Gratitude and Humility

Father Richard Rohr reminds us that when we receive everything as a gift, we can live gratefully, allowing the energies of life and love to flow through us for the benefit of the whole. 

In Philippians 4:6–7, Paul sums up an entire theology of prayer practice in very concise form: “Pray with gratitude, and the peace of Christ, which is bigger than knowledge or understanding, will guard both your mind and your heart in Christ Jesus.” From that place we stop making distinctions based on our personal preferences and judgments. Only a pre-existent attitude of gratitude, a deliberate choice of love over fear, a desire to be positive instead of negative, will allow us to live in the spacious place Paul describes as “the peace of Christ.” [1] 

All the truly great persons I have ever met are characterized by what I would call radical humility and gratitude. They are deeply convinced that they are drawing from another source; they are instruments. Their genius is not their own; it is borrowed. We are moons, not suns, except in our ability to pass on the light. Our life is not our own; yet, at some level, enlightened people know that their life has been given to them as a sacred trust. They live in gratitude and confidence, and they try to let the flow continue through them. They know that “love is repaid by love alone,” as both St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thérèse of Lisieux have said. [2]  

It is important that we ask, seek, and knock to keep ourselves in right relationship with life itself. Life is a gift, totally given to us without cost, every day of it, and every part of it. A daily and chosen attitude of gratitude will keep our hands open to expect that life, allow that life, and receive that life at ever-deeper levels of satisfaction—but never to think we deserve it. Those who live with such open and humble hands receive life’s “gifts, full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over into their lap” (Luke 6:38). In my experience, if we are not radically grateful every day, resentment always takes over. Moreover, to ask for “our daily bread” is to recognize that it is already being given. Not to ask is to take our own efforts, needs, and goals—and ourselves—far too seriously.

In the end, it is not our own doing, or grace would not be grace. It is God’s gift, not a reward for work well done. It is nothing for us to be boastful about. We are God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus. All we can do is be what God’s Spirit makes us to be, and be thankful to God for the riches God has bestowed on us. Humility, gratitude, and loving service to others are probably the most appropriate responses we can make. [4]  

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Do I Say Thanks?

Womanist theologian Dr. Yolanda Pierce considers the gratitude of the ten lepers Jesus heals in Luke 17:11–18: 

Ten people broken and ostracized. Ten people crying out for deliverance. Ten people cleansed by the power of the Great Physician. Ten people able to return to their homes and families. And only one returns to say thank you…. 

But this passage is not about the thank-you as much as it is about the returning and the remembering. In the story, only one of those healed returns to Jesus. He does not just say thank you; he throws himself at the feet of Jesus and cries out in a loud voice. This is not polite gratitude for a favor done. This is the cry of someone who has been restored to a healthy condition, a condition he thought unattainable.  

Gratitude, real thankfulness, is a mental return to the moment of need—a physical, spiritual or emotional need…. Gratitude requires returning to that moment of need even after the need has been met. 

Pierce reflects on how she has been in the position of each character in the story:  

I have been the broken one in need of healing, who fails to return to my moment of need and to remember after I have been healed. Full of energy and new life, I have forgotten to acknowledge the source of my strength and say thank you…. 

I have also been the one who has returned, throwing myself at the feet of those who have so richly blessed me. I have at times heeded my grandmother’s advice to “give others their flowers while they are still living.” Whether with real flowers or words of praise, I have at times remembered to return in gratitude to those teachers or neighbors or colleagues who have blessed my life even if they did not know it.  

But nothing has humbled me more than to be on the receiving end of someone’s gratitude. After a long season of pouring out pieces of my heart and soul, thinking no one understands or appreciates my efforts, I may receive a card or note or a visit with a word of thanks. Tears flood my eyes when this happens, because at that moment I truly understand the power of gratitude. The recipient has been blessed, and their expression of gratitude humbles and blesses the gift giver.  

It is in this space of mutuality—giving and receiving, thanking and being thanked, returning and remembering—that we can truly appreciate the story of the one man with leprosy who returns with words of thanks. He is not only cleansed; in his expression of gratitude, we can locate his complete healing. The cleansing from the disease takes place after only a few words from the Healer. But the full healing of his mind and body happens when he acknowledges his need, gratitude, and love for the Divine One. Ten are cleansed, but only one, through remembrance and return, is made completely whole.  

Overcoming a Fear of the Other

Friday, November 21, 2025

The more we bump into the folks who are so-called “other,” the more we are stretched and the more we are pulled out of bias. We have new truths, because we have tangible evidence of the beautiful, powerful creativity of our God who made all of this diversity for us to enjoy.  
—Jacqui Lewis, Learning How to See  

Brian McLaren writes that Jesus’ model of acceptance, inclusion, and love for “the other” can help us overcome and heal our biases, particularly “contact bias.”  

When I don’t have intense and sustained personal contact with “the other,” my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged. Think of the child who is told by people he trusts that people of another race, religion, culture, sexual orientation, or class are dirty and dangerous. 

You can immediately see the self-reinforcing cycle: those people are dirty or dangerous, so I will distrust and avoid them, which means I will never have sustained and respectful interactive contact with them, which means I will never discover that they are actually wonderful people to be around. 

In this way, the prejudice cycle spins on, unchallenged across generations. As prejudice persists, it becomes embedded in cultures and institutions, creating systems of racism and hatred, marginalizing groups who are stigmatized, dehumanized, scapegoated, exploited, oppressed, or even killed. [1]  

I especially love the way Jesus challenges contact bias. Jesus reached out to the other at the table and put the other in the spotlight by giving the other a voice. On page after page of the Gospels, Jesus doesn’t dominate the other, or avoid the other…. Instead, he incarnates into the other, joins the other in solidarity, protects the other, listens to the other, serves the other, and even lays down his life for the other…. In each case, he moves victims of scapegoating and exclusion from the margins to center stage so their voices are heard. [2] 

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis leads what she describes as a “multi-everything” congregation in New York City. She views inclusion as central to the gospel call to love: 

The one we follow into mission and ministry—Jesus the Christ—was an avowed boundary crosser, a reformer of the religious and secular culture of his time. We are in good company when we lead the way on radical inclusion of those different from ourselves. In some contexts that might mean a black church reaching out to Korean neighbors, a Latino congregation starting a ministry to immigrant families from North Africa, or a Chinese church hosting an afterschool program for African American junior high students…. We believe the commitment to inclusion and diversity is a high calling, issued to all who count themselves as Christians, no matter what our ethnicity or culture. [3] 

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John Chaffee 5 On Friday

For a while now, I have been fascinated by church doors as symbols of hope and safety.  Here is one I came across in the past two weeks.)

