Who Should Rule the Galaxy — or Should Anyone?

Emperor Palpatine has announced open elections for a new Emperor — and he’s nominated Darth Vader. You get to nominate one challenger.

I Nominate the People

Why the Galaxy Needs No Emperor at All

WordPress Daily Writing Prompt  ·  28 June 2026  ·  Rise & Inspire

 

The summons came on every screen in the galaxy at once. Emperor Palpatine, who had ruled by fear for a generation, announced — to the astonishment of a thousand worlds — that the throne itself would be decided by an open election. His nominee was Darth Vader. And then, with a thin smile, he offered the galaxy a courtesy: you may put forward one challenger.

One.

Trillions of beings were handed a ballot and told the whole future would turn on a single name. Choose well, the Emperor seemed to say. Choose your master wisely.

I have thought about it carefully. And I will not nominate a person.

I nominate the People.

The Trap Hidden in the Question

Understand what is being asked. We are invited to pick which strong hand will hold the leash — as though the only question worth debating is who rules, never whether anyone should rule us at all. That is the oldest trick in the galaxy: to offer a choice so narrow that, simply by choosing, you agree to the cage.

A benevolent Emperor is still an Emperor. A throne built for a saint will, in time, seat a tyrant — because thrones outlive the people who first sit on them, and absolute power is a habit the galaxy never quite breaks. The problem was never which face wore the crown. The problem was the crown.

Order Through Dignity, Not Dominance

So here is my nominee, and here is why.

No single mind, however brilliant, can hold the hopes of a trillion lives without crushing most of them. The farmer on the outer rim, the teacher, the engineer, the mother walking her child to school on a forgotten moon — none of them appear on an Emperor’s map. They are too small to be seen from a throne. But they are not too small to govern themselves.

The People are not a candidate waiting to be ruled. They are the rightful authors of their own future. Power that is shared cannot be seized in a single stroke. Authority that flows upward from many hands can be recalled when it is abused; authority that descends from one hand can only be endured. The patient, unglamorous work of self-government — councils and votes and accountable institutions, the slow building of trust — has never been as thrilling as a hero with a lightsaber. But it is the only arrangement under which ordinary people are safe.

Vader offers order through dominance. I offer something harder and far better: order through dignity. Not the peace of the obedient — the peace of the free.

Where the Story Stops Being a Story

And here is where the galaxy far, far away stops being fiction.

You and I are handed false choices every day. Two options, pre-approved, presented as though they were the whole of reality — and the quiet assumption beneath every one of them is that we are meant to be ruled: by fear, by circumstance, by the loudest voice in the room. We are told to pick our master and be grateful for the vote.

But there is always a third answer the powerful would rather you not notice — that you were never meant to be ruled by these things at all.

Scripture does not crown the strong; it dignifies the small. It tells the shepherd boy he can face the giant, tells the fishermen they can change the world, tells the overlooked of every age that they carry an unrepeatable worth no throne can grant and no tyrant can take away. The whole arc of faith bends away from domination and toward dignity — away from the one who would rule, and toward the many who were made, every single one, in the image of God.

My Nomination

So no — I will not name a challenger to sit on the same dark throne.

I nominate the conscience of the ordinary person. I nominate the farmer and the teacher and the mother on the forgotten moon. I nominate the radical, ancient, stubborn idea that a free people, accountable to one another, need no Emperor at all.

The galaxy was never asking us to choose a ruler.

It was waiting to see whether we would finally refuse the question.

Written in response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 28 June 2026

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

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Word Count:777

 

Why Does Gossip Feel So Good but Leave Us So Empty?

The Counterfeit Intimacy, and the Closeness We Are Really Hungry For

 

Why would anyone keep doing something so quietly corrosive? The answer is uncomfortable. Whispering feels good because it creates the illusion of intimacy. That is exactly the trap.

“Whisperers degrade themselves and are hated in their neighbourhoods.”

Ecclesiasticus 21 : 28

“പരദൂഷകൻ തന്നെത്തന്നെ മലിനനാക്കുന്നു; അവൻ അയൽക്കാർക്കു നിന്ദ്യനാണ്.”

പ്രഭാഷകൻ 21 : 28

 

There is a particular kind of warmth that comes when someone leans in and lowers their voice. Suddenly the room seems to shrink until only the two of you remain. A secret is about to be shared, and for a moment you feel chosen. You feel included. You feel close.

Ben Sira invites us to look honestly at that feeling. The whisper, he says, degrades the one who carries it and quietly earns the contempt of others. Why, then, do we keep returning to something so corrosive? Because whispering feels good. It mimics intimacy, even while undermining it.

The Sweetness That Pulls Us In

Let us be honest about the attraction, because pretending we are above it changes nothing. Gossip seems to satisfy three deep human longings. It gives us the warmth of belonging to an inner circle. It makes us feel important because we possess information others do not. And it reassures us when someone agrees with our judgment of another person.

None of these longings is sinful. We were created to belong, to matter, and to be understood. The tragedy is not our hunger but the way we sometimes choose to satisfy it.

