Let Your Life Be Your Testimony

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching” - Francis of Assisi

In the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10) there were two religious folks who passed by without stopping to help.

Why they didn’t help, we don’t exactly know. Maybe they were afraid of being hurt themselves. Maybe they didn’t want to become ritually impure for religious reasons. Maybe they had somewhere to be and didn’t want to be late.

Ultimately, their religion was of no use to the man who was injured, lying helpless in the road. Not sure how much use it was to the people they were in a hurry to meet.

In the eyes of Jesus’s audience, the Samaritan had the wrong theology and the wrong rituals. But he had the right witness.

He let his life be his testimony. We should too.

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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Remaining calm in the midst of chaos…

“In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.” - Deepak Chopra

Sometimes it’s not possible for us in the moment to control our external environment. In these moments we have to focus on maintaining a calm internal environment.

How do we do this? We want to become aware of our internal thoughts and feelings. When we feel the anger or the fear or the anxiety rising up in us, we want to take a moment to pause.

When we pause, we take a deep breath and exhale slowly. As we slowly exhale we can say a really short breath prayer to help us recenter. A breath prayer is normally no longer than six, seven, maybe eight syllables. Some examples:

Grant me your peace.

Show me your light.

Let your love flow through me.

Protect me, Lord.

Release me from my fear.

Help me be a blessing in this moment.

Lord give me strength.

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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“You can't make positive choices for the rest of your life without an environment that makes those choices easy, natural, and enjoyable.” - Deepak Chopra

It’s not impossible to make positive choices in a chaotic and toxic environment, but it sure is a lot harder.

Passengers traveling by airplane are coached that in the event of an emergency, they should put on their own oxygen masks first before attempting to help other people with theirs.

There are times when it is absolutely necessary for us to remove ourselves from toxic and dysfunctional situations before we can even think about the ways we can help.

Sometimes we have to distance ourselves or even cut off entirely people we love and care about when continued association with them is bad for our mental health, emotional, physical, or spiritual wellbeing.

Sometimes it is absolutely necessary for us to prioritize our wellbeing. We have to seek and place ourselves in positive and healthy environments.

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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Learn, Grow, and Move On

“Forgive yourself for your faults and your mistakes and move on.” - Les Brown

Guilt, shame, and regret can be useful if they cause us to stop, reflect, and change. After that, they are of no use to us. It’s time to put therm behind us.

This is where the concepts of re-birth and renewal are so powerful to us. We acknowledge the past. We learn from the past. We repent- which means we turn away from the past. And most importantly, we begin anew.

Followers of Jesus express it this way: “ So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” - 2 Corinthians 5:17

A new you, a new me, a new world, a new reality come into being when we learn, grow, forgive ourselves and others, and move on.

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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God loves the world and we should too.

Most of us know that we are supposed to love our neighbors. But most of us like the Lawyer in Gospel story (Luke 10:29) want to know who our neighbor is.

In other words, we want to know who we have to love and who it’s ok not to love. Because, the truth is, there are some people we don’t want to love- and sometimes for good reason.

Just as Jesus’s telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan makes clear our love is to be for all, John 3:16-17 reminds us God loves everyone:

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only-born Son, in order that everyone believing in Him may not perish, but may have eternal life.

For God did not send-forth the Son into the world in order that He might judge the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”

God loves the entire world, and we should too.

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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Guard your hearts.

“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.” - Francis of Assisi

Life is a journey, and sometimes a difficult one. Along the way, we experience things where if we are not careful, we will become angry, bitter and fearful.

All of us experience anger, bitterness, and fear. But let it be just that, an experience, not a condition. We always want to respond to life’s challenges from a healthy spiritual center.

What does a healthy center look like? We live in love, embrace joy, we seek peace, and offer each other forbearance. We faithfully practice kindness and goodness with gentleness and self-control. (See Galatians 5:22-23)

How do we stay in this healthy center? In stead of remaining anxious, we practice prayer and meditation centering ourselves in gratitude. As we present our requests to God, the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, guards our hearts and our minds. (See Philippians 4: 6-7)

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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Believe the best about yourself.

“Don't let someone else's opinion of you become your reality.” - Les Brown

Unfortunately, there are too many of us who have been under estimated and under appreciated. Our gifts and contributions have gone overlooked and have even sometimes been denied.

Perhaps others define us by our past mistakes, misjudgments and failures. Perhaps we are remembered for the worst moments in our lives.

We must learn from the past, but we must also not allow ourselves to be defined by it. We certainly must not define ourselves by our past.

Instead we should take the words of Amazing Grace as our life’s ethos. “I once was lost, but now I’m found, was blind but now I see.”

We don’t need to internalize anything negative someone has to say about us even if it used to be true. That’s not who we are now.

We possess within us the transformative power of amazing grace to become who we were always meant to be.

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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Recognizing Our Toxicity is the First Step in Healing It.

“And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live." Numbers 21:8

It’s a long road, from bondage, to freedom, to wellbeing. It’s easy to get side tracked along the way.

The people of Israel were initially very excited to escape bondage in Egypt. But it was a long difficult uncertain journey to go to a place they had never been and could scarcely imagine.

Along the way they became negative and toxic in their thinking and behavior. That created a toxic environment in which they were being bitten by poisonous snakes

Recognizing the pattern was the step to interrupting the pattern. That’s what looking at the bronze Serpent represents. Changing the pattern led to their healing.

Recognizing our own toxicity is the first step toward healing it.

I’m Horace McMillon. This is 60 Seconds of Hope. Peace be with you.

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