Relationships require trustworthiness, integrity, and sensitivity. Can you imagine what happens to a relationship when this is not the case? When someone takes advantage of your trust or doesn’t act with integrity, it’s a little bit like stealing. And it can be hugely destructive.

Reflect on a relationship that was made memorable or valuable by something that you found or discovered.

And then I was moved to go to Marlborough, to the Marketplace and Steeple-house, where I had pretty much Service, where they put me in Prison for six Weeks, where I Fasted six Days and six Nights, and neither eat Bread nor drank Water, nor no earthly thing; then I came to a feeding upon the Word, and had experience that [humanity] doth not live by Bread alone, but by every Word that proceedeth out of the Mouth of the Lord

He that takes the sword, will perish by the sword

Christ experienced that full range of agony and ecstasy with and for us. He knows our experience because he lived it too. Despair or delight, Christ understands.

Jesus was a great teacher. His disciples were not merely followers, they were students devoted to their rabbi’s teachings. When ready, they were sent out to share Christ’s radical, life-changing message of sacrificial love.

Resting is antithetical to the way we live. Overworked at times, we need or want to keep pushing to make things happen, rather than realizing our limits. Our work for that day or that hour needs to end.

Whether it is a sheep left behind in a pasture, a coin misplaced in a home, or a son overlooked in the grief for another child, lost things don’t lose us; we lose them. And hopefully, with God’s help, we are given the gift of desire to seek and find.

Without fanfare or recognition, they faithfully respond to God’s active voice in their lives, doing what God asks, when God asks. And by doing so, they make a crucial difference in our story.

If the crisis of identity is the crisis of the twentieth century, then we must look well to this aspect of the nurture of the twentieth century child. We are standing on the threshold of the cosmos, and we do not know who we are.

When we are dedicated to positive goals and good deeds, our obsession works in a good way, keeping us focused on accomplishing something worthwhile. When our dedication turns to negative things, it makes us miserable.

The principles that Jesus taught and lived fulfill our deepest spiritual longings.

Persistence is an essential element in our lives. While the starting of a good thing is a good thing, it becomes pointless if we don’t finish.

We don’t have to be in a church building or a church meeting to share wisdom and admonition. In fact, there’s a good chance that it’s in the other settings of our lives that we will find the richest opportunities to encourage others to walk in the Light.

Beyond fads and fading trends, adorning ourselves with Christlikeness brings blessing that goes beyond the eye of the beholder.

And for obedience to him and his commands do we suffer, who hath said, “Swear not at all.” And he said, “Call no man master upon earth, for ye have one master in heaven” ... And this hath been the only ground and cause of our sufferings, because we obeyed the command of Christ, the author of our eternal salvation

We must become alert to how and when we would. We can’t – and needn’t – carry a load of guilt or fear for what we do not see. But we can carry a sense of responsibility for being tender toward all of creation, caring in all our relationships; we can think kindly, deal reverently, “walk gently upon the earth.”

I am sixty-one years old. That means more and more things in my body are not working the way they used to and certainly not the way God intended them to work…. We all grow old and die. Our bodies break down, but we don’t have to be afraid.

God connects all of us with the Spirit, and then with each other. We are united in Christ, no matter what our differences or conflicts.