The Forgery Exposed

Here Ben Sira’s wisdom cuts deeply. The intimacy of the whisper is counterfeit. Like forged currency, it appears genuine for a moment, but sooner or later its emptiness is exposed.

The closeness it offers depends on the absence of a third person. It is fellowship built on exclusion rather than love. The bond is held together not by affection but by a shared target, and a bond built that way eventually turns on everyone within it. The friend who whispers to you about others will one day whisper about you as well. Deep down, both of you know it. That is why such closeness always carries a quiet chill beneath its warmth. You are never truly safe in that circle. You are simply, for the moment, not the one standing outside it.

The damage begins long before reputations suffer. It begins in the soul. Every time we settle for false closeness, we become a little less able to recognise genuine friendship. We exchange the slow, durable intimacy of honesty for the quick satisfaction of shared secrets. In the end, we may be surrounded by companions and yet remain deeply unknown.

What the Heart Was Really Made For

The Gospel never leaves us staring at the counterfeit. It leads us to the genuine treasure. The intimacy your heart truly longs for is found in being fully known and fully loved by God. He knows every hidden corner of your life, yet He does not withdraw. In Christ He draws near — not to expose you, but to redeem you.

From that secure relationship with God grows a different way of living with others. Scripture calls us to build one another up, to speak well of those who are absent, and to carry another person’s name with honour. Such fellowship demands love, loyalty, and courage, but it creates the only kind of trust that truly lasts.

The Call This Morning

The next time the room grows quiet and a secret is offered like a gift, pause before you receive it. Recognise the counterfeit, but also recognise the genuine hunger beneath it. Feed that hunger in the right way.

Belong to communities that include rather than exclude. Find your worth not in possessing damaging information but in becoming someone others feel safe beside. Seek God’s approval more than the applause of the whisper.

You were made for real closeness. You were made to be known without fear and loved without limit, and to extend that same grace to others. Refuse the imitation. Reach for the treasure. Become the person in whose presence no one fears becoming tomorrow’s conversation.

 

Today’s reflection is written by Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, inspired by the verse shared on 28 June 2026 by His Excellency, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Selvister Ponnumuthan, Bishop of the Diocese of Punalur.

Rise & Inspire  ·  Wake-Up Calls  ·  Reflection 174 of 2026  ·  Post Streak 1070

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Why Do Careless Words Cut So Deep?

Here is a thought worth reflecting on today.

A sword and a surgeon’s scalpel are made from the same steel and sharpened to the same edge. The only difference is the hand that holds them and the heart behind that hand. Proverbs 12:18 reminds us that our words are just like that—capable of piercing a soul or bringing healing. The sobering truth is that there is no neutral option. Every word we speak today will either wound or restore.

I have written a fresh reflection on how to exchange the swordsman’s strike for the surgeon’s steady hand, and how Christ Himself patiently trains our hearts and tongues to become instruments of healing.

Today’s reflection is being published this evening rather than this morning because I was occupied with some urgent matters and couldn’t publish it earlier. Whenever you have a few moments, I’d be grateful if you would read it and let me know what you think.

The core message of the reflection is:

Every word we speak has the power either to wound like a sword or to heal like a surgeon’s scalpel. As followers of Christ, we are called to surrender our tongues to Him so that our words bring restoration, encouragement, and life rather than pain and destruction.  

The Surgeon and the Swordsman

“Rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.”

Proverbs 12:18

തുളച്ചുകയറുന്ന വാളു പോലെ, വീണ്ടുവിചാരമില്ലാതെ വാക്കുകള്‍ പ്രയോഗിക്കുന്നവരുണ്ട്; വിവേകിയുടെ വാക്കുകള്‍ മുറിവുണക്കുന്നു.

സുഭാഷിതങ്ങള്‍ 12:18

The Same Blade in Two Hands

Picture a single piece of steel. Forged in the same fire, sharpened to the same edge, gleaming with the same cold brightness. Place it in one hand and it becomes a soldier’s sword — a thing that opens flesh, spills life, and leaves a man bleeding in the dust. Place that same steel in another hand and it becomes a surgeon’s scalpel — a thing that opens flesh too, but to remove what is killing, to mend what is broken, to bring a body back from the edge of death.

The steel does not change. The hand does. The heart behind the hand does. And this, beloved, is the whole secret of Proverbs 12:18. The wise King looked at the human tongue and saw exactly this paradox — one instrument, sharpened to a fine point, capable of two opposite works. He gives us no third option. Your words today will be a sword thrust or they will be the surgeon’s healing stroke. There is no neutral blade.

The Swordsman Within

We know the swordsman because we have all worn his colours. He does not march onto a battlefield. He sits at the dinner table. He stands by the office desk. He picks up the phone. And in a moment of heat, of wounded pride, of careless impatience, he draws — and a word leaves him like a blade leaving its sheath. The Hebrew here is vivid: it speaks of one who blurts, who stabs out words without weighing them. The swordsman never aims; that is the tragedy. He simply swings, and someone he claims to love walks away pierced.

