))
If we can hope and if we can love, we can change the world, starting with our own. '60 Seconds of Hope' your daily oasis of positivity and inspiration! Join Horace McMillon each day for a minute reflection designed to equip, empower, and inspire you to be your best self and to help all of us make the world a better place. 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!
…
continue reading
Send us a text “And we urge you, beloved, to admonish the idlers, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them.”- 1 Thessalonians 5:14 I’ve been reluctant to share this verse because I was concerned some busy body might take it as a permission slip to meddle in someone else’s business. But that’s not what this is. Rather… …
…
continue reading
Send us a text Let Our Lives Be Our Offerings “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll— I have come to do your will, my God.” -(from Hebrews 10 quoting Psalm 40) Our religions and rituals are m…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Be Led Like Joseph: How We Make it Through “Hear us, Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock.” -from Psalm 80 Psalm 80 is a song of praise that evokes the name of Joseph. For those who don’t know, Joseph went through some serious stuff. His brothers trapped him and sold him into slavery, into slavery in a foreign country…
…
continue reading
Send us a text What Are We Giving Back? “Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.” - Leo Buscaglia If you are reading or listening to this right now, I want to affirm that God has made you special. You have been given the gifts, talents, and abilities to make the world a better place, to be a blessing to someo…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Show Us How to Reflect Your Light “People living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.” -Matthew 4:16 (quoting Isaiah 9:2) Dear God, In the midst of our hopelessness and despair, in the midst of our disappointment and disorientation, we pray that you give us the sp…
…
continue reading
Send us a text It’s Up to Us to Be Among the Few… “The world is held together by the love and passion of a very few people." -James Baldwin ~ It’s not that most of us are cold hearted and cruel. It’s just that we get so caught up in our own day to day life that we seldom make space to think about others beyond our own immediate circle of family and…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Surround Yourself with People Who Bring Out Your Best “The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.” - Epictetus We have to pay attention to who we surround ourselves with. We all have a strong human tendency to become like what we are around. Are the people around us hopeful and o…
…
continue reading
Send us a text What is the Word of God? “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” - Ephesians 6:17 Many Christians think of the Bible as the word of God, but that’s not quite right. In the Gospel of John chapter one, the logos or word, refers to Jesus. In the gospel, Jesus represents very the presence of …
…
continue reading
Send us a text Submit to One Another: The Biblical Push Towards Radical Equality “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” - Ephesians 5:21 How many sermons and Bible lessons have started with “Wives submit to your husbands…” (Ephesians 5:22) without looking at the verse immediately above it? Most if not all of the writings included in T…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Salvation Means No Longer Living in Fear “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.” - Isaiah 12:2 Faith isn’t blind. Faith sees all the obstacles and challenges. Faith sees all the threats and risks. Faith sees and understands all that and chooses to live in trust anyway. We trust that we are not alone. We trust th…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Someone Everywhere: We Share the Same Struggles “No test has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. And God is faithful…” from 1 Corinthians 13:10 From time to time I have the opportunity to pray and study with people from around the world. And what have I discovered? Someone everywhere is worried about their job or busines…
…
continue reading
Send us a text It’s Time to Be About It “Begin to be now what you will be hereafter.” - William James Stop procrastinating. Stop making excuses. Stop putting it off. Stop wishing. Start doing. Whatever it is you have dreamed, whatever it is you have been hoping for, whatever is your calling, it’s time for you to take concrete tangible steps in its …
…
continue reading
Send us a text “Start Where You Are. Use What You Have…” “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” - Arthur Ashe Not everyone starts life with the same advantages. Not everyone is given the same opportunities. Rather than focusing on the things we don’t have, and the opportunities we didn’t receive, we must fully focus on making th…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Advent Means Not Consulting Our Fears “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.” - Pope John XXIII Most of us are afraid of failing, of lookin…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Be Sure to Dance a Little Today! “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once." - Friedrich Nietzsche I’ve become convinced that appreciation and gratitude are at the center of wellbeing. We have to pay attention to “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is …
…
continue reading