John Chaffee

1.

“If you label me, you negate me.”

– Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher

The human person is far too complex to summarize under any title.  To be labeled anything is a broad stroke that eliminates the nuances, feelings, stances, and paradoxes of what it means to be human.

Let’s take a moment and think about all the standard titles we use today…

Republican

Democrat

Libertarian

Believer

Atheist

Agnostic

Scientist

Professor

Park Ranger

Father

Mother

Child

Homeless

Rich

Poor

The list can go on and on.

At best, our labels only name one dimension of what it means to be who we are.

It is for this reason that names are better than labels.

2.

“Christ was never in a hurry.”

– Mary Slessor, Missionary to Nigeria

This one is quite a punch.

I admit to often thinking about the next thing while in the present. I am also prone to focusing on the next week or month at the expense of the now.

Modernity tells us that efficiency is one of the highest goals: to get things done as quickly as possible at a quality that is either “good enough” or “perfect.”

All of this contributes to a culture that hyperfocus’s on hurry.

But Christ was never in a hurry.

According to our records, Jesus walked almost everywhere.

So, at best, God was content to go 2.5 miles per hour.

Also, if the universe is 13.8 billion years old, that means God took God’s time to get to us.

Yep.

This God is not in a hurry.

3.

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone—we find it with [one] another. We do not discover the secret of our lives merely by study and calculation in our own safe and isolated meditations. The meaning of life has to be revealed to us in love, by the one we love.“

– Thomas Merton, Trappist Monk

As a head-oriented person, love has been too much of a theory.

That is not to say that I was not loved, but that over time, my head got the better of my heart. Frankly, my life experiences encouraged me to distrust love while at the same time wanting it on my terms.

Love is dangerous.  It requires a vulnerability that exposes our weaknesses and insecurities.

Theories are never dangerous.  They require nothing of us than to play with them in our imaginations.

So when I came across this quote from Merton in No Man is an Island, I had to accept that I was too independent and isolated.  No one is made whole or human by standing at a safe distance from love.  Myself included.

Love is our true destiny, our true identity, and it makes us whole again.

4.

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”

– Dr. Cornel West, American Theologian

I reject the notion that faith should not be political.  I do, however, reject the idea that it should be bipartisan.

If God cared that humanity created a healthy household and economy (oikonomia), we likely should pay more attention to making certain justice happens in the public arena as well.

5.

“Good souls many will one day be horrified at the things they now believe of God.”

– George MacDonald, Scottish Preacher

This past week, I met with a couple in spiritual direction.

It was a lovely time, and I consider doing those sessions a privilege.

One of the things we said is that we are relatively okay with people converting to Christianity. However, we are not OK with people having “micro-conversions” within Christianity. We don’t always validate it when people “fine-tune” their understanding of faith or change a stance within the faith.

The Apostles Creed is an important document or statement of faith, not only because it is one of the earliest formulations of the faith, but also because of its brevity.  There is a lot left out.

This leads me to think that there are a whole number of stances, positions, or opinions that are up for debate.

And so, thank goodness, we can constantly improve our understanding of this mystery we call “God” throughout our lives.

Moving Beyond What We Already Know

Thursday, November 20, 2025

Father Richard explains how learning to see beyond our biases is essential for the ongoing conversion of faith.  

Learning how to see our biases is a psychological exercise, but one with immediate theological and social implications. It demands self-knowledge and the crucial need to recognize (1) when we are in denial about our own shadow and capacity for illusion; (2) our capacity to project our own fears and shadows onto other people and groups; (3) our capacity to face and carry our own issues; and (4) the social, institutional, and political implications of not doing this work. 

If some Christians think that this is mere psychology, then they surely need to know that Jesus himself was a consummate analyst of human nature and named many of the issues that we call today “denial,” “bias,” “projection,” and “the shadow self.” [1] 

Brian McLaren describes why Jesus’ teachings so effectively freed people from an over-attachment to their own way of seeing: 

Jesus inspired and “abducted” people through immersive and imaginative experiences—including parables and powerful metaphors, respectful conversations, encounters with “the other,” field trips, and other forms of experiential learning. Following his example, we discover that it’s usually a far more effective portal out of confirmation bias than purely intellectual arguments. 

When you aggressively attack people’s familiar ideas, they tend to respond defensively. They dig in their heels and become even more firmly attached to the very ideas that they need to be liberated from. The doorway out of confirmation bias is not argument but imagination.  

That’s why Jesus, like other effective communicators, constantly told stories, stories that grabbed people by the imagination and transported them into another imaginative world: 

… there once was a woman who put some yeast into a huge batch of dough [Matthew 13:33] 

… there once was a man who had two sons [Luke 15:11] 

… this man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho [Luke 10:30] 

… a woman once lost a coin [Luke 15:8] … 

Through these short “imaginative vacations” to another world, Jesus helped people see from a new vantage point. He used imagination to punch a tiny hole in their walls of confirmation bias, and through that tiny hole, some new light could stream in and let them know of a bigger world beyond their walls…. 

[Jesus] didn’t spend a lot of time repeating or refuting the false statements of his critics, and he didn’t counterpunch when he was attacked or insulted, but instead, he used every criticism as an opportunity to restate, clarify, and illustrate his true statements. [2] 

Richard adds:  

It’s so hard to be vulnerable, to say to our neighbor, “I don’t know everything” or to say to our soul, “I don’t know anything at all.” Yet Jesus says the only people who can recognize and be ready for what he’s talking about are the ones who come with the mind and heart of a child (see Matthew 18:3). We must never presume that we see “all” or accurately. We must always be ready to see anew. [3] 

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Sarah Young

Jesus Calling: November 20

I AM pleased with you, My child. Allow yourself to become fully aware of My pleasure shining upon you. You don’t have to perform well in order to receive My Love. In fact, a performance focus will pull you away from Me, toward some sort of Pharisaism. This can be a subtle form of idolatry: worshiping your own good works. It can also be a source of deep discouragement when your works don’t measure up to your expectations.
     Shift your focus from your performance to My radiant Presence. The Light of My Love shines on you continually, regardless of your feelings or behavior. Your responsibility is to be receptive to this unconditional Love. Thankfulness and trust are your primary receptors. Thank Me for everything; trust in Me at all times. These simple disciplines will keep you open to My loving Presence.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Ephesians 2:8-9 (NIV)
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)
16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Psalm 62:8 (NIV)
8 Trust in him at all times, you people;
    pour out your hearts to him,
    for God is our refuge.