And here is what makes the sword of the tongue more terrible than the sword of iron: the body heals, but the spirit remembers. A cut to the arm closes in a fortnight. A cut to the soul can stay open for forty years. How many people carry, even now, a single sentence spoken to them in childhood by a parent, a teacher, a friend — a sentence that still bleeds when they brush against it? The swordsman forgets what he said by sundown. The wounded one carries it to the grave. This is no small thing. This is why Scripture treats the tongue with the seriousness of a weapon under guard.

The Surgeon’s Steadier Hand

But the verse does not leave us condemned to be swordsmen. It lifts our eyes to the surgeon — “the tongue of the wise brings healing.” The Hebrew word for healing here, marpe, means more than the stopping of pain. It means restoration to wholeness, the knitting back together of what was torn. The wise person does not merely avoid wounding; she actively mends. Her words go in like a scalpel — yes, sometimes they cut, for the truth spoken in love is not always soft — but every stroke is aimed at life. She opens only to heal.

Consider the difference in the hand. The swordsman is fast; the surgeon is patient. The swordsman acts on impulse; the surgeon acts on purpose. The swordsman wants to win the moment; the surgeon wants to save the person. The swordsman asks, “How do I strike back?” The surgeon asks, “Where does this person hurt, and how can my words close that wound?” Same tongue. Same sharpness. Entirely different work, because behind the hand is an entirely different heart.

And note what no surgeon ever does: he never operates in anger. He never lifts the scalpel because his pride was bruised. He steadies himself, he studies the wound, and only then does he move — with skill, with care, with the single goal of healing before him. That is the discipline Proverbs is calling us into. Not silence. Not the swallowing of all truth. But the trained, prayerful, deliberate use of words that have been placed under the lordship of love.

Who Trains the Hand?

Here we must be honest. No one becomes a surgeon by accident, and no one becomes wise with their words by wishing it. The hand must be trained, and there is only one Teacher who can train it. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the great Surgeon of souls — the One whose every word, even His hardest word, was aimed at our healing. He spoke to a woman caught in sin and His words did not stab; they restored her to her feet and her future. He spoke to a thief dying beside Him and a single sentence carried that man into paradise. He is the perfect Physician, and the tongue that learns from Him learns to heal.

So the question that closes this reflection is not abstract. It is for today, for the very next conversation you will have when you set this down. Whose hand is guiding your tongue? When the heat rises and the blade is half-drawn, will you swing as the swordsman, or will you steady yourself as the surgeon and ask the Lord for a word that brings life? You hold the steel. You hold it every single day. The only thing left to decide is what you will do with it.

A Word to Carry

Today, refuse to be the swordsman. Let every word you speak be placed, deliberately, in the steadier hand of the Surgeon. Before you speak, pause and pray one short prayer: “Lord, make my tongue an instrument of healing, not a weapon of harm.” You will be amazed at what that single pause can save — and whom it can heal.

—  Let Us Pray  —

Lord Jesus, great Surgeon of every wounded soul, take this tongue of mine and train it in Your school of love. Where I have struck as a swordsman, forgive me and heal those I have hurt. Today, place my words in Your steady hand, that they may open only to mend, and speak only to restore. Make me an instrument of Your peace. Amen.

 

Today’s reflection is written by Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, inspired by the verse shared this morning (27 June 2026) by His Excellency, the Rt. Rev. Dr Selvister Ponnumuthan, Bishop of the Diocese of Punalur — a cherished practice he has faithfully continued for over three years.

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Reflection 173 of 2026  |  Post Streak 1,069

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What Did You Believe as a Kid That Seems Ridiculous Now?

What’s something you used to believe as a kid that seems ridiculous now?

Somewhere in your head is a small museum of nonsense you carried as a child and held with total confidence. The moon liked you. Gum lasted seven years. Let’s take a tour of the exhibits.

This post invites readers to:

  • Laugh at their childhood misconceptions.
  • Reflect on their present assumptions.
  • Remain teachable throughout life.

Things I Used to Believe as a Kid

(That Are Frankly Embarrassing Now)

 

Childhood is the only period of life where you can hold a completely deranged theory about how the world works and nobody asks you for evidence. You just know things. The moon is following the car. The bathroom drain wants you. Adults are in full command of their lives. You believe all of it with the serene confidence of someone who has never once been wrong, because at that age, who could prove otherwise?

Then you grow up, the spell breaks one belief at a time, and you are left holding a small museum of nonsense. Here are a few exhibits from mine — most of which, I suspect, are sitting in your collection too.

1. The moon was personally following me

Every car journey at night, the moon kept pace with us. Other cars fell behind. Houses slid past. But that moon? Loyal. Devoted. Clearly it had chosen me and was seeing me safely home. It never occurred to me that something 384,000 kilometres away might appear stationary to literally everyone, simultaneously, including the kid in the car going the opposite direction who also thought it was his.

2. Swallowed chewing gum stayed in my stomach for seven years

This was delivered with such authority by older children that I treated every accidental swallow as the start of a seven-year sentence. I genuinely kept a mental ledger. I assumed that somewhere inside me was an ever-growing, slowly compacting brick of gum, like a landfill with a heartbeat. Nobody explained digestion. Why would they? The myth was far more fun.