Send us a text Don’t Become the Monster You’re Fighting “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.”- Friedrich Nietzsche It’s easy for us to lose our way when we are tired, lonely, and afraid. It’s easy for us to lose our way when our righteous indignation turns into rage, when our desire for justice turns into a…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Listen for the Voice of Beauty "The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls." - Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche described himself as an atheist. I, like the Apostle Paul believe that the entire cosmos lives and moves and has its being in God(Acts 17:28). Therefore, I believe the voice of God cal…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Some People Won’t Understand. Fly Anyway. “The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly."- Friedrich Nietzsche There are going to be people in your life who are never going to understand you and why you do what you do. They aren’t going to understand the sacrifices you are making to reach your goals. They don’t u…
…
continue reading
Send us a text The Harvest Is Worth It. “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” - Galatians 6:9 Everyone gets tired. Many of us are tired right now, not just physically, but deep down in our souls. It tempting for us to throw our hands up and walk away. It’s tempting for us to give up. In these mom…
…
continue reading
Send us a text There’s Danger in Our Comfort Zones “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.” – Charles Darwin Not many of us like change. Most of us find our comfort zones and never leave. We find something that works for us, and we keep doing it. We arduously avoid the types of experim…
…
continue reading
Send us a text God Sings for Us. Let Us Sing with God “The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival."- from Zephaniah 3:18 & 19 Advent replaces images of a vengeful, angry, petty tyrant God wi…
…
continue reading
Send us a text We Need to Work Like We Believe It! “Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" - Luke 3:6-7 The good news, the gospel found in Luke says that all humanity will see the deliverance,…
…
continue reading
Send us a text It Takes Love to Know What Matters “And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what really matters…” from Philippians 1:9-10 We have decisions to make. Who do we want to be? Where do we want to be. What do we want to do? With whom do we want to be? In othe…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Don’t Let Worry Get You Down “Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” - from Luke 21 If you’re watching this video you probably already agree with the first part of this verse. You know and believe that exces…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Do We Have Any Room for God in Our Lives? “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.” - Luke 2:7 I first heard a version of this reflection preached by Father Nelson at The Church of the Resurrection back in Omaha, Nebraska some th…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Stop Trying to Be God’s Bouncer “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand" - Romans 14:4 Too many of us have gotten the mistaken idea that God has called us to be bouncers, judging who’s in and who’s out. …
…
continue reading
Send us a text A Daily Prayer for Advent and Beyond Would you join me in praying this daily prayer for Advent and beyond? Dear God, Fill us with the hope of the prophets, with a vision of the world filled the peace and a wellbeing that is grounded in our shared love of You, ourselves, and our neighbors as ourselves. Give us the commitment to prepar…
…
continue reading
Send us a text The Power Thanksgiving: How Prayer and Gratitude Set Us Free Acts 16 tells of a time that Paul and Silas were arrested, beaten, shackled, and locked in the deepest part of the prison. No doubt they were hurting, and were quite possibly afraid, and we’re likely very angry at the injustice of it all. They had a right to feel that way. …
…
continue reading
Send us a text How Long? Not Long! A friend of mine reshared something I posted on Facebook 10 years ago. I share it with you now. "How long?... Not long." The refrain from my favorite MLK speech. It captures the dual nature of the prophetic voice confronting our reality. On the one had hand, it acknowledges the full weight and pain of injustice he…
…
continue reading
Send us a text What Is Faith? How Does It Shield Us? “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” - Ephesians 6:16 What is faith? It looks like blind Bartimaeus refusing to be silenced. Like the woman with the issue of blood after spending 12 years and all her money st…
…
continue reading
Send us a text God Wants Everyone to Thrive. Do We? Those of us who claim to believe that God is a God of love, need to be willing to move beyond our own desires to see revenge and punishment. We have to understand that the righteousness of God is far more about wellbeing rather than retribution. Many scriptures point to this including this one fro…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Be Content, but Never Satisfied. Your Best is Yet to Come. I spent a little extra time in reflection today, as today marks my 57th birthday. I have always been one with hopes, and dreams, and ambitions. I set goals, make plans, and go after them with everything I have. I love the hustle. I love the chase. I love the grind. I savor th…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Keep a Forgiving Attitude “Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.” - Martin Luther King Jr. How long do we want to be angry, and bitter, and resentful? How long do we want to carry that pain? How much time and energy do we want to spend trying to tear someone else down rather than focusing on building oursel…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Let Our Hope Be Infinite “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” - Martin Luther King Jr. The struggle for a better world is not won or lost in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year, or a decade, or a century, or even a millennium. People in every generation, people of good conscience and good will are…