The Power of Confirmation Bias

Brian McLaren discusses one of the most powerful kinds of bias: Confirmation Bias.  

We all have filters: What do I already believe? Does this new idea or piece of information confirm what I already think? Does it fit in the frame I’ve already constructed? 

If so, I can accept it. 

If not, in all likelihood, I’m simply going to reject it as unreasonable and unbelievable, even though doing so is, well, unreasonable. 

I do this, not to be ignorant, but to be efficient. My brain (without my conscious awareness, and certainly without my permission) makes incredibly quick decisions as it evaluates incoming information or ideas. Ideas that fit in are easy and convenient to accept, and they give me pleasure because they confirm what I already think. 

But ideas that don’t fit easily will require me to think, and think twice, and maybe even rethink some of my long-held assumptions. That kind of thinking is hard work. It requires a lot of time and energy. My brain has a lot going on, so it interprets hard work like this as pain.  

It’s as if I’m presented with a new picture that won’t fit in my old frame and so requires me to build a new one. Wanting to save me from that extra reframing work, my brain presses a “reject” or “delete” button when a new idea presents itself. “I’ll stick with my current frame, thank you very much,” it says. And it gives me a little jolt of pleasure to reward me for my efficiency.  

You may have heard the old saying that people only change their minds when the pain of not changing surpasses the pain of changing. That old saying is all about confirmation bias.

In an episode of the Learning How to See podcast, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis speaks of confirmation bias in this way:  

We are all wired by what we’ve experienced to be in search of a story with an ending … that feels like it has a completion. The stories that we gravitate to are the ones that make sense to us, stories that fit, stories that feel like they have continuity, connection to the past, where we’ve been…. Those stories that we will follow are the ones that feel true, feel like they have continuity to our past and that resonate with the trajectory of our lives. We’re looking for the story that doesn’t necessarily change our minds; we’re actually looking for the story that confirms what’s in our minds.

As we seek to recognize the ways we are influenced by bias, McLaren offers this prayer:

Source of all truth, (Coach) help me to hunger for truth, even if it upsets, modifies, or overturns what I already think is true. Guide me into all the truth I can bear and stretch me to bear more, so that I may always choose the whole truth, even with disruption, over half- truths with self-deception. Grant me the passion to follow wisdom wherever it leads. Thank you.

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An Unworldly Strength. from Skye Jethani

On the night Jesus was betrayed, before his arrest, he prayed to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke described him as being in agony. The fear and pain were so intense that “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). This is not the image of a serene Messiah accepting his fate, but of a frightened man wrestling with the darkest evil our world can dispense. But through prayer, Luke says Jesus was strengthened. The power given to him, however, was not like the world’s power. When the soldiers arrived to arrest him, his disciples were terrified, and in their fear, some fled, and others attacked. Peter drew a sword and severed the ear of one of the men. This is what the world’s power looks like. It fights. It attacks. It kills.The strength Jesus carried was different. Displaying a power not of this world, he knelt to the ground, picked up the severed ear of his enemy, and healed him. “Put your sword back,” he told Peter. “For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Through prayer, Jesus’ fear had been transformed into faith. His faith gave him strength. And this strength was revealed through love. Today, fear permeates the American church. Many Christians have been told their faith and their communities are under attack, and like the disciples in Gethsemane, they believe the only option is to fight fire with fire. Fear has allowed the church to justify all manner of things inconsistent with Jesus’ character. In fear, the church attacks those perceived to be a threat. In fear, the church uses the weapons of the world—coercion, deception, anger, and hate—to protect itself rather than trusting God to defend his people. The true church, however, knows that the same unworldly strength Jesus displayed in the garden—the strength of faith and love—is still available to us. Consider the story of Praying Jacob, a slave who lived in Maryland before the Civil War. It was his habit to stop his work periodically in the fields to pray. This practice gave Jacob his nickname, and it also enraged his owner, a cruel and terrible man named Saunders. One day Saunders came up to Jacob while he was praying and put a gun to his head. He ordered him to stop praying and get back to work. Jacob finished his prayers and invited Saunders to pull the trigger. “Your loss will be my gain,” he said. “I have a soul and a body; the body belongs to you, but my soul belongs to Jesus.” Saunders was so shaken by Jacob’s strength and supernatural lack of fear that he never touched him again. Praying Jacob’s serenity came from the assurance of his identity. He knew he belonged to Jesus, and nothing could ever remove him from his hand. Not a cruel master and not even death. This was the same faith Jesus displayed in the garden and throughout his journey to the cross. He knew he belonged to his Father. Despite the betrayal and abandonment of his friends. Despite the injustice of the authorities. Despite the mocking and torture of the Romans. Despite the insults and ridicule hurled at him from the crowds. Jesus still found the strength to love because he knew who he was and whose he was.Like Jesus and Praying Jacob, if the church learns to listen to the voice of God in prayer, the weapons of the world will become less tempting. Through prayer, the church will learn that fighting fire with fire only burns the house down faster. And in prayer, the church will discover its fear is transformed into faith and its anger into love.  DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 26:47-56 EPHESIANS 4:4-7 WEEKLY PRAYER. From Anselm (1033 – 1109) O Lord, we bring before you the distress and dangers of peoples and nations, the pleas of the imprisoned and the captive, the sorrows of the grief-stricken, the needs of the refugees, the importance of the weak, the weariness of the despondent, and the diminishments of the aging. O Lord, stay close to all of them, Amen.

