Tag: bible

Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, Or Do Without

I cannot imagine my life without a small group of Christian brothers/sisters who meet together to pray, study the Bible, and just to “do life” together!  As a kid I was always in some kind of small group – a cub and boy scout troop, a sports team, or a Sunday School Class (taught amazingly by my mother in elementary school and my father in high school).

As an adult my small “accountability” groups have always grown out of the church.  At LaSalle Street Church in Chicago we called them “cell groups” and we met at one another’s house regularly.  At Christ Church of Oak Brook I was part of a five-man group which also met regularly for over 10 years.  Currently, and for the past five years, I have been part of a group made up of five couples – we call ourselves “Parents Anonymous (PA).”

Last night our PA group met and as usual I was blessed beyond words by the connection, the honesty, and the encouragement which are always present every time we meet.  One of our group, Mark, shared a 12-word poem/proverb which he called his “pioneer saying” that he learned in high school:  Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without. The rest of our group sat quietly in awe as we focused on the meaning of this poem for our own lives, and I asked him to send it to each of us.  And he did.

Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without.  Our 30th president, Calvin Coolidge, is credited by many with creating this proverb to help people create in their lives frugality and resourcefulness, especially needed during the Great Depression.  But others claim the proverb goes back to the 1700’s – we just don’t know and likely never will know who first said Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, Or Do Without!

I cannot get this poem/proverb out of my mind.  Each of the four phrases has grabbed my mind, my heart, and my soul at a very deep level.  Beyond the obvious meaning that Pres. Coolidge wanted Americans to heed, to me the poem/proverb can apply to our spiritual lives in a most profound way.  One simple example:  Jesus told us, “A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another” [John 13:34].

Our response to Jesus’ “new command” takes us through Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, Or Do Without.  “Loving others” is to be a hallmark of my life, I must show love at such a constant level that I may feel I am “using it up” and “wearing it out” – but the goal is always to “make it do” since “doing without” is NOT an option for Christ-followers.  May my friend Mark’s “pioneer saying” and Pres. Coolidge’s “proverb to the nation” bring you deeper insights as you chew on God’s written word!  Use It Up, Wear It Out, Make It Do, or Do Without!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

The Man On The Middle Cross Invited Me!

Imagine this: when the thief crucified with Jesus got to the pearly gates of Heaven and was asked, “How did you come to be here?” I wonder what he might have said. Did he have a clue about justification by faith? Baptism for the remission of his sins? Regular church attendance? Inspiration of holy scriptures? Prophecy confirmations from the Hebrew Scriptures? No, to all of those.

Here is the only thing he could have said: The Man on the Middle Cross Invited Me! And clearly that answer was all he had to say! Jesus had turned to him during the torture of crucifixion when both were near death in shear physical agony, and he said, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43 NLT).

But there is a little more to this story which bears looking at for our own edification as we Christ-followers hope for a similar invitation from Jesus. Did you remember that the other criminal dying on the other side of Jesus had taunted Jesus with these words, borne, I am sure, as much out of fear of impending death as a genuine hope of a miracle rescue: “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it” (Luke 23:39 NLT).

To me the most powerful of all conversion sermons comes next. The soon-to-be-pardoned thief said, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong” (Luke 23:40-41 NLT). Give the word “fear” its proper meaning of “respect” and the first point of this sermon is clear: This convicted criminal knew enough to respect his newly met neighbor, also condemned to death, as the incarnate presence of God.

His second sermon point is also powerful: His belief that both he and his fellow criminal “deserved to die” is always a precursor to salvation. His words constitute a true confession of sin.

In my opinion, the third point of this sermon is a true highpoint of all human encounters with Jesus recorded in scriptures: “But this man has not done anything wrong.” Whereas all we human beings have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Jesus of Nazereth, born of Mary, fully human and fully divine, is the only person ever to walk on the face of this earth without having sinned.

