'60 Seconds of Hope' your daily oasis of positivity and inspiration! Join us each day for a quick burst of motivational quotes, practical tips, and uplifting stories to brighten your day and fuel your journey with optimism. Kickstart each morning with a dose of hope to uplift your spirits and set a positive tone for the day ahead. Tune in and embrace the power of positivity!
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Check Yourself “Don't let your sins turn into bad habits.” - Saint Teresa of Avila None of us are immune from having a bad moment. Nearly every single one of us has said or done something in the heat of the moment that we shouldn’t have. That’s part of the human experience. But what’s also part of the human experience is our capacity to learn and g…
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Be careful how you speak to yourself.
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Be careful how you speak to yourself. How many of us say things to and about ourselves that we would never say to someone else? How many say things to ourselves that we would never allow to be said in our presence about someone we loved? We spend more time with ourselves than we do with anyone else. No one speaks to us more than we speak to ourselv…
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Heaven Begins Today “Once, on being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’because the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Luke 17:20-21 Many Christians believe that the Kingdom of God/ Kingdo…
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“Just because Fate doesn't deal you the right cards, it doesn't mean you should give up. It just means you have to play the cards you get to their maximum potential.” - Les Brown It is true that some people are given more opportunities, more resources, more access. These are facts, but these facts are not our focus. Our focus is on running our own …
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We are pregnant with possibility and purpose.
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We Are Pregnant with Possibility and Purpose “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.” - Erma Bombeck When God paused to look at everything that God made, God said that it was exceedingly good. (Genesis 1:31) Then God decided that …
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Make Your Choice “Choose this day whom you will serve… but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." - from Joshua 24:15 Every single one of us has a decision to make about how we are going to show up in the world. The values we embrace, the dreams we dream, the choices we make, the places we go, the people we keep close, these are all u…
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It’s Not Too Late “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” - Les Brown It’s tempting to let ourselves despair and feel discouraged when we look back over our lives and think about all the mistakes we’ve made, and all the opportunities we have missed. While it’s important that we are informed by the past, we must never al…
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“Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” - Psalm 34:14 We will not be able to enjoy peace and tranquillity if we surround ourselves with toxic and negative people. We will not be able to experience peace and harmony if we ourselves are engaged toxic and negative thinking and behavior. In order to pursue our peace, we have to stop…
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Walk in Your Gifting “A person’s gift makes room for them, and brings him before great people.” - Proverbs 18:16 We don’t all have the same gifts. Nor does everyone have access to the same opportunities or resources. Nevertheless, we all have something special about ourselves. We all have talents to be developed and gifts to be deployed. We thrive …
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Do something, even if it’s wrong. “Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.” - Norman Vincent Peale We can’t be afraid of m…
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Make today your personal best. “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. 'Til your good is better and your better is best.” - St. Jerome It’s not about being perfect. Perfection is unobtainable. It’s not about competition or comparison. Comparison is the thief of joy. It’s about striving to become the best versions of ourselves. It’s about making con…
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Be a Blessing “I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.” -Ravindranath Tagore There is an old choir song that many churches sang when I was coming up. The main refrain was: “You can’t beat God giving. The more you give, the more he gives to you. So keep on giving because it’s …
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Life is Short. Make the Most of It! Treat every day as a precious gift. Once today is gone, it may never be relived. Nothing is promised. So it’s important that we embrace whatever good we find. Many have tried the party route as their pathway to fulfillment. But that road only leads to despair as the mirage of mirth and merriment turns into a real…
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Sing, Sing, Sing! “…sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to one another, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts.” - Ephesians 5:19 We sing not because God is an egomaniac who requires constant praise. We sing not because we are hoping to win God’s favor. We sing because life can be difficult and and uncertain. We sing to remind e…
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Serendipity is found along the extra mile.
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Serendipity is found along the extra mile. “It's never crowded along the extra mile.” -Wayne Dyer Somewhere in late 1999 or early 2000, I met three people who would change my life for ever: Walt London and Chuck and Bonnie Neufeld. They met me as a complete stranger, took the time to get to know me, and then opened the doors of professional opportu…
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Live what you believe. “One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.” - Joan of Arc The Apostle Paul expressed the same sentiment by declaring, “For we live by faith not by sight.” 2 Corinthians 5:7 No matter what is going on, no…
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I am not afraid. “The frowns of the world shall never discourage me, nor its smiles flatter me; for, with the help of God, I am resolved to withstand the fiery darts of the devil and the assaults of wicked men. The righteous are as bold as a lion, but the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth. I fear neither men nor devils; for the God in whom I trust…
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God is on the journey too. “The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.”- Saint Teresa of Avila There is no place we can go where God is not. There is nothing we can do to make God stop loving us. Understanding this changes everything. We don’t have to earn God’s love. We just have to receive it. We don’t have to search for God. We just ha…
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Be Kind. Just Be Kind. “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” - Ephesians 4:32 Folks around us are fighting battles we know nothing about. Sometimes folk are fighting battles that they themselves do not understand. The best thing we can do is to practice kindness and compassion as our defa…
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Get angry, but don’t let the anger get you.