3. Adults knew exactly what they were doing

This is the big one. The foundational delusion. I believed that somewhere around a certain birthday, a switch flipped and you simply understood things — taxes, small talk, how much rice to cook, what the noise in the car meant. I have now comfortably passed every age I once considered impossibly wise, and I can report that the switch does not exist. We are all improvising. The adults were improvising too. They were just better at the face.

4. If I couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see me

A classic of the genre. Hands over eyes, and I had achieved total invisibility. Hide-and-seek strategy consisted of standing in the middle of the room with my face covered, deeply confident I had outwitted everyone. The logic was airtight: my visual experience was clearly the only one being rendered. Everybody else was an NPC.

5. Quicksand would be a major recurring problem in adult life

Cartoons and films promised me that quicksand, lava, and falling pianos would be frequent obstacles. I budgeted significant mental energy preparing for these. To date I have encountered exactly zero quicksand. Meanwhile nobody warned me about expense receipts, hold music, or the precise emotional weight of a ‘we need to talk’ text. The threat assessment was wildly off.

6. The fridge light was hiding something

There was a tiny, persistent suspicion that the fridge light didsomething when the door was shut — that a small drama unfolded in the dark and went still the instant I opened it. I never caught it. I tried the fast-open. I tried closing it slowly to peek. The fridge always won. Honestly, I’m still not one hundred percent convinced.

The exhibit closes

Looking back, the funny thing isn’t that I believed these. It’s the certainty. I wasn’t tentatively wondering whether the moon liked me — I was sure. And that’s the part that ages you, gently, when you notice it: the realisation that conviction has never once been a reliable measure of being right.

Which is a slightly worrying thought, because it means that somewhere in my head right now is a belief just as ridiculous as the seven-year gum theory — one I hold with total confidence and won’t be embarrassed about until I’m much older. I just don’t know which one it is yet.

Probably the one about the fridge.

 

What did you believe as a kid that makes you laugh now? Tell me yours — I’ll add it to the museum.

If small reflections like this one brighten your day, consider joining the Rise & Inspire family. One thoughtful read lands in your inbox at a time, with no noise and no pressure, just a quiet moment worth keeping.

Written in response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 27 June 2026

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

Explore more at the Rise & Inspire archive |  Daily Prompts 

© 2026 Rise & Inspire.

Website: Home | Blog | About Us | Contact| Resources

Word Count:828

What Does It Really Mean That God Alone Is God?

Have you ever tried to pray while everything around you was falling apart? David did. But before he asked God for one more thing, he stopped and called two witnesses to the stand. The first testified to what God does. The second testified to who God is. And when those two truths agree, the ground goes solid beneath your feet. 

Today’s reflection unpacks how remembering God’s track record and declaring His identity can turn weak prayers into bold ones. Come and read it with us.

When these two truths come together, fear gives way to faith. Instead of being overwhelmed by circumstances or relying on worldly securities, believers are invited to remember God’s past faithfulness, affirm His unchanging nature, and approach Him with bold, confident prayer. 

For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. Psalms 86: 10

എന്തെന്നാല്‍, അങ്ങു വലിയവനാണ്‌. വിസ്‌മയകരമായ കാര്യങ്ങള്‍ അങ്ങു നിര്‍വഹിക്കുന്നു; അങ്ങു മാത്രമാണു ദൈവം. സങ്കീര്‍ത്തനങ്ങള്‍ 86 : 10

THE TWO WITNESSES

In every court that matters, truth is established by witnesses. One voice can be doubted. But when two witnesses agree, the testimony stands. And here, in a single verse pulled from the middle of a desperate prayer, David calls two witnesses to the stand. He is surrounded by trouble. The proud have risen against him. His soul is in need. And yet, before he asks for one more thing, he stops everything to let two witnesses speak about who God is.

Listen to them carefully. They will change how you pray, how you wait, and how you stand.

THE FIRST WITNESS: WHAT GOD DOES

“For you are great and do wondrous things.”

The first witness testifies to God’s actions. Not His theory. Not His reputation. His track record. The Hebrew word behind “wondrous things” is the language Scripture reserves for God’s mightiest saving acts — the sea split open, the bread that fell from heaven, the enemy turned back at the edge of ruin. These are not stories David read. They are deliverances he lived.

And notice when he says it. He does not wait until the rescue arrives to call God great. He declares it while the battle is still raging. This is the boldness faith is made of. The world says, “Show me, and I’ll believe.” Faith says, “I have already seen, and therefore I believe again.”

Beloved, you have a track record too. Look back over your own life. The door that opened when every door was shut. The provision that came from nowhere. The morning you woke up still standing after a night you thought would break you. Those were not coincidences. They were the wondrous things of a great God, and they are evidence — sworn, signed, undeniable. Before you beg for the next miracle, count the ones already done. The first witness has spoken, and the testimony is clear: God acts.

THE SECOND WITNESS: WHO GOD IS

“You alone are God.”

But David does not stop at what God does. He calls a second witness — and this one testifies not to God’s actions, but to God’s identity. Because here is a truth we must never forget: even if God never did one more wondrous thing, He would still be God. His worth is not earned by His works. His works flow out of His worth.

