Morningside Devotionals

Can life actually be a vignette and not a novel? It always fascinates me to hear the responses of those who claim they don't believe in God when someone says that they will pray for them.  Especially in the midst of tragic moments, momentous events such as births and deaths, and life changing events; the mention of someone who says they will pray for you, simmers the most anti- of anti God types.  Ever notice that?  Sure you have, but was it a vignette or the beginning of a novel? You were expecting, something else?  Do you think God expects something else? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFl1VgNfU8w

Five minutes, it isn't a long time, it's an elevator ride in an enormous building downtown, it's a brief parking garage ride, it's a transit of the park - five minutes isn't very long at all.  Five minutes can be, however, the longest and most important minutes of your day, if, you spend those five minutes in meditation.  Five minutes can change your life, make your life better, happier, more fulfilled, five minutes.  Five minutes isn't a long time. If you look at your watch or a clock on the wall, choose a time to start, and literally time out five minutes; you'll discover it's longer than you might believe.  Separated time is different, dedicated time is different; the time in length is the same, always will be, set by the atomic clock, a second is a second and minutes have 60 of them, and that's just the way it is.  When you stop your life, for five of them, though, something changes. Meditation sits in the family of concentrat...

Jack Canfield, noted author of "Chicken Soup for the Soul, and a book that is going over me now, "The Success Principles," is a man that I believe, has what the Nez Perce indians described as a "Big Soul."  Near as I can find from studying the Nez Perce culture, they had a word for human, and it meant a person who acted as they ought, lived as they ought, and respected others as they ought.  The Nez Perce I've heard, had not word, as we do, for someone who wasn't "human," it wasn't conceivable to them that someone would be so, instead they had only two descriptions for a person, they were, "human," or, they weren't described at all.  Think about that- what sort of difference might it make in our lives today if we simply didn't even acknowledge when someone was being a total jerk?  How much effort, time, energy and soulful hurt is engendered inside the Body of Christ, by  people who are expressing that someon...

View Site For This Poster CLICK HERE When you really care for somebody, think of them frequently, respect their opinion about things, honestly thrive on the time that you are able to be with them; they matter to you.  So it is when they are not in touch with you, or, you lose contact with them, that you notice the absence of them in your life. Fast forward that to how we react and act toward the church and church life, and even Christianity in the world today? For a moment put aside the grief you may think you can justify against this noble organization, rather, think of it based on the above, from the churches point of view?  What is horribly amusing is the rise of the behavior which used to be held at bay by the church, and how even those who profess to be against the church, find that they are in alignment with what the church would say.  A friend of mine, Chris Voss, just released a blog about sexting, an aberrant form of text video cellular that l...

Mouthful isn't it, and it's the sum of what we are, we aren't what we were, but we aren't what we will be, either, we are in the present, and that's the only place we can be. That's a tough fact of life, and yet as we exist at that moment,  the moments that built up to it, have to be considered, else we'd never grasp any newness to life.  However we cannot live "back there," it doesn't exist, and we can't live for a future that isn't existing either.  Plan for it, anticipate it, if you must, certainly it's interesting to try, but ultimately, what we have is right here, right now, from both of those other perspectives.  It's not just the past, but also what you believe you want to have as a future that contribute to the person we see standing there, right now. That would be an exercise in semantics if it weren't for the fact that we who live out our faith know that we place a very significant amount of...

Ever talk to someone and they are telling you about how fabulous things are, and yet, you get the feeling listening to them, that they're not quite telling you all there is?  What do you suppose gives you that feeling?  Ever felt like you knew somebody, so you could basically anticipate what they were going to say next, only, they didn't?  In fact they were so far different from what you believed might be said, that it shocked you?  Have any thoughts about where that comes from?  Hmm... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcKgHFVKKDM (If you aren't seeing the video please click on this address. Who's the teacher and who's the student- who is the borrower, and who is the lender? What is one position, versus another? Is that- war? Is it within a person that they war literally against their own mind? NOW, yes of course, this has the obvious meaning, but when you get a little deeper into it, that meaning starts to indicate that the writer may have ...

Click Here To Image Site Oh please, tell me that you aren't a RUSH fan, I can just hear it now.  So the deal is, if you listen to that stuff you just can't be a Christian, please, that's so archaic it makes my teeth hurt, and when my teeth hurt, you can tell it in my writing!  Goodness- how far ahead of their time is the rock band RUSH, I'm not even sure they have a time, but of this I am certain, they found the techno alienation of this world and made the message of their songs speak to it, and people by the millions and millions world wide, responded to it.  In this one album, which came up out of the grass roots of Canada, "2112," predicted a cold world possessed by priests who only seek to maintain the status quo, no matter what.  And what did the album indicate was the hook point of that control, the freedom of people to play music, well, it might sound simplistic but the voice of the prophet comes in all sorts of flavors, and I take the...