Biases at Work Within All of Us

Brian McLaren has identified sixteen biases that prevent us from seeing things in their complexity and with greater clarity: 

People can’t see what they can’t see. Their biases get in the way, surrounding them like a high wall, trapping them in ignorance, deception, and illusion. No amount of reasoning and argument will get through to them, unless we first learn how to break down the walls of bias. So what are the specific kinds of bias we need to address, in others, yes, but also in ourselves?… 

Confirmation Bias: We judge new ideas based on the ease with which they fit in with and confirm the only standard we have: old ideas, old information, and trusted authorities. As a result, our framing story, belief system, or paradigm excludes whatever doesn’t fit. 

Complexity Bias: Our brains prefer a simple falsehood to a complex truth. 

Community Bias: It’s almost impossible to see what our community doesn’t, can’t, or won’t see. 

Complementarity Bias: If you are hostile to my ideas, I’ll be hostile to yours. If you are curious and respectful toward my ideas, I am more likely to respond in kind. 

Competency Bias: We don’t know how much (or little) we know because we don’t know how much (or little) others know. In other words, incompetent people assume that most other people are about as incompetent as they are. As a result, they underestimate their own incompetence and consider themselves at least of average competence. 

Consciousness Bias: Some things simply can’t be seen from where I am right now. But if I keep growing, maturing, and developing, someday I will be able to see what is now inaccessible to me. 

Comfort or Complacency Bias: I prefer not to have my comfort disturbed. 

Conservative/Liberal Bias: I lean toward nurturing fairness and kindness, or towards strictly enforcing purity, loyalty, liberty, and authority, as an expression of my political identity. 

Confidence Bias: I am attracted to confidence, even if it is false. I often prefer the bold lie to the hesitant truth. 

Catastrophe Bias: I remember dramatic catastrophes but don’t notice gradual decline (or improvement). 

Contact Bias: When I don’t have intense and sustained personal contact with “the other,” my prejudices and false assumptions go unchallenged. 

Cash Bias: It’s hard for me to see something when my way of making a living requires me not to see it. 

Conspiracy Bias: Under stress or shame, our brains are attracted to stories that relieve us, exonerate us, or portray us as innocent victims of malicious conspirators.  

Constancy/Baseline Bias: Early in life, our brains set a baseline of normalcy based on what we constantly experience day to day. What our brains determine as normal or constant becomes acceptable to us. Later in our life, our baselines may be reset when a new normal becomes our constant experience. [This is the flipside of Catastrophe Bias.]  

Certainty/Closure Bias: Our brains find it difficult to rest when we feel uncertainty, so we would often rather reach for premature closure on an unwarranted certainty than live with appropriate uncertainty. We may even prefer a pessimistic certainty to a potentially optimistic uncertainty. 

Cleverness Bias: Our brains are vigilant to protect us against deceptions, and this vigilance against deception can make us so habitually skeptical that we become cynical, rejecting all good or encouraging information as naïve. In protecting ourselves from danger, we can unintentionally insulate ourselves from positive possibilities.  

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Welcome to Bradley Jersak’s Substack! In the parable of the prodigal son(s), I love the verse, “And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” That’s my story. I hope that in the posts to follow, you’ll see it shine through. 

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Living Under the Gaze of God – Bradley Jersak

Riffing off Tony Bartlett

Last week, my friend Tony Bartlett posted a note on his socials that helped me reflect on developments in my spiritual journey. He spoke of ‘three modes of God,’ language some folks stumbled over (no, he’s not a ‘Modalist’). But his explanation was clear. Tony was describing stages or cycles of our understanding and experience.

1. Looking AT God – referring to our various notions or ideas about God. Not God ‘as such’ but the projections create, often in our own image, and frequently toxic.

2. Looking FOR God – referring to our quest for God, rooted in authentic longing, expressed as faith practices, which may even serve to deconstruct unhelpful constructs that we ought to leave behind.

3. The Gaze OF God – Tony says it beautifully: “The gaze OF God is so gentle you hardly notice it, and then, when you do, it seems to be there only a certain moment in the past. But then you come to understand this gentle gaze is constant and is here in the present, even when you don’t directly know it. The “I AM I AM” of Exodus and Isaiah.”

We can use this outline to trace growth in our lives, reflecting on each in turn with a series of simple questions:

LOOKING AT GOD QUESTIONS

Looking AT God – Hopefully, we come to realize our ideas of God and our language for God will always be inadequate. Knowing that, we still draw inferences and develop images from our experience (or not) of the Divine. That’s normal and even fine so long as we don’t delude ourselves into confusing communion with God (fully available) with getting our heads around the Infinite (no way). God will always be greater than our minds can grasp. 

Questions: How has your perception of God changed over the last decade? Since childhood? Fill in the blank: “Over time, I have come to see God as less _______ and more ________.” Do those shifts feel like growth? Or have regressed? Do you experience greater nearness? Or have you grown more distant? Does the relationship feel more or less intimate? More or less personal? Can you trace reasons for the difference? Was it natural growth? Or deep questioning? Or traumatic experiences? Was there a particular community, mentor, or author who helped? How did they effect change in how you Look AT God.

LOOKING FOR GOD QUESTIONS

Looking FOR God – If we think about our quest FOR God in terms of faith practices, we can also ask how those have changed along with our image of God. Let’s not be too judgy about our faith practices. Simply observe how they have shifted over time.

Questions: How has your spirituality changed over the last decade? Since childhood? Do you pray or meditate? How has that developed? What does worship look like for you? Where do you sense a Living Connection with God and with others most naturally? 

When I asked my friend Paul Young about his faith practices, he began recounted the ways he once looked FOR God through prayer and meditation—practices that were a means to communion. But like Tony’s quote above, he came to experience union and communion with God almost continually. He didn’t need a program to get and stay there (Jesus called this ‘abiding in the Vine’).

But then I began to observe a wide array of ‘ways of being’ he practices all the time: remaining present, attentive listening, deep conversations, visiting friends on death row, praying in the Spirit, and of course, his famous hugs.

How about you? What faith practices come most naturally to you? How do they serve your quest FOR God? Have some hindered your sense of presence? Why?

THE GAZE OF GOD QUESTIONS

The Gaze OF God – Sometimes we become so attached to the quest FORGod that our practices become the point. God becomes the proverbial carrot dangling on the end of the stick—always just out of reach, demanding more religious activity, more passion, more zeal, but never delivering. The apostle Peter called this ‘clouds without rain.’