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Get Angry, But Don’t Let the Anger Get You. “Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.” - Ephesians 4:26 We are going to get angry. We have a right to get angry. But we don’t want to let our anger get us. How many times how we allowed our hurt and anger to cause us to do or say something that we regretted? How many times ha…
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Putting Away Our Anger “Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice.” - Ephesians 4:31 We want to become proactive in processing our emotions, particularly the negative ones. If we wait for them to go away on their own, they may decide to hang out with us for a long time. We want to start…
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Don’t go around dropping “truth bombs”.
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Don’t go around dropping “truth bombs”. “… speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way (into Christ).” Ephesians 4:15 It’s true that the truth will set us free, but not when it’s spoken in anger, bitterness, and malice. Our rage and frustration will drown out the truth that could edify and enrich. Our calling and purpose is to equip on…
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Embrace Joy Not Gloom “May God protect me from gloomy saints.” - Saint Teresa of Avila Have you known any good and decent people who could nevertheless suck all the life and joy out of any situation with their constant complaining, negativity, and cynicism? We’re going to love and accept those people too. Nevertheless, we will need to maintain appr…
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Just Keep Scrolling “Conflict cannot survive without your participation.” - Wayne Dyer I’ve discovered that some of the principles for healthy social media use, are also sound spiritual principles as well. The social media companies build their businesses around keeping us engaged. Whatever we react and respond to is what they’re going to serve us …
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Doing the impossible “Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” - Francis of Assisi How often do we sabotage ourselves by allowing ourselves to become overwhelmed by the scale and scope of the problems we face? Sometimes the destination seems so hopelessly far away from us, that we never t…
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“To have courage for whatever comes in life - everything lies in that.” - Saint Teresa of Avila A healthy sense of spirituality gives us courage in the face of uncertainty, courage in the face of our greatest difficulties. A person with a healthy sense of spirituality is not a Pollyanna. That person is firmly grounded in reality. However, their rea…
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Take heart. God is with us. A healthy spirituality sense of spirituality gives us a sense of belonging. It gives us the sense that we are, every one of us, part of something bigger than ourselves that loves and cares for us unconditionally. I’m convinced that most of our toxic behaviors towards others are driven by the negative emotions of fear, an…
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What is worthy of our calling? Paul’s answer isn’t what most of us think about when we think about the word worth: “(Live) with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” -Ephesians 4:2-3 Nothing about wealth, social status or power. Not…
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No really, we are all children of God
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No really, we are all children of God One of my conversation partners and beloved sisters in Christ disagrees with my view that we are all children of God. She points to the children of light/ children of darkness dichotomy that is found in the scriptures. I believe the phase children of darkness versus children of light describes a person’s circum…
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Go for it now! “Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.” - Wayne Dyer There are seven days in a week. Every day has a name. None of those days are named someday or one day. If there’s anything that you want to do, see, or be, today is the day to do it or to be about working towards it. Life is a precious gift. It’s also a gift that fragile…
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The Power Within When we stay rooted and grounded in love , we discover our power. It’s a power that allows us to do more than we’ve asked. It’s a power that allows us to do more than we’ve imagined asking. Well intentioned people often get the order wrong. We think it’s our job to produce good fruit, to do good work. So we wear ourselves out tryin…
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The Love Prayer “We have to give from a full heart, one that is saturated with love, overflowing to others. Before we can give freely, we have to know that we are loved.” -Mother Teresa It’s been said many times by many people that it’s not possible to pour from an empty vessel. It’s just not possible to freely give and fully love until we ourselve…
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Prayer’s purpose is to make us feel loved.
