Men of the Morning Prayer Line

One does not get far in the biblical narrative to find the first heinous act of violence. In the second generation of humanity, one brother spills the blood of another. Cain murders Abel, for a reason that comes right from the heart—jealousy! The pattern is set. Something simple like jealousy left unchecked, left to grow and deepen and intensify, leads to acting out in violence. Check it out - God warned Cain: “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” This is really an amazing statement. Jealously leads to anger, and that sin is predatory, crouching at the door, looking to possess Cain. Violence, in other words, is often the tipping point after resentment turns to rage. What can be done about violence? God told Cain he had better “master” the pathology of his soul. He did not, and blood was spilled. God’s respo...

We are all God's children, all walks of life, saints, sinners, criminals, non-believers, lesbians, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer, patriot, non-patriot, and a whole host of others. All of us created and loved equally in the grace of God the Father. Kelvin Cochran, former U.S. Fire Administrator, and author wrote, "In America, true tolerance should be a two-way street. Foundational to the American Dream is faith and patriotism. If you remove the faith component, it is questionable whether the American Dream can be fulfilled." Amen! Faith is the answer, and all too often our collective faith is mounted to rusty hinges, or locked behind proprietary doors. Too often our faith is closed off to those that need open doors and access to people of faith willing to invest time in hurting or broken brothers and sisters. We get confused and jousted by evil ploys to distract us and make us feel angry about what we as people of faith should be energized by. When the evil insig...