be ours. Remember when you thought you'd always be a child in your parents' home? Remember when you thought you'd always be in school?
Ours is a dependent society. In fact, we are so specialized that we depend on each other for virtually everything. Some raise the food we eat; others teach our children; our milk is delivered to us each morning by someone who depends on someone else to milk the cows; our very survival is dependent upon others.
As Memorial Day tributes cause us to reflect about those who have passed on, we should remember that all is well with them, that we are experiencing but a brief separation from them, and that the process of life and death has been designed by a loving Father in Heaven.
As we look at society we see not merely individuals, but groups—couples, families, towns, cities, governments, Wherever we find a society, we find people bound together by caring, sacrifice and hope.
What a mistake it is to think that motherhood is outdated or menial, or that being a mother is not prestigious.
It is ironic that at a time when we have technology that probes the expanding edges of our galaxy and the spinning center of an atom, when a world of information is instantly available to us on the evening news, that so many should feel helpless. Perhaps it is because our increased information makes us more aware of the problems we can't solve. What is anyone of us to do about the starvation in West Africa, the war in the Mid-East, the crime in the streets of our cities?
We see today conflicts and clashes in many parts of the world. The battling armies march under various banners and arguments rage under a number of rationalizations.
Today we talk of the inexplicable, of the mysterious and profound, of superstition and fear—today we speak of death.
Almost two thousand years following the mortal ministry of Jesus Christ, it may be difficult for us to imagine Him rejected, to imagine Him persecuted and scorned. We revere and worship Him, and He is worshipped by Christians worldwide for the divinity of His birth, the perfect purity of His life, the remarkable sacrifice of His death, and the hope we have in His resurrection.
We live in a hurried world where there never seems to be quite enough time. The days and weeks melt behind us as we rush through life frantic and breathless. We like our food fast and our stops quick, and if there is any way to cram more into our days as we would into a too-full suitcase, we try. We tell ourselves that when this pressure has passed, this job is finished—then we'll slow down and live.
Threatening clouds hung dark overhead. Angry waves crashed against the small boat where the disciples of Jesus huddled helplessly before the howling wind and boiling waters. Jesus slept calmly in the back of the ship. Finally, his terror stricken disciples awakened him and begged him to save them.
Something has changed during the past century, something more than technology and lifestyles, something more than our mode of transportation and our living habits, something we didn't see, and perhaps didn't want.
Life is a serious matter. It's a time to learn, a time to progress, a time of purpose. The Lord doesn't want every little thing to get us down. He expects us to be tough, to be emotionally strong. Some individuals seem to have developed a greater capacity than others to cope with life. The closer we become to our Creator, the clearer our perspective will be, the greater our joy, the more manageable our challenges.
Virtue is like beauty: it has intrinsic value. We need not be told that if we are good we will receive a reward; for the truly virtuous person, goodness is its own reward.
Just as the machines of our motorized age come to a halt when they run out of gas, so our spiritual motors shut down when they run out of spiritual fuel. In our troubled world we need to think about refueling ourselves spiritually to make sure we don't run out of this precious energy source.
Marriages would be more successful if each would try to make his partner happy, rather than good.
More than a hundred fifty years ago when America was still an experiment, a French philosopher named Alexis de Tocqueville came to observe and report on this new land and new government.
An oath is a promise or pledge, a declaration of intent, a sacred commitment to a worthy cause. The legendary Knights of the Round Table took an oath to protect the weak, defend honor, and establish civil order. Their word became their bond and held them fast to duty.
Every society has them: sometimes lazy, often undisciplined, perhaps a little drifty or unsophisticated, and always inattentive. These are the dreamers; those who dream by day, whose thoughts are filled with visions and fantasies. These are they whose work is often undone and whose lives are often lived in visionary glimpses of dreamy thought.
A characteristic aspect of people who succeed is an unwillingness to admit defeat. Many a cause has been won, long after the cause seemed hopeless, simply because there was a soul who refused to be discouraged, who saw beyond the specter of defeat the bright hope of success and believed in it. Of course, failure […]
It seems to be an ironic age we live in. We have harnessed the power of the sun, but we cannot clear the rain from the windows of the world. We are learning so much about outer space and so little about inner needs.
In December, we celebrated the birth of Christ. We praised Him. We sang His name.
It is the time of year to put up a new calendar and with-it new hope for a new life. It is the time when even under gray skies, things seem fresh and hopeful and some hidden impulse to new excellence awakens in the soul.
In some parts of the world military flares light up the night sky, the same sky once lit by the radiant star of Bethlehem. And tracers seek their mark not far from where the baby Jesus lay. There in that war-riddled land, Christmas Day reveals the might of armies poised along hills where humble shepherds […]
When the judgement day arrives and our lives are reviewed, we will probably be judged in large measure on whether we were kind to other people, not by the wealth, social status and material things we accumulated. The judgement will be based on what was in our hearts and what we did for others. The […]