The practice of giving thanks...eucharisteo...this is the way we practice the presence of God, stay present to His presence, and it is always a practice of the eyes. We don't have to change what we see. Only the way we see.
Time is made for dying in a thousand ways, so why be afraid of dying when a kind of dying could come all the time? Live every day like you're terminal. Because you are. Live every day like your soul is eternal. Because it is.
Pick up a yardstick to measure your life against anyone else's, and you've just picked up a stick and beaten up your own soul.
Comparison is a thug that robs your joy. But it's even more than that - Comparison makes you a thug who beats down somebody - or your soul.
A simplified Christmas isn't about circumstances as much as it is about focus.
Scales always lie. They don't make a scale that ever told the truth about value, about worth, about significance.