At some point, our souls need do come to rest under his tender gaze. This is ‘the God who sees me’ of Hagar. Like the Psalmist, who was like “a deer panting after water, a soul thirsty for God,” but later was able to sing:

Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty:
neither do I exercise myself in great matters, 
or in things too high for me.

Surely I have behaved and quieted myself, 
as a child that is weaned of his mother:
my soul is even as a weaned child.

(Psalm 131)

God invites us “Be still and know that I am God.” I doubt this is linear. We go through seasons and cycles and spiral, so it’s a question of where I am on the pilgrimage.

Questions: Do you ever get the sense of living under God’s caring gaze? Have you discovered the grace of the divine glance? Are you able to cease striving and yet know you’re loved? Do you find getting there difficult or immediate? What seems to help? When is your heart most at rest?

I hope these reflections work to remind you of God’s love for you, of God’s participation in your journey, and serve as an invitation to gratitude… 

God sees you, and that’s good news.

Our Operative Worldview

You are not here to verify, / Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity / Or carry report. You are here to kneel / Where prayer has been valid.
—T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” 

Father Richard Rohr considers how Jesus challenges the worldviews constructed by our religions, cultures, and family upbringings: 

Everybody looks at the world through their own lens, a matrix of culturally inherited qualities, family influences, and other life experiences. This lens, or worldview, truly determines what we bring to every discussion. When Jesus spoke of the reign of God, he was trying to change people’s foundational worldview. When Francis of Assisi described his “marriage to Lady Poverty,” he was using a lovely metaphor to explain his central thesis for life. When Americans identify money as “the bottom line,” they are revealing more about their real worldview than they realize. 

We would do well to get in touch with our own operative worldview. It is there anyway, so we might as well know what this highly influential window on reality is. It’s what really motivates us. Our de facto worldview determines what catches our attention and what we don’t notice at all. It’s largely unconscious and yet it drives us to do this and not that. It is surely important to become conscious of such a primary lens or we will never know what we don’t see and why we see other things out of all perspective. 

Until we can allow the gospel to move into that deepest level of the unconscious and touch our operative worldviews, nothing substantial is going to change. It will only be rearranging the furniture, not constructing a new room. True conversion is about constructing a new room—maybe even a whole new house! 

Our operative worldview is formed by three images that are inside every one of us. They are not something from outside; they have already taken shape within us. All we can do is become aware of them, which is to awaken them. The three images to be awakened and transformed are our image of self, our image of God, and our image of the world. A true hearing of the gospel transforms those images into a very exciting and, I believe, truthful worldview. When we say Christ is the truth, that’s what we mean. Christ renames reality correctly, according to what reality honestly is, putting aside whatever we think it is or whatever we fear it is. Reality is always better than any of us imagined or feared; there is joy associated with a true hearing of the gospel. 

All together, we could put it this way: “What should life be?” “Why isn’t it?” “How do we repair it?” When these are answered for us, at least implicitly, we have our game plan, and we can live with safety and purpose in this world. 

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Not as Rational as We Think

We may live in the same country, the same city, or even under the same roof, but we live in different realities.
—Brian McLaren, Learning How to See 

CAC faculty member Brian McLaren is concerned about the cost of our increasingly limited ability to see beyond our religious or political points of view.  

Over the last decade, I have felt increasingly alarmed about the vitriol, distrust, and destructive miscommunication that are tearing people apart everywhere I turn … in nations, in religious communities, in businesses, in non-profit organizations, in friendships, even in families. 

On social media, name-calling, misinformation, and propaganda squeeze out intelligent, honest, respectful conversation. In the mass media, accusations of “fake news” fly in all directions, leaving people wondering who to trust. In the world of religion, shallow, mean-spirited, or profit-hungry preachers draw huge crowds week after week, and they consistently appeal, not to the better angels of human nature, but to our unspoken fears and unacknowledged prejudices.  

In the world of politics, uninformed, dishonest, and manipulative candidates keep winning elections, telling people not what they need to hear, but what they want to hear. Because of our polarization and paralysis, major problems are going unresolved, which intensifies frustration on all sides, and leaves (literally) billions of us vulnerable to populist demagogues. 

The social fabric seems to be stretching so tight that it might rip apart. That scares me. “What’s going on here?” I keep asking myself….  

Philosopher George Lakoff challenges the mistaken idea that arose during the Enlightenment that it is possible to see issues clearly, based entirely on reason:  

Enlightenment reason says everybody reasons the same way…. Enlightenment reason says that all you need to do is get the facts, and everybody will reason to the right conclusion, since everybody has the same reason. No. If they have different worldviews, they’ll reason to different conclusions. Enlightenment reason does not recognize different worldviews. Enlightenment reason doesn’t admit framing. It doesn’t admit metaphorical thought. It doesn’t admit the way people really work. [1] 

McLaren describes how bias results when our worldviews become solidified:  

Here’s the simple truth I began to see as I observed the decline in reasonableness, monitored the rise in dysfunctional and even dangerous discourse, and reviewed the academic literature: 

People can’t see what they can’t see. 

We all, yes, even me—and more shockingly, even you, have a whole set of assumptions and limitations, prejudices and preferences, likes, dislikes and triggers, fears and conflicts of interest, blind spots and obsessions that keep us from seeing what we could and would see if we didn’t have them. 

We are almost always unconscious of these internal obstacles to seeing and understanding, which makes it even harder for us to address them. We are, you might say, blind to what blinds us. The name for these unconscious internal obstacles is bias. 

Bias makes us resist and reject messages we should accept and accept messages we should resist and reject. In short … we can’t see what we can’t see because our biases get in the way. 

Sacred Places

Friday, November 14, 2025

There are no privileged locations. If you stay put, your place may become a holy center, not because it gives you special access to the divine, but because in your stillness you hear what might be heard anywhere. All there is to see can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look.
—Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put 

Spiritual writer Chelsea Steinauer-Scudder describes the almost universal experience of transcendence in the natural world:  

One of my favorite questions to ask people is whether they experience the sacred in the living world. Everyone I have ever put this question to has, near-immediately, answered “yes,” even if they would not call themselves spiritual or ever employ the word sacred. The affirmative answer to that question is also always paired with a specific place or experience. I’ve heard countless stories of what I’ve come to think of as axis mundi experiences: encounters that have pulled someone into a deep experience of felt belonging upon the tiny bit of Earth that they find themselves upon. It’s often very simple: a passing deer or a bathing bird that somehow opens a window into their sensory being, and, from there, the relationship flows freely, not between I and it, but I and thou.  