So, there you have it: a really convincing three-point sermon for the ages! How did you get here to heaven sir? The Man on the Middle Cross Invited Me! The coolest part of this sermon is that Jesus’ words to the believing thief on the cross are the same words He offers to us today! Do we actually believe that the same invitation is open to us, or do we water down His invitation to include all of the “works” which we need to do to earn entry into heaven? Lord, may it be so that we, with the thief on the cross, can shout with joy at heaven’s gates when asked how we got there: The Man on The Middle Cross Invited Me!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE: If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com. I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

Imma-Nu-El

Today, as we celebrate the birth of Christ. Yesterday. 2,000+ years ago. Tomorrow. 5,000 years from now. Three little Hebrew words give us meaning and purpose to our existence.  I am sure everyone reading this blog has long heard and used the word Immanuel with the understanding it refers to Jesus, the Son of God.  But most of you have not studied Biblical Hebrew, so you may not know that Immanuel is NOT one word.  It is three small Hebrew words which when put together create this amazing appellation for the Son of God. 

Im is the Hebrew preposition which means “with.” It looks like this – עִם.

Nu is the Hebrew pronoun which means “us.”  It looks like this – נוּ. 

El is the Hebrew proper noun for the name of God, often meaning power, strength, mighty God.  It looks like this – אֵל.

You put these three little words together – adding a double “m” is required before the pronoun “us” may be added to “with,” which also requires an extra vowel – hence, im plus nu becomes “immanu”  instead of just “imnu”.  Probably way too much information, but for any who were questioning – now you know how we got this amazing word Immanuel.

Isaiah 7:14 [NIV] says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:  The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”

The New Testament writer Matthew tells us this – “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God with us’) Matthew 1:23 [NIV].

Chew on this for a few moments in the last hours of this Advent day known as December 25th – how often do I really, I mean really, feel that the almighty powerful God who created the universe is actually, really, “with me”?  How often do I even consider that as I go through my daily activities, Imma-Nu-El is indeed with me. 

This promise – made by God through the prophet Isaiah and then repeated centuries later by one of Jesus’ disciples the Gospel writer Matthew – is not just a Christmas Day nice thing to say and sing about. 

This promise from God gives us purpose and meaning to our existence on this planet.  May each of us think on this promise repeatedly every day of our lives. I hope to always connect this promise of Imma-Nu-El with the ending words of the Merton Prayer:  “I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

How Could That Happen?

“Mr. Denny, I am calling to get your verbal consent for the surgery tomorrow for your left knee replacement?” My answer was one word: “No.” Awkward silence followed. “I don’t understand, are you not coming for surgery tomorrow?” “Yes, I am coming but my left knee was replaced in 2022! I consent to surgery on my right knee!” Apologies followed. I was not surprised but the question lingered: How Could That Happen?

Many of you will recall that after my 10-year career as parish pastor I spent 4 years working in Risk Management at a major Chicago hospital. Informed consents were regularly messed up. Fortunately, all of the mistakes were caught pre-surgery and we never had the wrong limb operated on. (Now that would be a lawsuit which I would LOVE to handle!)

The simple answer to How Could That Happen? is this: It could and does happen because we are humans and not machines! Our natural nature is to sin! Even the best human among us is a sinner who makes mistakes! Listen to how the Apostle Paul spoke about this: “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NIV).

“All” leaves no room for me to be the exception! Every single one of us is a sinner. How often, if ever, do we “mature Christians” admit that we are “sinners”? Sure, we list our sins in our prayers when we ask God to forgive us, knowing full well that He always forgives us! We even admit to being a sinner in the ‘’Lord’s Prayer”. But such admission, as honest as it can be, hardly convinces us that we have an internal quality called “sin.”

The part of this famous verse that pastors rarely focus on is “and fallen short of the glory of God.” We are human sinners and we do not contain within us “the glory of God”. Is this a big announcement? Did we not know this before we read Paul’s letter to the Romans? Because we are all sinners, we must realize that we are not God, and we can never become God.

Today’s blog is not a total bummer! The surgery on the RIGHT leg was very successful and post-op I am walking pain free now with use of a walker. And Paul’s very next words totally take the sting out of “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Listen to Romans 3:24 — “And all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ” (NIV). Hear the same verse from the NLT: “Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins” (Romans 3:24 NLT). And this, my friends, is very good news for all of us sinners!

We are “freed from the penalty of sin” is just about the best news a sinner can ever hear. So How Could That Happen? is completely, totally, and properly, answered for us. Thank you, Lord!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you.

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE: If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com. I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

The Clergy are Cowards!

I watched a church historian interviewed recently who was asked, “Why is the American church not flourishing?”   His answer was this: “The clergy are the problem.”  Today we get to the third of Alistair Begg’s threefold meme – “The Clergy are Cowards.”  Seriously? Some of you may be saying right now, “Steven, that’s not nice to say about ministers, pastors, and priests!”  As you likely know already, I am not nearly as concerned with being nice, as I am with being honest!

