60 Seconds of Hope with Horace McMillon

Send us Fan Mail Where Did I Feel Loved? As we come to the end of the year, it’s good for us to take some time to reflect. It’s particularly important for us to to reflect on those times and places where we felt loved and cared for, nurtured and embraced.  Who were we with? What were we doing? Were we with close friends sharing a meal or in quiet conversation? Were we in solitude walking through n...

Send us Fan Mail Be Like the Shepherds: Follow Nascent Hope into the World  As we reflect on the Christmas story found in the second chapter of Luke, we are encouraged to see ourselves in the place of the shepherds.  Both boys and girls could find themselves in caretaker roles for animals. Though their status in society was really low, what shepherds did in caring for the sheep, guiding the sheep...

Send us Fan Mail You Have to Love It! “Only true love can fuel the hard work that awaits you.” – Tom Preston Who do you love? What do you love? These are the questions each of us needs to answer clearly and explicitly.  A big part of knowing who and what we are requires us to know who and what we love. Life is hard. It’s filled with obstacles and challenges, setbacks and disappointments. Love is t...

Send us Fan Mail Speak to Yourself with Compassion  “Talk to yourself like you would to someone you love. Compassion begins at home—with yourself.” – Brené Brown How many of us say things to and about ourselves that we would never allow in our presence to be said about one of our best friends or loved ones?  It’s time for us to stop doing that. It is one thing to be self aware and even self critic...

Send us Fan Mail “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…  We encourage each other to stop delaying and st...

Send us Fan Mail 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 meaningless to God and everyone else if we aren’...

Send us Fan Mail 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. Once  in that country, he ended up going to p...

Send us Fan Mail 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 someone.  The question everyone of us has to ans...

Send us Fan Mail 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 spiritual vision to see your light.  Show us a pat...

Send us Fan Mail 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 friends  It’s not that with are actively h...

Send us Fan Mail 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 optimistic? Are they kind and generous? Are the...

Send us Fan Mail 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 God living in our midst.  Further, the Gospel of...

Send us Fan Mail 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 The Bible were written during periods of extrem...

Send us Fan Mail 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 that we are loved. We trust that our lives matter...

Send us Fan Mail 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 business and they’re struggling to make ends meet. The...

Send us Fan Mail 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 direction.  I can’t tell you that everything is...

Send us Fan Mail “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 the most of the gifts, opportunities, and resourc...

Send us Fan Mail 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 looking foolish. It’s tempting for us to give up and...

Send us Fan Mail 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 lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything i...

Send us Fan Mail 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 thirst for revenge.  We have completely lost o...

Send us Fan Mail 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 calls to everyone. The voice Nietzsche...

Send us Fan Mail 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 understand why you want to go there anyway....

Send us Fan Mail 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 moments we have to encourage ourselves. We remind...

Send us Fan Mail 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 experimentation and evaluation that force us to do some...

Send us Fan Mail 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 with images of God whose love for us is r...