We encounter the sacred by paying attention to the life around us and the ground beneath our feet: 

I define “sacred” as that which pulls us beyond the bounds of our individual selves, envelops us within mystery, and gives us a glimpse into the vast, entwined, eternal network of living beings that we are in relationship with. A simpler way of saying it: the moments when we are most fully human via our awareness that we are fully entangled, down to our nuclei and electrons, in the Earth and the cosmos…. The living world can illuminate this understanding in the forms of awe and wonder, as well as in the forms of grief and loss. And such illuminations can arise spontaneously into our consciousnesses, precisely because this sacred truth is always present everywhere upon the Earth, whether or not we are aware of it…. They are the moments when that sacred reality comes into focus, inviting us to orient ourselves, even if briefly, to the particular, small bit of the cosmos where we have placed our feet. Perhaps this has happened for you upon reaching the summit of a mountain, or while sitting beneath the boughs of an old growth tree, or simply while hearing the voice of a bird you recognize from your childhood home. 

Which is to say: whatever we believe (or don’t) about God and gods, about holy texts and pilgrimages, all of us hold within ourselves the potential to be pinned in place by a sacred pole. And in this time when there is so much disconnect from the living world, so much separation, in this time of razed forests, deserted pockets of warmed oceans, and the echoes of extinct species, orienting ourselves around these fixed points becomes more crucial than ever.  

______________________________________________________

John Chaffee 5 on Friday

1.

“Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God. Perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity.”

– Brother Lawrence, Discalced Carmelite Monk

The older I get, the more and more I see the need for my own pursuit of God.  The world has enough of its own issues that I should not bother to speak about them if I have not oriented myself in the right way.

Brother Lawrence, who taught us the “practice of the presence of God,” is a constant reminder to me that the spiritual life is often over-complicated.  In reality, it is actually quite simple.

The spiritual life is a simple matter of caring about one thing —God —and letting everything else be a distant second.

2.

“Above all, avoid falsehood, every kind of falsehood, especially falseness to yourself.”

– Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian Author

Dostoevsky shares with Nietzsche the ability to convey grand ideas in concise and pithy statements.

It is from Dostoevsky that I learned about the horror and destruction that can occur when we are dishonest with ourselves.  For him, the first sin is when we begin to lie to ourselves about what is good for us.  That is not the same thing as pride, and choosing the bad because we want to.  It is different than that.  Lying to ourselves is a matter of deception, of falsehood, of trickery.

As such, one of the most important things we can ever do for ourselves and those around us is to learn to speak the truth as often as possible.

3.

“Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.”

– Bob Dylan, American Songwriter

I am certain that there are people who have studied this phenomenon.  Beauty is connected to pain.

For every poet, musician, painter, or author who produced a piece of art that resonated with others, there has often been a traumatic upbringing or life experience that compelled them to transform it into something beautiful (even if it was simply giving witness to it).

This does not mean that any of us should seek out pain to create good art, but it does mean that we should pause to appreciate the pain that gave birth to the beauty.

My wife and I enjoy going to the Philadelphia Art Museum.  Fortunately, next to every piece of art is a small plaque that describes the year, the painter, and a brief paragraph explaining the context of the painter’s life.  When you know that a piece was created just before or after a tragedy, it makes the piece even more profound.

4.

“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.” 

– Gregory of Nyssa, Early Church Theologian

In my Zoom calls with people, this principle that the mind cannot grasp all of God comes up with a surprising amount of regularity.  It is fascinating how many churchgoing people were encouraged to use logic as a primary support for their faith rather than wonder.

Gregory of Nyssa’s insight here is spot on.

Wonder does more to nourish our souls than concepts ever could.

5.

“Everything holds together, everything,

From stars that pierce the dark like living sparks,

To secret seeds that open every spring,

From spanning galaxies to spinning quarks,
 

Everything holds together and coheres,

Unfolding from the center whence it came.

And now that hidden heart of things appears,

The first-born of creation takes a name.
 

And shall I see the one through whom I am?

Shall I behold the one for whom I’m made,

The light in light, the flame within the flame,

Eikon tou theou, image of my God?
 

He comes, a little child, to bless my sight,

That I might come to him for life and light.”

– Malcolm Guite, Anglican Priest and Poet

As I mentioned above, I had the chance to meet and talk with Malcolm Guite at a series of events last weekend.

At one point, he pulled out a book of his own poetry and read a particular sonnet, inspired by Colossians 1:15-20.

Needless to say, my eyes welled up with tears.

What a treat to hear a poet-priest like Malcolm read his own work.

Eikōn tou Theou = the visible expression of God’s invisible reality.
When applied to humans → we are meant to reflect God.
When applied to Jesus → He perfectly is what we are meant to be.

Sacramental Waters

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Everything is in some way sacramental. All depends on the receptiveness and openness of our hearts. 
—John Chryssavgis, “The World of the Icon and Creation” 

Father Richard writes of the soul of all creation: 

I think of soul as anything’s ultimate meaning, which is held within. Soul is the blueprint inside of every living thing that tells it what it is and what it can become. When we meet anything at that level, we will respect, protect, and love it. Sadly, many human beings haven’t found their own blueprint or soul, so they cannot see it anywhere else.  

My sense, after being a priest for over fifty years, is that we would have done much better to help Christians discover their souls instead of “save” them. It’s there of course, but it seems to be dormant or disconnected. They aren’t aware of the inherent truth, goodness, and beauty shining through everything.  

Such connection and presence is as freely available as the air we breathe and the water we drink. This is surely why John the Baptist moved his initiation rite out of the temple, away from the priestly purity codes (of which he was well aware), and down by the riverside in the wilderness. Jesus “submitted” to this off-beat ritual, which we now call baptism. Yet now baptismal ceremonies are most often held in church buildings, usually disconnected from anything natural except the water itself. [1] 

Theologian Grace Ji-Sun Kim describes how water, used in the sacrament of baptism, connects us to God and all life:  

Christians have a spiritual relationship with water. In the sacrament of baptism, water is necessary. As an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, baptism marks how one becomes part of the family of God….  

