SHADYSIDE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Our God, to the best of my knowledge this is the only passage of the Bible that refers to you singing, or even exulting. To exult is to do more than simply be happy. It depicts a joy that erupts from a deep place, and so those who have this joy must burst into song. …

Every day when I read the newspaper, I am overwhelmed by the depth of human pathos in the world. I can no longer put the paper down without offering a silent prayer to you. Usually, it is just, “Lord, have mercy.” But you have called me to spend my life with people whose pathos is more subtle. …

My Savior, did you and I actually ever fall in love? Or did I just grow up knowing about your love as clearly as I did my parents’ love? (Maybe more clearly.) I have no memories of a time when I didn’t believe in you, or when you were not core to my identity. So what does it mean for me to have abandoned my first love for you? …

My hunch is that the first people to read these words from Peter assumed that he meant the world was coming to an end. As it turns out, that is taking longer than they expected. Then again, somebody’s world is always coming to an end. A spouse dies, a dream crashes apart, a marriage disintegrates – and it feels like the end of the world. …

These are the very last words of the Bible. The last words of any piece of literature may not be the most important, but they do leave the lingering taste. Along the way in the Bible, there is so much high drama filled with creation, men and women in search of home, kingdoms built and lost, fire falling from the sky, the baby obscurely born in a manger, two men walking toward each other on a stormy sea, the horror of the cross, and the earth-shattering resurrection. …

When I was in college, I dropped out for a year to “find myself.” A lot of us were doing that back then. (It used to sound so much more poetic than it does now.) By the end of that year, what I found was that I was broke, working the midnight shift at a gas station, and clearly without prospects. If this was the real me that I had found, I knew I was in trouble. …

Your disciples had spent the whole night at sea with the wind against them. By the morning, they had to be exhausted and still so terrified. As you walked across the water toward them, they assumed it was a ghost. After the night they had been through, I’m sure they were ready to see ghosts. But it was really you. …

Holy God, I think that I know the answer to this question. There is much in my life that was not planted by you. It came from me. I am often anxious, fretting, and in grave doubts that my life’s work will make any difference. This accounts for most of my sins. There are also in my life those few fruits that could have come only from your careful planting of seeds. …

Holy God, you began before I did, and before all other things – even before there was a beginning. You created all things out of nothing, which means that everything derives its existence from you. Even the dust of the ground which you used to create humanity came from you. Apart from you, we can only return to nothingness – and that is exactly what I feel in my soul when I try to derive my worth from anything other than you. …

I’m the kind of guy who likes things to be in the right places. Shoes go in the closet, not by the door. Coats belong on hangers, not the backs of chairs. Car keys have their special place near the door, school bags go in the mudroom, and cereal boxes go back in the kitchen cabinet. I can be so irritating to my family. …