“You alone.” Strip the word down and feel its weight. Not God among many. Not the strongest option on a crowded shelf. Alone. The idols of David’s day could not see, could not speak, could not save. And the idols of our day — wealth, status, control, the approval of others — are no different. They promise the world and deliver nothing. They cannot hold you when life shakes. Only One can.

This second witness sets you free. Because if God alone is God, then every rival fear loses its throne. The opinion that haunts you is not God. The diagnosis is not God. The bank balance is not God. The person you are trying to please is not God. He alone is. And when the second witness finishes speaking, every false security in the room falls silent.

WHEN THE TWO WITNESSES AGREE

Now hear them together — and feel the ground go solid beneath your feet.

The God who acts is the God who is. The One who did wondrous things in your past is the same One seated on the throne in your present. His power and His person are not two separate truths competing for your trust. They are two witnesses agreeing, and where two agree, the testimony stands forever.

This is why David could pray with such confidence in the verses that follow. He had already settled the question of who he was praying to. He was not crying out into an empty sky. He was bringing his need to a God whose actions he had seen and whose identity he had confessed. That is the secret of bold prayer. We pray weakly when we have forgotten who is listening. We pray with fire when both witnesses have spoken.

So today, whatever you are carrying, let these two witnesses take the stand in your heart. Remember what He has done. Declare who He is. And then pray — not as one hoping there might be a god somewhere, but as one who knows, beyond all doubt, that the God who has acted is the only God there is.

He is great. He does wondrous things. He alone is God. Let the testimony stand. And rise.

Rise & Inspire.

Look back over your own life for a moment. What is one wondrous thing God has already done that you can call to the stand as evidence today? Share it in the comments and encourage someone else to remember.

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A Note on Our Graphics

The artwork featured throughout this post was custom-created using advanced AI image-generation tools. Each illustration was designed to visually reflect David’s journey in Psalm 86—from the storms and struggles of life, through the practical outworking of bold faith, and ultimately into the radiant joy of wholehearted worship in God’s presence. We hope these visuals serve as a meaningful reminder throughout your week that the God who hears, answers, and acts is the only true God.

Today’s reflection is written by Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, inspired by the verse shared this morning (26 June 2026), by His Excellency, the Rt. Rev. Dr Selvister Ponnumuthan—a cherished practice he has faithfully continued for over three years.

This is the 1068th post in an unbroken daily streak.

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What Is the One Book That Changed How You See Everything?

What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world?

Core message: A great book doesn’t just tell a story — it quietly rearranges how you perceive reality long after you finish reading.

The Room Rearranged Itself

I read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath expecting a story about a drought. Dust and trucks and a road heading west; a family losing a farm; hard times in a hard decade I had no personal stake in. I got all of that. What I did not expect was that the book would do its real work weeks after I had closed it, quietly, in places that had nothing to do with Oklahoma or the 1930s. I want to tell you about those places, because the change a book makes is almost never where you think it will be. It is not in the part you can summarise. It is in the part you cannot.

Here is one of those places. An ordinary Tuesday, a few weeks after. I was standing in a queue at a chemist, and the woman ahead of me was counting coins out of a small purse, slowly, the way you count when the total matters and you are not sure it will be enough. The pharmacist waited. And I found that I could not look away from her hands — not out of pity, which is a clean and slightly superior emotion, but out of something I had no word for yet. I was seeing the arithmetic of a life. The cost of being unwell while not being rich. A whole world was folded into the gap between what she had and what the box on the counter required, and a few weeks earlier I would have seen only a slow queue.

That is the strange thing I keep returning to. Nothing in the chemist had changed. The fluorescent light was the same indifferent white. The arithmetic had always been there, in that shop, in every shop, performed quietly by people I had stood behind for years. Steinbeck had not put the woman there. What he had done was turn a dial inside me, and a part of the world that had been a smooth grey background resolved suddenly into faces, sums, and consequences. He never mentions a chemist’s queue. That is exactly the point. The novel changes the thing that is reading it, and then sends you back out into your own ordinary streets with the dial turned up and no way to turn it down.

It worked like that for months — small ambushes of attention in situations the book never describes. I would be reading a news item about a factory closing somewhere I had never been, and instead of the number, the percentage of the workforce, I would find myself thinking about a single Wednesday in one of those houses: the particular silence at a particular kitchen table, the way a man might keep getting dressed for a job that no longer existed because he had not yet found the words to tell anyone. Steinbeck had given me an involuntary zoom. The macro view, the view of statistics and trends and the broad sweep of forces, had not been deleted. But it had lost its monopoly. Underneath every large number I could now feel the press of the individual instances it was made of, each one as detailed and unrepeatable as my own.

I should be honest that this was not entirely a gift, and I do not think the book intended it as one. There is a reason the dial usually sits where it sits. Seeing the world at that resolution is expensive. You cannot walk through a city the same way once you have started doing it — the city becomes unbearably populated, every passing stranger trailing an entire unseen biography, every shut door concealing a drama you will never learn the end of. For a while I found it exhausting, almost a kind of tinnitus of empathy, a noise I could not switch off. I understood, for the first time, why people work so hard to keep the dial down. The grey background is a mercy. It lets you cross the road.