Baptismal actions show a deeper understanding of who God is and how God connects with us in each and every day through water all around us…. God uses the waters of baptism to weave our whole selves into God’s own life, in gracious love and mercy. Baptism reminds us of water’s vitality for our world and teaches us to seek its lifegiving, cleansing, and refreshing gift. Water is essential for life on Earth and in the “kin-dom” of God…. 

The sacrament of baptism becomes a symbol that all water is sacred, not just the water present in the baptismal font. Because it is sacred, we need to honor water, take care of water, and treat it with holiness, reverence, and love. Through the baptismal waters we begin a faith journey that awakens us to the beauty of Earth and all of God’s creation. We learn that we human beings belong to a community connected to one another through water. We are all made of water and sustained by water. The waters of baptism run through the creeks, rivers, lakes, and oceans of the world, providing life to all living things. Baptism connects Christians to all living things in water’s cleansing flows. [2] 

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Sarah Young

Jesus Calling: November 13th

I AM CHRIST IN YOU, the hope of Glory. The One who walks beside you, holding you by your hand, is the same One who lives within you. This is a deep, unfathomable mystery. You and I are intertwined in an intimacy involving every fiber of your being. The Light of My Presence shines within you, as well as upon you. I am in you, and you are in Me; therefore, nothing in heaven or on earth can separate you from Me!
     As you sit quietly in My Presence, your awareness of My Life within you is heightened. This produces the Joy of the Lord, which is your strength. I, the God of hope, fill you with all Joy and Peace as you trust in Me, so that you may bubble over with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Colossians 1:27 (NLT)
27 For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.

Additional insight regarding Colossians 1:26-27: Through Christ, God’s “message” was made open to all. God’s secret plan is “Christ lives in you” – God planned to have his Son, Jesus Christ, live in the hearts of all who believe in him – even Gentiles like the Colossians. Do you know Christ? He is not hidden if you will come to him.

Isaiah 42:6 (NIV)
6 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
    I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
    to be a covenant for the people
    and a light for the Gentiles,

Additional insight regarding Isaiah 42:6-7: Part of Christ’s mission on earth was to demonstrate God’s righteousness and to be a light for the Gentiles (to all nations). Through Christ, all people have the opportunity to share in his mission. God calls us to be servants of his Son, demonstrating God’s righteousness and bringing his light. What a rare privilege it is to help the Messiah fulfill his mission! But we must seek his righteousness (Matthew 6:33) before we demonstrate it to others and let his light shine in us before we can be lights ourselves (Matthew 5:16; 2nd Corinthians 4:6).
Nehemiah 8:10 (NIV)
10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Additional insight regarding Nehemiah 8:9,10: The people wept openly when they heard God’s laws and realized how far they were from obeying them. But Ezra told them they should be filled with joy because the day was sacred. It was time to celebrate and to give gifts to those in need. A celebration is not to be self-centered. Ezra connected celebration with giving. This gave those in need an opportunity to celebrate as well. Often when we celebrate and give to others (even when we don’t feel like it), we are strengthened and filled with joy. Enter into celebrations that honor God, and allow Him to fill you with his joy.
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Sacrament of the Eucharist

Father Richard writes of the sacramental nature of bread and wine in the Eucharist. 

When Jesus spoke the words “This is my Body,” I believe he was speaking not just about the bread right in front of him, but about the whole universe, about every thing that is physical, material, and yet also spirit-filled. 

Seeing the Eucharist as a miracle is not really the message at all. I can see why we celebrate it so often. This message is such a shock to the psyche, such a challenge to our pride and individualism, that it takes a lifetime of practice and much vulnerability for it to sink in—as the pattern of every thing, and not just this thing. 

The bread and the wine together are stand-ins for the very elements of the universe, which also enjoy and communicate the incarnate presence. Why have we resisted this message so much? Authentically eucharistic churches should have been the first to recognize the corporate, universal, and physical nature of the “Christification” of matter. While Catholics rightly affirm the Real Presence of Jesus in these physical elements of the earth, most do not realize the implications of what they have affirmed. The bread and wine are largely understood as an exclusive presence, when in fact their full function is to communicate a truly inclusive—and always shocking—presence. 

A true believer is eating what he or she is afraid to see and afraid to accept: The universe is the Body of God, both in its essence and in its suffering.

The Eucharist is an encounter of the heart when we recognize Christ’s Presence through our own offered presence. In the Eucharist, we move beyond mere words or rational thought and go to that place where we don’t talk about the Mystery anymore; we begin to chew on it. Jesus did not say, “Think about this” or “Stare at this” or even “Worship this.” Instead, he said, “Eat this!” 

We must move our knowing to the bodily, cellular, participative, and thus unitive level. We must keep eating and drinking the Mystery, until one day it dawns on us, in an undefended moment, “My God, I really am what I eat! I also am the Body of Christ.” Then we can henceforth trust and allow what has been true since the first moment of our existence. The Eucharist should jolt us into awareness that we have dignity and power flowing through us in our bare and naked existence—and everybody else does too, even though most do not know it. A body awareness of this sort is enough to steer and empower our entire faith life. 

This is why I must hold to the orthodox belief that there is Real Presence in the bread and wine. For me, if we sacrifice Reality in the basic and universal elements, we end up sacrificing the same Reality in ourselves. 

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From Diana Butler Bass

I want to take a moment and paraphrase a question once uttered by Frederick Douglass about a different American holiday. Douglass asked, What to a Slave is the Fourth of July? But that’s not the only American holiday that needs rethinking. I humbly submit another question for consideration: What to a Christian is the Eleventh of November?

On November 11, 1918, the Great War, the conflict we know as World War I, ended. Earlier that day, the Allies and Germany signed a peace treaty calling for an armistice between combatants at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year. 

A year later, the British and French commemorated Armistice Day, and a solemn annual memorial continued thereafter every November 11. Eventually, the day was re-christened as Remembrance Day throughout the British Commonwealth and as Veterans Day in the United States.

November 11, however, wasn’t always a day to remember lives lost in a war between the great imperial powers of Europe. Across Europe, November 11 was an important festival on the Christian calendar — St. Martin’s Day, or Martinmas, in memory of a pious bishop of the early church, Martin of Tours. 