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Prayer’s purpose is to make us feel loved. “You should pray and meditate every day, so you know that you are loved, so you feel the presence of God’s love in your life.” - Mother Teresa The primary purpose of prayer and meditation is to connect us to that which is greater than ourselves. Some of us call this source or transcendence, some of us call…
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We are all children of the same God. “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.” -Ephesians 3:14-15 The experience of God’s love was so all encompassing and immersive that it transformed everything about how the early Jesus followers saw the world. Whereas at one time they saw themsel…
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If I Am… “If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.” -Joan of Arc In order to become the best versions of ourselves and in order for us to reach our highest possibilities and purposes, we have to be open, humble, and self aware. Joan of Arc’s prayer is a great one. It invites us to engage in an ongoing honest self assessme…
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Go catch excellence! It’s just not possible to achieve anything of significance in life without failing along the way. Steve Jobs was fired from the company he founded. Michael Jordan missed many game winning shots. It took Thomas Edison around a thousand attempts to make a light bulb. When we have failures and setbacks, the key for us is to learn …
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Take Time to Enjoy Life “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” - Bertrand Russell Life is very short. Time is something that once spent, can never be replaced. Therefore, it’s important that we are very intentional in the way we use it. In our current moment, we tend to focus on quantifiable and measurable productivity. While this is a go…
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“Look, you’re going to have to forgive everyone, including yourself.” - Horace McMillon (Jim Henson has a similar quote.) Every single one of us has fallen short. Every one of us has missed the mark. (Romans 3:23). We don’t say this to make anyone feel guilty. We don’t say this to shame anyone. What happened to us wasn’t right. It wasn’t ok. What w…
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(And We Are All God’s People) “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” - Psalm 133:1 This verse invites us to consider two central questions. Who are God’s people? How do we live together? In the first creation story included in the Hebrew Scriptures, we discover that all humanity is created in God’s image. In the sec…
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Forgiving Empowers the Forgiver “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” - Lewis B. Smedes Back when I was in middle school one of my classmates called me the “n” word, completely unprovoked. It wasn’t a convenient time to take revenge. So I kept walking. I later retaliated in a way that made my hands appear cl…
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“What we really need is a sustained practice that rewires and transforms our hearts and minds.” - Richard Rohr A confession of faith is meaningless unless it catalyzes us to live in such a way that we ourselves are transformed. Paul describes this transformation by the renewing of our minds. (Romans 12) Paul’s verb tense suggests that this is an on…
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Dear God, In this time of chaos and uncertainty, where divisions are high and fear runs rampant, We pray that you center us in your love, center us in your peace, center us in your hope. Do not allow despair or anxiety to disempower us. We pray instead that you give us the determination to do the things we can do to make the world a better place. I…
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Let me sow love. “Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.” - Francis of Assisi It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all the negativity around us in the world. It’s easy to fall into despair when we comprehend the scale of injustice and inequality. Too often we have a tendency to stand frozen looking for someb…
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Prepare, Prepare, Prepare “Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” - Robert H. Schuller My father used to keep a pretty big garden, much bigger than my mother would have preferred. Because when the harvest time came, we always had way more food than we could almost give away much less eat. The harvest was pretty sp…
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Does our religion bring joy? From time to time, we all need to do an alignment check. We have to ask ourselves if what we are doing is working for us both individually and collectively. When it comes to our religion and spirituality, if it’s not helping us become more loving, more patient, more peaceful, and more joyful we need to recalibrate. If o…
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Your past is not your future. Some of us have done some things that we are really not proud of. Maybe most of us have. But who we were yesterday doesn’t have to control what we do today or who we become tomorrow. No better example of this than the Apostle Paul. Prior to his spiritual experience on the road to Damascus, his religious understanding a…
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What’s Your Vision? “I am not afraid... I was born to do this.” - Joan of Arc When we believe in our calling, when we believe in our purpose, when we believe in our mission, fear cannot stop us. Yesterday, I used the example of Jesus. I know some of y’all were thinking, ‘ but yeah he’s Jesus’. Joan of Arc was a 17 year old peasant girl who so belie…
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Let your purpose be bigger than your obstacles!
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Let your purpose be bigger than your obstacles. “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.” John 12:27 Jesus faced the very troubling prospect of arrest, torture and execution. The path that he had chosen in non violently confronting corrupt and exploitative…
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Embrace Joy “It is not fitting, when one is in God's service, to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.” - Francis of Assisi Some of the old pastors I was around growing up use to say that some folk are so heavenly bound that they ain’t no earthly good. (Old… Shucks, I’m older now than many of them were then. But I digress.) The point is that this …
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It’s who we are when we get there that matters.
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It’s who we are when we get there. Amos is one of the more interesting figures in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the eyes of the world he was a regular nobody from nowhere. He tended his herds and he tended his trees. He left that behind, or at least set it aside when he felt called to deliver a sobering message to his larger society. Namely, that they …
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