Moved, we say it about the people who "used to live next door," they moved; we say it about a time when we felt strongly about something, we were "moved." Interesting how they mean a transport to somewhere else, you either go there in your mind, or, you go there physically, but you transport, you are moved, we are moved, we become, moved- it's an active word. The Proverbs are designed to move you, you aren't supposed to just read the words and say, "wow that was nice," that's not the deal. The Proverbs are really meant to be read under the starry sky, with your heart open to the heavens so far above what any human might even consider; so enormous, and so full of promise, or, something else, but if you can look up at the starry sky and not be moved, then you can read Proverbs and not have a clue, the sayings must move you. Like the first time I heard this... (a video of Leonard Cohen "Hallelujah" should app...

NIV - Pro 21:23 - He who guards his mouth and his                              tongue keeps himself from calamity. The facts, how do you get to know the facts? You may see them, on the evening news, you may hear them, from the radio or T.V., if you are just listening, but more often than you realize, you get your news, or at least your sense of the news, from someone else. You hear them tell you what they thought they heard.  It is a perpetual and much faster paced rumor mill than at any other time in history.  Now that's not a terrible problem if we are talking about things that people say that are just moderately important, but when the depth of the item takes an another dimension, the rumor spread can cause absolute devastation, and people can lose not only money, but something much more important than money- they can...

Hard To Believe Reality-Click Here One of my associates works at an extremely time intensive site, and, they simply do not have time to consume a book of ideas- SO- that's why I came up with that page called "taking it deeper"- sometimes you'll see a new post over there- sometimes not, but if you get a chance and want to check it out, usually there will be some new thing going on- as in Proverbs 21:13:  Here goes the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqZvSbTuj9o There is a thing about who is watching and who is being watched, put another way, the beholder and the beholden? Who are the poor, is that a reference to monetarily poor, because quite easily one can see it might be a reference to poverty of all sort? And really what happens when someone is impoverished is the tendency of others to not listen to them? This is a fantastic Proverb for social media because it so clearly tells us that we can be heard, and that when we hear, we stand ...

The first time you kissed someone, remember it, not a little peck, but a real grabber, that first real kiss?  For some of us, it's hard to get that memory to come back, but if we try, really hard, we can get it back. It is a great memory for just about anyone, and the question about that is, why?  Why is a first kiss significant, is it possibly because, for just about every person,  it is a moment they will remember? Relationships of the wise are based in such common ground of human meaning.  When you chose to make that first kiss, it was with the knowledge that others had kissed before, and they survived it, somewhere in the back of your mind was that certain knowledge of it being so, wasn't it? Now as you are contemplating that, because the answers are myriad as to what that is really all about, and they largely depend upon the viewing point of the person who is making the memory, let's switch gears ever so slightly and move into second gear, no not...

Cause and effect, we believe, that something happens and as a result of that something else happens.  Post Hoc Ergo Hoc - after this because of this, it is our reasoning.  So we presume that systems also fall into this mode, if you take a wall down, you make more space.  That's the post hoc ergo hoc way of seeing it.  A rarer style, however, sees the breakfast that you ate, where the eggs were done just right, and the coffee tasted great- and the orange juice actually had flavor, so when you got to the site ten minutes early, and the foreman said, "some of the designers think we should take this wall out."  You were receptive to the concept- all is a sum- the sum of all parts before hand- not that the sum is greater than the parts, we'll do that some other time, just for now, the sum of the parts beforehand. How many projects are you involved in for others as service only? The point of Proverbs is often to help us see things in a different light So ...

Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America Proverbs 20:23 NIV: "The Lord detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him." It is without a doubt, one of the most difficult things to do and that is to be dishonest; you see, not only do you have to fool everybody, but you also have to live with yourself? Think about how sad it is for the evil people in life, they not only have to cheat themselves, and lie to themselves about how grand they are, and how grand their life is, as they cheat their way through it- but at the end of all that, they have to face God who is without partiality? The "ultimate and final truth, no you weren't fair, yes you could have been, no you didn't treat them fairly, yes you could have, no you didn't need that new car, yes you could have helped a person with that money, you chose not to- no you didn't need that additional home for a vacation home, you just wanted it, you didn't need it, you just wanted it...

Image from Holy waters blog Imagine feeling so in touch with God that you knew what God was doing?  So that the distance between you and God were so small that you knew what God was up to?  You'd be smiling, and walking around saying "well that makes sense, because I know what God is up to,"  you'd have a sense of being in a family that was moving toward an accomplishment and you'd have fewer doubts about how the direction was going, because you'd know, "yup, that's God, He told me this is what He was going to do." After about a week or two- you'd become familiar with God- you'd know precisely what He was going to do- and God, would become, family.  Think about that- because according to what the New Testament says that is precisely how close you and God are supposed to be.  What that means is, if one of you has moved, it might not be God? The distance one travels from home is what often determines the closeness or ...