Have you ever thought of your clergy as a coward? The dictionary definition of coward is this: “One who shows disgraceful fear or timidity” [Webster’s Dictionary].  The same dictionary gives “chicken” as the first synonym of coward. Interesting, isn’t it, that the word “disgraceful” is used? Another quote from Alexis de Tocqueville fits here: “Everybody feels the evil, but no one has courage or energy enough to seek the cure.” (Democracy in America) The Clergy are Cowards! is indeed “disgraceful” and needs to be eradicated!

Here’s some examples of The Clergy are Cowards! which I have encountered over my years in the church. A pastor told his congregation “the issues of evil facing our country all have to stay outside this church building!  In here we only preach Christ!”  He was a chicken clergy worried ONLY about members leaving if he preached biblical orthodoxy which would mean lower offerings, which could put his salary and pension in jeopardy!

Or this: when a mainline denomination voted to affirm a woman’s right to “unrestricted abortion” one of their pastors never even informed their own leaders that their denomination had so voted! Fear leads a chicken clergy to keep their mouth shut!

How about this: A church group was on a field trip visiting sacred sites in Europe when a stranger approached the pastor who was leading the group with this question which was heard by the entire group, “Do I have to be baptized to join your group?” The pastor immediately turned the group in a different direction without responding to the questioner. Why not speak to this person with biblical truths?  Fear!  I could likely muster 1,000 other examples – The Clergy are Cowards!

Three biblical verses show “cowardly clergy” are not at all in step with the Lord:

  • “Fear not, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10)
  •  “In God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” (Psalm 56:11)
  •   “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7)

The Greek word for “fear” is phobos from which we get phobia.  Have our American clergy developed phobias which keep them from preaching the truth, teaching God’s and not man’s word, and upholding biblical orthodoxy every chance they get?

I ask again “why is the American church not flourishing?” We now have all three of Alistair Beggs answers, The Culture is Collapsing, The Church is Confused, and The Clergy are Cowards! Please Lord let each reading these words look for ways to be the antidote to these problems the Body of Christ is facing in America!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

The Church is Confused!

Not only is the culture collapsing around us, the second point of Alistair Begg’s threefold meme of why modern Christianity is failing is this– The Church is Confused!  Do I really need to document this assertion? Just one point will suffice: A major denomination voted at their annual conference two years ago that abortion is fine and that any local, state, or federal restrictions on abortion for women and “pregnant persons” were not to be tolerated.  To me, this leaves no room for doubt – The Church is Confused!

When Jesus told the Apostle Peter that he had just handed him the “keys to the kingdom” and “upon this rock [petros, Greek for rock and Peter] I will build my church,” I hardly think he had in mind a future church deciding to allow babies to be killed in the womb!  When Yahweh told the prophet Jeremiah that he had been known by God even when Jeremiah was in his mother’s womb, surely God was not envisioning abortion of healthy children created in his image (Jeremiah 1:5).

Has the Church always been confused? If not, when and how did the Church become confused?  The first century church at Jerusalem had some serious conflicts which were overseen by James the brother of Jesus.  (See Acts 15:14-21).  The fourth century Church saw the Roman Emperor Constantine forcing his soldiers to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ, a fact which might have upset local church boards a tad!

Our 21st century church has  – drumroll please – are you ready for this?? – over 45,000 different denominations and the United States alone has over 200!  When Jesus handed the keys of the kingdom to Peter one wonders if even Jesus would be shocked to see that the Church today is not one undivided Church. To say The Church is Confused is hardly a stretch of imagination to a modern church-watcher. 

We have churches who focus more on political issues than on issues from the Bible.  We have churches who one year declare a “policy” only to change/reverse itself the very next year!   One church says sins are forgiven when one prays asking God to forgive, another church says that sins are only forgiven when one experiences baptism.  One church baptizes by sprinkling water on an infant who has no idea what is happening, another church only baptizes by immersion in water which completely covers the body.

Yes, The Church is Confused and I sincerely wonder at times what God thinks of how we have messed up his plan that the church would be “one”!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please email me at TheMertonPrayer@gmail.com.  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

It’s All There!