And yet I would not turn it back if I could. Because the other thing that resolved into focus was harder to name and more important. I started to notice the architecture — the walls and corridors that decide whose Wednesday is silent and whose is not. It is one thing to feel for the woman counting coins. It is a more uncomfortable thing to understand that her arithmetic and my ease are not two separate facts but one fact, two ends of the same arrangement, and that I had been living at the comfortable end without ever having to look at the structure that put me there. This is the curious power of the book, and the reason naming it tells you so little. The Grapes of Wrath does not lecture you about any of this. It never raises its voice. It simply moves you, for a few hundred pages, to the other end of the arrangement and makes you stand there long enough that you cannot afterwards pretend you had not.

What it took from me was a particular innocence — the innocence of the average. I had always, without noticing, understood the world through its middles: the typical family, the ordinary career, the standard set of choices a person has. The trouble with thinking in middles is that nobody actually lives in the middle. People live in the specific, in the edge cases, in the situations the average was built by quietly ignoring. Once you have felt that, the comfortable abstractions stop comforting. The economy, the workforce, the poor, the system — these words went slightly hollow for me, useful still, but visibly hollow, like a stage set you have walked behind. I could no longer say them without hearing, underneath, the sound of coins being counted.

There is a test I sometimes apply now, almost without deciding to. When I hear a confident sentence about large groups of people — a sentence that sweeps, that generalises, that knows — I try to picture one actual person it claims to describe, picked at random, on an ordinary afternoon. Usually the sentence survives the test poorly. The person is always more particular, more contradictory, more burdened and more resourceful than the sentence allowed. I got that test from a novel about a drought. I did not have it before. It has made me a worse audience for slogans and, I hope, a slightly better neighbour.

The room I live in looks identical to the room I lived in. Same furniture, same window, same view of the same street. But the furniture has been rearranged by an inch in every direction, which is enough to make you walk differently, to put your hand out for a surface and find it an inch from where it was. That is what the book actually did, and why the title at the top of this page explains so little of it. It did not give me new eyes. It did something quieter and more permanent. It told me, gently and without taking it back, that I had been keeping the old ones half-closed — and then it left, and let the ordinary world do the rest.

Written in response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 26 June 2026

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

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Word Count:1265

Can You Really Change a Book’s Ending Without Changing the Entire Story? 

If you could change the ending of any book, which one would it be?

Have you ever wished a favourite book had ended differently? This reflection explores why an ending isn’t just the last chapter—it shapes the meaning of the entire story. You may never look at book endings the same way again.

Core Message

The ending of a story gives meaning to everything that comes before it. Wanting to rewrite an ending often reveals more about our own expectations and struggles with acceptance than about any flaw in the story itself.

A book’s ending is like a company’s terminal value in financial valuation—it shapes the meaning and worth of everything that comes before it. Just as changing a company’s terminal value alters the value of its entire financial model, changing a book’s ending transforms the entire story. It is no longer the same book but a different work altogether.

Moreover, the value of an ending is not fixed. Each reader interprets it differently, so no single person determines its significance. A reader’s wish to change an ending is simply a personal opinion, not an objective correction.

Ultimately, the desire to rewrite an ending is less about improving the story and more about our struggle to accept outcomes that are beyond our control.  

If you could change the ending of one book you’ve read, would it still be the same book—or would it become an entirely new story? Share your thoughts in the comments.

If reflections on books, ideas, and life inspire you to think more deeply, I’d love to have you join our newsletter. Every edition brings fresh insights designed to encourage thoughtful living.

Written in response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 25 June 2026

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

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Word Count:314

Why Did God Re-Execute the Deed After One Generation Failed? 

Why Did God Re-Execute the Deed After One Generation Failed? 

What if Deuteronomy 5:33 is not a sermon but a document? Read slowly and you will hear it: a Father who grants, an estate of life and well-being and length of days, a condition, and an heir. The wilderness generation held that same deed and never walked into the land. Their children were handed it again. 

Today’s reflection reads the whole instrument plainly, and asks the one question that rests with every heir. Come and read, and tell me which step you sense the Father asking you to take.

The core message of the reflection is:

God freely offers His people the inheritance of abundant life and His promises, but they enter into that inheritance only by faithfully walking in His ways. Every generation is given a fresh opportunity to accept God’s gracious invitation and take possession of what He has prepared.

The Inheritance Deed

Daily Biblical Reflection

You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land that you are to possess.

Deuteronomy 5 : 33

നിങ്ങള്‍ ജീവിച്ചിരിക്കാനും നിങ്ങള്‍ക്കു നന്‍മയുണ്ടാകാനും നിങ്ങള്‍ കൈവശമാക്കുന്ന ദേശത്ത്‌ ദീര്‍ഘനാള്‍ വസിക്കാനും വേണ്ടി നിങ്ങളുടെ ദൈവമായ കര്‍ത്താവു കല്‍പിച്ചിട്ടുളള മാര്‍ഗത്തിലൂടെ ചരിക്കണം.

