60 Seconds of Hope with Horace McMillon

Send us Fan Mail We have peace when we understand that God is preserving us.  “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." - From Mark 9:50 Yesterday, I mentioned that salt was used to preserve meat in the ancient world. Salt keeps meat from spoiling.  If we pause to look within ourselves and around ourselves, we will see that most of the turmoil and strife that we encounter,...

Send us Fan Mail Keep Some Salt Inside Yourself  "For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another." - Mark 9:49-50 In using the phrase “salted with fire” the gospel writer is mixing metaphors to make an important point.  The image of fire reminds us of the refiners fi...

Send us Fan Mail How to Open the Right Doors Have you ever gotten everything you wanted the way you wanted it only to discover that it wasn’t really what you wanted?  I have lived that life.  I used to use a number of spiritual and mental techniques to visualize and manifest the things I wanted. Those techniques are powerful and effective.  It wasn’t until I received my vision for myself that I re...

Send us Fan Mail We Become What We Value  “You become like what you worship. That's one of the basic spiritual laws.” - N.T. Wright What’s most important to us? What are the qualities and traits in a person that we admire most? In what types of accomplishments do we take the most pride?  Little by little we become what we admire, value, and praise. So as the prophet Jousha extolled we all hav...

Send us Fan Mail Better Days Start with Better Affirmations  “Start each day by affirming peaceful, contented and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful.” - Norman Vincent Peale This advice sounds like magic. It isn’t. The reality is that we always find more of what we are looking for. So if we start each day with affirmations that focus our attention on the positive...

Send us Fan Mail Amaze Yourself  “If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.” - Les Brown  There’s a power the lives inside every one of us. This power is released when we move passionately with consistency and persistence in the direction of our goals.  We may not achieve everything we hope or desire. However,...

Send us Fan Mail “Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.” - Wayne Dyer The Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus proclaimed  in the Gospel of Matthew is not a destination but rather an experience. It is something we can experience in full in this life and it extends to eternity.  In or...

Send us Fan Mail Keep a thankful state of mind. “We are in a wrong state of mind if we are not in a thankful state of mind.” - Charles Spurgeon Gratitude is the best remedy I know for anger, bitterness, and resentment. Focusing on all the good things we have in our lives allows us to know that we are going to be alright.  Once you know that you’re good, no one has the power to push your buttons an...

Send us Fan Mail Shifted During Flight When traveling by airplane, it’s customary for passengers to store their bags in the overhead bins. One of the warnings the airlines always give is to use caution when opening the bins because the bags may have shifted in flight.  Life is like an airplane journey. In the course of our living we go through and experience things that change our perspective and...

Send us Fan Mail Be honest with yourself about where you are.  “But if you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not be arrogant and lie about the truth.” - James 3:14 The most important people that we need to be honest with are ourselves. Individually and collectively we have some uncomfortable truths that we need to recognize and acknowledge about ourselves.  At one point, I w...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 t...

Send us Fan Mail “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 oxyg...

Send us Fan Mail 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 pas...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail 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 exper...

Send us Fan Mail 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 bonda...

Send us Fan Mail 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...

Send us Fan Mail Stand up for yourself and others.  “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?” Rabbi Hillel When I was a young elementary school student, I let another child bully me without standing up for myself. After condemning the actions of the bully, my mother explained that the next time someone bullied me and I did not stand up f...

Send us Fan Mail If we want different, we have to change. “If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.” - Tony Robbins If we keep doing the same things, in the same places, with the same people, we will continue to get the same results.  If we want to see individual and/or social transformation we need to examine ourselves and change our perspectives, ou...

Send us Fan Mail “When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” - John 21:21-22 It’s easy for us to get distracted comparing ourselves to other people. We look around and see what other people are doing and not doing and we sometimes feel sorry for ourselves thinking it’s not fair.  The...

Send us Fan Mail Do what you do.  A bunch a years ago a young woman for whom I serve as one of her pastors, asked me to help her find another pastor who was known as someone who casts out demons. She was looking for help for her Aunt.  I’m the pastor you call when you are looking for a referral to see a therapist. So I wasn’t sure what to do with this. But I searched the name she had given me and...

Send us Fan Mail No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter how well you do what you do, there will be critics and haters particularly if you are doing anything of significance.  Jesus was criticized. Martin Luther King, jr. was criticized. Mother Teresa was criticized. Heck even one of the greatest and most successful singer songwriters of all time, Paul McCartney, was criticized.  D...

Send us Fan Mail Have a vision big enough to inspire you. “People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals - that is, goals that do not inspire them.” - Tony Robbins  I’m convinced that we never unlock and unleash our full potential while we are playing it small. We have to have a vision and purpose that is large enough to inspire us, to motivate us, to drive us through the obstacles, setback...

Send us Fan Mail 60 Seconds of Hope: Live with Urgency  “We have to live life with a sense of urgency so not a minute is wasted.” - Les Brown  I started my professional career working in food service as a Restaurant Manager for Denny’s. A little over 30 years ago, I worked my last major holiday as I prepared to return to school full time.  The restaurant was slammed, and everyone was working hard-...