Martin of Tours (ca. 316-397) was born into a pagan family, but as a young man expressed interest in Christianity. His father, a soldier, was appalled by the religion and forced Martin to join the Roman army. While a soldier, Martin’s curiosity about Christianity grew and he became a catechumen, a “learner” of the faith. 

According to legend, Martin was on patrol when he saw a naked beggar on the road. Moved with compassion, he dismounted his horse, took off his military cloak, tore it in half, and covered the man. In a dream that night, Jesus appeared to Martin and said, “Martin, a simple catechumen, covered me with this garment.”

Martin decided to be baptized and asked to be released from the army. “I am Christ’s soldier,” he maintained, “I am not allowed to fight.” He refused to wield the sword for Caesar.

Martin didn’t invent this position. He stated what most early Christians believed. Before theologians made a case for just war, Christians were primarily pacifists. Indeed, no record exists that Christians served in the Roman army before 170. The overwhelming consensus of the early church was that war was killing in service to the empire, killing was murder, and murder was wrong. 

Martin left the army and became a monk, a priest, and finally, a bishop. He was known for peacemaking and his generosity toward the poor, especially children. 

After his death, he was made a saint. His festival coincided with the harvest — and the day came to celebrate gratitude, abundance, and gift giving. It always focused on the poor in memory of St. Martin’s good deeds. Martinmas was one of the most popular of all Christian holy days through the Middle Ages and into early modern Europe. 

Martin’s story lent itself to another tradition — the practice of signing peace treaties on his feast day. Several wars ended with peace made in honor of St. Martin, including signings in 1500, 1606, 1648, 1865, and 1918. The ancient celebration of this Roman soldier turned conscientious objector was the reason why Armistice Day wound up on November 11. 

But the memory of St. Martin has largely faded. And now, Armistice Day-Remembrance Day-Veterans Day is mostly a solemn commemoration of soldiers who served more modern empires at war, not to remember a soldier who rejected empire to serve the poor and outcast. 

History takes us down some unanticipated pathways. And November 11 is surely one of its weirder journeys. Few recall Martin’s mercy on the road, the surrender of his military cloak to cover a poor man, and his rejection of violence on behalf of an empire. Instead, we extol military service as the highest form of sacrifice to a state. One of the most moving stories of anti-nationalism in the history of Christianity has become a holiday to valorize soldiers as national saints. 

Both the poor and peacemaking* have been lost along the way. 

I have questions about what we remember and what we forget. But mostly, I want to know: What to a Christian is the Eleventh of November?

Richard Rohr….”Recently, I’ve found myself returning to one truth I’ve learned through a lifetime of ministry, contemplation, and shadow work: 

We cannot think our way into transformation. We must live ourselves into it — often weeping our way through it. 

Anger against the tragic absurdity of life is deserved and necessary, but if we do not transform our anger, we will transmit it. I’ve come to believe that tears hold the key to our deeper transformation. Tears are the sign of a soul beginning to surrender to love.  

I’ve seen this happen in so many lives: Women exhausted by holding the world together who finally give themselves permission to weep. Men on retreat who discover a profound sadness underneath their anger. Healers who let grief lead them to care instead of burnout. And in Daily Meditations readers like Kecia, who shared her story with us: “

I grew up in an authoritative, spiritually abusive household and spent my childhood terrified of God. By reading the Daily Meditations, CAC has brought Christianity back into my life. I saw the humanity of Jesus for the first time and the deep understanding that I’m not separate or alone. 

That’s the kind of transformation we hope to make space for each day through these Daily Meditations.  

Together, we are discovering the transforming wisdom of a divine love spacious enough to hold our tears. The Center for Action and Contemplation is funded by people like you who give freely and joyfully to support it. We are deeply grateful for each and every one of you.  

Twice per year, we pause and ask for your financial support. If the CAC’s work has been meaningful to you, including these Daily Meditations, please consider making a gift. Every gift, no matter the amount, helps this movement of love, justice, and inner freedom continue to grow.  

Please read the letter below from CAC’s Executive Director Michael Poffenberger about how you can support the conditions that make transformation possible. Tomorrow, the Daily Meditations will continue exploring the theme of “Sacramental Reality.” 

Thank you for taking this journey with us and for allowing us to be part of your life, your mornings, your tears, and your transformation. 

Peace and Every Good, 

__________________________________________________________

Sarah Young

Jesus Calling: November 11th, 2025

Jesus Calling: November 11th

Do not let any set of circumstances intimidate you. The more challenging your day, the more My Power I place at your disposal. You seem to think that I empower you equally each day, but this is not so. Your tendency upon awakening is to assess the difficulties ahead of you, measuring them against your average strength. This is an exercise in unreality.
     I know what each of your days will contain, and I empower you accordingly. The degree to which I strengthen you on a given day is based mainly on two variables: the difficulty of your circumstances, and your willingness to depend on Me for help. Try to view challenging days as opportunities to receive more of My Power than usual. Look to Me for all that you need, and watch to see what I will do. As your day, so shall your strength be.

RELATED SCRIPTURE:

Ephesians 1:18-20 (NIV)
18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,
Additional insight regarding Ephesians 1:19,20: The world fears the power of the atom, yet we belong to the God of the universe, who not only created that atomic power but also raised Jesus Christ from the dead. God’s incomparably great power is available to help you. Personal knowledge of Christ will change your life.

Additional insight regarding Ephesians 1:20-22: Having been raised from the dead, Christ is now the head of the church, the ultimate authority over the world. Jesus is the Messiah, God’s anointed one, the one Israel longed for, the one who would set their broken world right. As Christians, we can be confident that God has won the final victory and is in control of everything. We need not fear any dictator or nation or even death or Satan himself. The contract has been signed and sealed; we are waiting just a short while for delivery. Paul says, in Romans 8:37-39, that nothing can separate us from God and his love.

Psalm 105:4 (NLT)
4 Search for the Lord and for his strength;
    continually seek him.

Additional insight regarding Psalm 105:4-5: If God seems far away, persist in your search for him. God rewards those who sincerely look for him (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus promised “Every who seeks, finds” (Matthew 7:8). The writer suggested a valuable way to find God – become familiar with the way he has helped his people in the past. The Bible records the history of God’s people. In searching its pages we will discover a loving God who is waiting for us to find him.

Deuteronomy 33:25 (NIV)
25 The bolts of your gates will be iron and bronze,
    and your strength will equal your days.