നിയമാവര്‍ത്തനം 5 : 33

Read the verse once more, slowly, and you may begin to hear it as something other than a sermon. It has the cadence of a document. There is a benefactor. There is an estate. There is an heir. And there is a condition upon which the inheritance is taken. Strip away the familiarity and what stands before us reads very much like a deed — a solemn instrument by which a Father conveys to His children a possession they did not earn and could never have purchased.

Let us read it the way it is written.

The Testator.

Every deed begins with the one who grants. Here it is “the Lord your God.” Not a distant authority drawing up terms for strangers, but your God — bound to these people by covenant, naming Himself by relationship before He names a single requirement. This matters more than we usually notice. The whole instrument flows from who He is. A stranger may leave you property; only a Father leaves you an inheritance. The difference is love. Everything that follows in the verse — the path, the conditions, the promised land — proceeds not from a lawgiver’s cold pen but from a Father’s settled intention to give His children something good.

In my own working life I have read and drafted many instruments of conveyance, and I can tell you that the heart of every one of them is found not in its conditions but in its grantor. The conditions are only the grantor’s wisdom about how the gift is safely received. So it is here. Before God asks anything, He has already declared Himself the kind of God who gives.

The Estate.

Next, every deed must describe what is conveyed. And here the property is named with unusual richness: “the land that you are to possess.” But notice the verse does not stop at land. It conveys, in the same breath, life, that it may go well with you, and length of days. The estate is not merely a stretch of territory. It is a whole manner of existence — to live, to flourish, to remain. The Lord is not bequeathing real property alone. He is conveying a life, settled and rooted and full, in a place He has prepared.

And mark this: it is described as land “you are to possess.” The deed is drawn before the heir has set foot on the ground. The inheritance is certain, named, and reserved — but not yet entered. That is precisely where the reader stands this morning. The estate is real. The promise is on the page with your name written into it. The only question that remains is the taking of possession.

The Condition Precedent.

Now we come to the clause that troubles the modern heart. “You must follow exactly the path that the Lord your God has commanded you.” In the language of any deed, this is a condition precedent — the single requirement upon which the conveyance vests. The inheritance is free; it was never bought, never deserved. But it is entered by a way. And the way is the path God commanded.

We must be careful here, because we are quick to misread a condition as a price. A price is what you pay to deserve a thing. A condition is what you do to receive a thing already given. No one walking the path earns the land — the land was the Father’s to give, and He gave it freely. But the heir who refuses the way refuses the inheritance, not because the Father is withholding, but because the gift can only be taken by those willing to walk into it. The wilderness generation did not fail to earn the land. They failed to enter it. The deed was theirs; they would not walk the path that took possession.

This is why “exactly” stands in the clause and will not be moved. In a deed of conveyance, the boundaries are walked precisely or the title is clouded. The grantor does not mark the path exactly to burden the heir, but to protect the inheritance — so that what is given is actually, fully, and securely possessed. Exactness in the condition is not the Father’s severity. It is His care that nothing of the estate be lost to a careless step.

The Heir.

And who is the heir? “You” — the new generation on the plains of Moab, the children of those who would not walk. The deed passes, as deeds do, to the next in line. This is the quiet tenderness of the instrument: that after one generation forfeited possession through unbelief, the Father did not cancel the conveyance. He re-executed it. He brought the deed to the children and read it out again, with the same estate, the same condition, the same love.

That is the gospel hidden in the legal form. The inheritance is not withdrawn because an earlier generation failed. It is held open. It is offered again, freshly, to whoever will now walk the path. And it is offered this morning to you.

So here is the whole instrument, plainly read. A Father who grants. An estate of life, well-being, and length of days. A condition: walk the commanded path, and walk it exactly. An heir who has only to take possession.

There is one more thing every deed requires, and it is the part that rests with the reader. A deed conveys, but it does not compel. The grantor may execute it in love, describe the estate in fullness, set the condition in wisdom, and name the heir by relationship — and still the heir must accept. Possession is never forced upon an unwilling hand. The land that you are to possess will not be entered for you. It waits for the step.

And the One who drew this deed has done more than any earthly testator could. He did not merely write the path; He walked it Himself, ahead of every heir, marking the boundary with His own feet, so that no child following after would walk into the land alone. The condition He set, He first fulfilled. The way He commands, He has already trodden.

So this morning, the deed lies open before you with your name written in. The estate is real. The condition is grace, not price. The Father is willing. The way is walked and waiting.

Will you take possession?

Do not turn to the right or to the left. Walk the path exactly. And enter the land that is, by the Father’s own hand, already yours to possess.

The inheritance is named, the condition is grace, and your name is on the deed. What is the one step of the commanded path you sense the Father asking you to take today to enter fully into possession? Share it in the comments; your honesty may steady another heir who is hesitating at the threshold.

If these daily reflections stir something in you, consider subscribing to receive each morning’s Wake-Up Call. One verse, one path, one quiet step closer to the land you are meant to possess.

Today’s reflection is written by Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, inspired by the verse shared this morning (25 June 2026), by His Excellency, the Rt. Rev. Dr Selvister Ponnumuthan—a cherished practice he has faithfully continued for over three years.

