Charles Spurgeon's "Morning & Evening" devotional commentary is a new favorite on my desk. The great Victorian preacher can get a lot from a little, as today in Psalm 17. I recommend him.

How easy it is to take our eye off the ball. And how costly!

Reading how Ezra mortified himself before God in contrition for the people's unfaithfulness, I'm again uneasy here in my comfy comfort zone.

Consider the lilies, or if you prefer, the Colorado aspen gold of autumn. King Solomon was not more royally clothed.

As our politics get ever uglier and further off course, how good to know "We have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come" (Hebrews 13.14). God help us not to be, individually or as a nation, fools who pile up the wrong values in bigger barns.

How truly do I tremble with awe and reverence at Almighty God?

How awful if the key to all knowledge, brought from hiding and given us by Jesus at great cost, sat dusty and discarded in some drawer of mine,

As bad as it is to have lies told about us, sometimes having the truth told about us is even worse.

My comfort zone is so, you know, comfortable.  There has to be some way I can just nestle there and, you know, fake all that other stuff.

Rejoice because your names are written in heaven, Jesus told the seventy. Exactly what does that mean?

Have you hugged a tree-hugger lately? Me neither. But Job might beg to differ.

Imagine if a lot of us who follow Jesus were totally on fire with the Lord's Prayer between now and election day.  That could be the ultimate October surprise.

Jesus saw himself prophesied in Psalm 118. Do we? Or does it even matter?

You mean my neighbor isn't just the person next door?

How odd we often find it easier to worry than to pray.

All four readings today involve God trying to get my attention and me blithely zoned out.

Forgive us, Lord, for being drowsy disciples when you need alert apostles.

He made us.  We didn't make ourselves.  Simple but profound; so easy to forget.

If Jesus intended Christianity as something little kids and nobodies can excel at, maybe we're going about it all wrong.

If called to an accounting before the Master, would I be found awake and ready, or dull of sight and hearing? So easy to doze off at my post--