…
continue reading
Send us a text One Success Beats a Thousand Failures “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson Don’t be afraid to fail. There is no one anywhere who has accomplished anything of significance without first making a lot of mistakes, miscues, and blunders. Each time we try and fail, we have t…
…
continue reading
Send us a text “She said to her, "All that you say I will do." -From the story of Ruth and Naomi in the third chapter of Ruth The story of Ruth and Naomi is many things. It’s the story of the best mother in law / daughter in law relationship in the world. It’s the story of two women working together to survive and thrive in the face of crushing set…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Peaceful Hearts, Peace Minds, Peaceful Actions “(Go into the world) with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.” - Ephesians 6:15 We must undergo a type of transformation in order to effectively fight for the lives, communities, and world we desire. First, we must have peaceful hearts. We no longer d…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Guard Your Hearts It’s easy to become discouraged. It’s tempting to become cynical and jaded. Sometimes when we no longer want to deal with heartbreak and disappointment, we are tempted to close ourselves off and shut ourselves down. The writer of Ephesians anticipated this very thing when they urged us to “Stand, therefore, and belt…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Stay Centered in the Truth of Love “Stand, therefore, and belt your waist with truth and put on the breastplate of righteousness” - Ephesians 6:14 There is one core truth that is the foundation for everything else we say, or do, or believe: God is Love. And the way we come to know, experience and commune with God is through loving Go…
…
continue reading
Send us a text I want to take a moment to share something that I did not write, but has been very important to me for a long time. It’s called the Possibility Thinker’s Creed: “When faced with a mountain I will not quit. I will keep on striving until I climb over, find a pass through, tunnel underneath, or simply stay and turn the mountain into a g…
…
continue reading
Send us a text 60 Seconds of Hope: Embrace the Sweat I’m fully convinced that in order to become truly great at something you have to embrace every aspect of the process. In athletics, it’s not just about showing up for the game. It’s about the nutrition, the fitness, the conditioning, the practice and the study, and the game planning. It’s about t…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Experience Defeat, But Don’t Be Defeated “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” – Maya Angelou I need anyone and everyone here reading or listening to this who is going …
…
continue reading
Send us a text Stay With It and Don’t Give Up ““It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” – Albert Einstein Our success and often even our survival have less to do with our talents and abilities than they have to do with our determination and persistence. Einstein is best remembered for his theory of general relativit…
…
continue reading
Send us a text 60 Seconds of Hope: Keep On Standing One of the blessings I have received from my faith tradition is a type of stubborn optimism that is fully grounded in the hard realities of today. Every life is met with a certain amount of hardship and difficulty. Some lives far more than others. Injustice and inequality are pervasive and deeply …
…
continue reading
Send us a text Keep Your Minds on Liberation A famous passage about the full armor of God reminds us to “take the helmet of salvation.” with us. (Ephesians 6:17) The concept of salvation in modern popular use has become highly spiritualized. It has lost some of its original meaning. The Greek word (soteria) is also properly translated as deliveranc…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Don’t Hate the Person In Front of You “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”- Ephesians 6:12 In this world we have some profound differences of perspective, opinion, belief, and conviction. …
…
continue reading
Send us a text Let Our Lives Be Our Offering (Advent 2024) “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me;in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.” - (From Hebrews 10:5-6 itself referencing Psalm 40:6-8) The Hebrew Scriptures suggest that God doesn’t desire our religious rituals and symbo…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Deliverance through Belonging, Purpose, and Hope (Advent 2024) “Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.” - Psalm 80:7 I lived in Mississippi for 18 years. There’s nothing like a summer day there. When you step outside you step into a heat that completely embraces and envelops you. It’s a heat that perme…
…
continue reading
Send us a text You Don’t Have to Pretend You’re Ok…(Advent 2024) “You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us the scorn of our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.” - Psalm 80:5-6 The scriptural tradition is hopeful, optimistic, and determined. It is also honest and raw. When the wr…
…
continue reading
Send us a text Honesty, Gratitude and Trust Equals Peace (Advent 2024) “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” - Philippians 4:6 Paul had a lot to be anxious about. Even though he had some relative privilege as a Roman citizen, he knew everything coul…
…
continue reading