In the 1990’s I was totally “pro-choice”.  What happened to change my mind?  (1) A conversation with a doctor; (2) Jeremiah 1:5. This is not a “political” attack on pro-choice folks; it is my story of how I changed directions on this issue.

I was in San Diego to present my OB/Gyn expert in a medical malpractice case – my client’s baby was permanently deformed and would never be able to use her left arm due to the negligence of the doctor.  My expert was the head of his hospital’s OB/Gyn department with incredible credentials.  He was also a strong Christian who was not shy about sharing his faith.

As we chatted at dinner after his deposition, he knocked my socks off by telling me, “I used to do abortions.  At least one per week for over 20 years.” I did the math – he had done over 1,000 abortions.  “Why did you stop?” said I.  His response changed my life forever: “I realized that at conception It’s All There! Nothing is ever added except food/nutrition!”

My brain grabbed this and I could not let it go.  Probably within a week I realized the absolute undeniable truth in It’s All There! From the moment of conception absolutely NOTHING is added to that zygote, nothing except nutrition, nothing except food!  It’s All There! 

And then there was that verse in Jeremiah where God talks directly to the famous prophet and preachers ever since have grabbed that sentence to preach powerful pro-life sermons.  “Now the word of the LORD came to me saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you’” (Jeremiah 1:4-5.  NASB1995). So, God knew me in the womb, and nothing but food was added after I was conceived!

I was hooked by my own brain into a total life-changing position.  Nothing was added except food!  And every other human being on this planet was also “known by God in the womb.”  My wife Miran and I have stood in front of Chicago abortion clinics, praying that the women coming to have their babies sucked out of their wombs would change their minds!

The Lord and the Holy Spirit moved in the hearts of a few women who saw 30+ of us praying in front of the abortion clinic.  They slowly turned around and walked back to their car.  Our prayer was that they would never return to that or another clinic for an abortion.

“Reproductive health care” – can we really/logically say ripping a baby apart by a vacuum which got every piece of the baby’s body out of the woman’s womb is health care?  Seems like “death care” to me!  And modern science for decades has known that the DNA of the baby is NOT the same as the mother’s DNA, which makes the mantra “My body my choice” illogical non-sense.  Mom’s left arm is her body and she can indeed cut that off with impunity.  The baby inside her is NOT her body, it is the body of another human being who is already known by God!

It’s All There! and God’s message to Jeremiah – that’s how I made a 180 degree turn in my life and I have never looked back with regret.  May the God of Jeremiah bless you today as you chew on these thoughts!  And don’t forget –at conception It’s All There! Leave a comment please!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

Amen!

All Catholics reading this blog will surely get a kick out of my ignorance.   For years when I approached the priest for Eucharist, after he placed the wafer in my hand and spoke the words “The body of Christ, given for you,” I always looked him square in the eyes and said, “Thank you.”   Then I moved on, consumed the host, and felt very close to the Lord and filled with the Holy Spirit.

One day at mass with my wife Miran, who is a “cradle Catholic” having been born into the faith as a child, she overheard me say, “Thank you” to the priest.  She quickly informed me that the proper response to the priest’s words “The body of Christ given for you” was to simply say Amen!

I thought my “Thank you” had been polite and appropriate.  But instead, it had caused a ripple of discomfort in the ears of any who heard.

Got me to thinking about the word Amen!  Did you know that every time you conclude a prayer with the word Amen! you are speaking both Hebrew and Greek!  The Greek word Amen! is a transliteration (letter for letter) of the Hebrew word Amen! which literally means, “Verily so, this is the truth, so it is, without a doubt” and other words/phrases connoting the assuredness and veracity of what went before the Amen!

All of which led me to chew on (pardon the pun) the phrase “This is my body given for you.”  Some priests/pastors change the words Jesus used and instead say, “This is my body broken for you.”  If you ever hear those words spoken at a Eucharist Service, I encourage you to speak privately with that person and point them to Psalm 22, the Messianic Psalm of King David, which is referred to very often by Jesus. 

Was Jesus’ body “broken” on the cross?  His side was pierced, his hands and feet were pierced, a crown of thorns cut into his scalp; but when the soldiers came to fracture his femurs as they had just done to the criminals on either side of Jesus to hasten their death, they stopped and did not fracture his femurs, since Jesus had already died.

Psalm 22 has so many amazing references to the life of Jesus as the promised Messiah (“anointed one”) I encourage you to read it very slowly.  Verse 14 says “all my bones are out of joint” – not fractured or broken, just out of joint!  And then the most amazing fact is in verse 17 which says, “I can count all my bones!”  We can assume that since God created human beings, He knew perfectly well what modern medical science has since discovered and confirmed – there are 206 bones in the human body; not 208 which would have happened if Jesus’ femurs had each been broken in half! 

When the Psalmist says, in speaking of the Messiah, “I can count all my bones”) we can read into these words “I still have only 206 bones, none of my bones were broken like the two guys on either side of me!”  So, when I am told, “this is the body of Christ which was given for you” I rejoice and say Amen!

Verily, it is so, this is the truth!  Not a single bone in my Savior’s body was broken and His entire body was given for me.  Amen! indeed!

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you discovered The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]

How Could This Happen?

Two years ago, I spoke with an 80-year-old man who started crying on the phone with me. What he shared with me he had not ever told another human being.  When he was 10 years old he was raped by an adult whom he trusted. Not just once.  Repeatedly, several times each week.  Hundreds of times. It did not stop until he was 18 and left his home.

Was I surprised by his story?  Not at all.  Over 45% of the cases I handle in my law firm involve representing victims of childhood sex assault or trafficking.  As I listened, he repeated probably 10 times in a ten-minute phone call, “How Could This Happen?”

I ask you:  how do I respond to How Could This Happen?  I listen and when given an opening say softly, “I am so sorry you endured this evil.”  His unanswered question is the question we all should be asking, and we should NOT stop asking until we have the answer.

The simple and easy and inadequate answer is this: “[the rapist] said that if I ever tell anyone he will kill me and my parents and my siblings!”  The worst was yet to come.  When this sweet man, who had served a long career in our armed forces, was only 14 years old the rapist forced him to rape the rapist’s younger sister who was only 10 years old.  The rapist watched this happen, and then he proceeded to rape each of them himself, forcing them to watch. 

If you are ill at ease having read the above four paragraphs, then you have a soul and conscience which screams out How Could This Happen?  My office motto at the bottom of my letterhead says Striving for Justice in an Imperfect World which was created by me largely in response to this and similar cases I have handled.  The rapist was dead; he had never been arrested.  Statistics from my expert witnesses indicate that this rapist likely assaulted upwards of 300+ victims over his seven decades of life.  There could be no “legal justice” for this evildoer, at least none on earth. 

Will the rapist receive justice ever?  The classic Christian scenario has this rapist knocking on heaven’s door and being ushered into hell.  If you believe the New Testament, especially the red letter words of Jesus, then you must agree that eternal punishment is awaiting this rapist if he has never repented and accepted the forgiveness that is offered through Jesus.  When I preached a sermon on hell at my local church several people approached me with this question:  “Steven, you don’t really believe that an actual hell exists do you?”  To which I replied, “Yes, I cannot read and believe the New Testament without believing that eternal punishment exists.”  Will it be a furnace burning eternally with fire?  I do not know but I love this picture of hell:  long banquet tables filled with scrumptious food, residents in hell seated across from each other tied into their chairs eternally, with forks and spoons each three feet long strapped to their arms.  Got the picture?  They starve to death since they cannot get the food into their mouths and their evil selfish spirits do not allow them to see how easy it would be for each person to feed the person across the table they are facing! 

Read Matthew 25 and see how Jesus talks about “eternal fire” and “eternal punishment” for those who see hungry people and do nothing to feed them!  How Could This Happen?  Justice delayed, but eternal justice awaits unrepentant rapists, for sure!  My clients and I get to see many unrepentant rapists led out of the courtroom and into prison.  I often say to them words from Merton’s prayer, “The Lord was with you through your pain in the past and he will never leave you to face your future perils alone.”  How Could This Happen? Because evil exists and has existed since the garden of Eden.

Leave a comment, if you wish, regarding this post or how you found The Merton Prayer and why it is important to you. 

You will find The Merton Prayer and more at https://themertonprayer.com/

[NOTE:  If your organization, church, or school would like a workshop/presentation on The Merton Prayer please use the contact tab and let me know!  I can Zoom all over the world and have done 90-minute, 3-hour, 5-hour, weekend, or five-day workshops/retreats.]