This is the 171st reflection of 2026 on the “Rise & Inspire” blog under the “Wake-up Calls” category.

This is the 1067th post in an unbroken daily streak.

© 2026 Rise & Inspire. All rights reserved.

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How Does the Soul Find Its Way Home at the Moment of Death?

How Does the Soul Find Its Way Home at the Moment of Death?

They knock three times before entering the temple. Turns out there is a reason, and it has everything to do with how we leave this world, not just how we enter a room. New post is up.

The reflection highlights that while Hindu and Christian traditions describe the journey differently, both affirm a profound truth:

How we orient our hearts toward God in life shapes how we approach our final passage from this world, transforming death from a moment of fear into a moment of trust, peace, and return.

The Secret of the Forehead: How the Soul Finds Its Way Home — A Reflection Across Two Traditions

There is a quiet wisdom carried in the old devotional traditions of the South — a teaching about the moment of death, and the subtle path by which the soul is believed to depart the body and attain Shivagathi, the ultimate liberation and the eternal abode of Lord Shiva. It is worth reflecting on, not only for its own beauty, but for what it reveals about a longing that runs through the human heart everywhere — including, as we shall see, at the very centre of the Christian hope.

The Reverence Before the Threshold

Walk toward a Shiva temple in the early hours and you will notice something remarkable: no one simply pushes open the doors and strides in. The morning unfolds as a ceremony of arrival. The conch is blown. The bell is rung. The mathalam sounds its deep rhythm, and the nadaswaram lifts its notes into the dawn air. Only then, after knocking gently upon the door three times, does one step inside.

It is a small ritual, but it holds a large truth. The sacred is not seized; it is approached. We announce ourselves, we wait, we ask to be received. The threshold itself is treated as holy, and the act of entering becomes an act of devotion.

The Place That Liberates by a Single Thought

Among all the sacred sites, Tiruvannamalai holds a singular place in the devotional imagination. It is said to be a place so charged with grace that one may attain mukthi — liberation — simply by thinking of it. The mere turning of the mind toward Tiruvannamalai is believed to draw the soul closer to release.

The tradition offers a beautiful inner geography to understand this. The right eye is held to represent Lord Annamalaiyar. The left eye represents the Goddess Unnamulai Amman. And the forehead — the still centre above and between them — represents Tiruvannamalai itself, the meeting place of the divine, the seat from which liberation is said to flow.

The Secret of the Forehead

From this comes the subtle and tender belief at the heart of this teaching. Whoever passes from this life with the names “Annamalaiyare, Unnamalai Thaayare” upon their lips — calling on the Lord and the Mother in their final breath — is believed to release the soul not through the lower gates of the body, but upward, through the forehead, through Tiruvannamalai, into Shivagathi.

It is a vision of death not as an ending but as an ascent. The forehead becomes a doorway, and the holy name becomes the key. The same reverence shown each morning at the temple gate — the knock, the waiting, the calling out — is, in this belief, mirrored at life’s final threshold. The soul knocks at the door of the eternal, calls the sacred names, and is received.

The Same Longing, in the Christian Heart

Here a Christian reader may find something unexpectedly familiar. For beneath the particular images of this Shaiva teaching lies a yearning the Christian tradition knows intimately: the longing for a conscious, prepared, prayer-filled death, and the hope that the soul, at its last breath, departs not into darkness but homeward, toward God.

The Church has its own long memory of this. In the medieval centuries there flourished an entire body of devotion called the ars moriendi — “the art of dying well.” It taught that death is not merely something that happens to us but something we can meet faithfully, with our hearts turned toward God, our sins repented, and a holy name upon our lips. To die well, the tradition held, was the final and most important act of a life of faith.

And that name, for the Christian, is the name of Christ. The model is given by Jesus himself upon the Cross, who at the moment of death cried out, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Here is the Christian secret of the threshold: not a passage the soul forces, but a self-entrustment — the dying one places his very spirit into the hands of the Father, and is received.

The same peace breathes through the song of the aged Simeon in the Temple. Having held the infant Christ in his arms, he prayed, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word” (Luke 2:29). To depart in peace — this is the Christian hope: that death, met with Christ before the eyes and his name in the heart, becomes not a fall but a homegoing, the soul returning to the God who made it.

Two Traditions, One Human Hope

So we find, across very different paths, a shared and deeply human conviction. Both traditions treat the moment of death with dignity rather than dread. Both insist that the mind and heart can be turned, even at the very end, toward the divine. And both carry the ancient certainty that the name we carry on our lips matters — that to depart calling on God is to depart well.

The Christian, of course, will read his own faith into this. Where one tradition speaks of liberation through the forehead, the Christian speaks of the soul commended into the Father’s hands; where one calls on Annamalaiyar and the Mother, the Christian calls on Christ the Saviour. The hope is voiced in different words. But the longing beneath it — to die at peace, with the divine name on our lips, and to be received home — is a longing the whole human family seems to share.

Perhaps that is the deepest lesson of the threshold. Whatever door we believe we are approaching, the wisdom of the ages agrees: do not arrive unannounced, and do not arrive alone. Knock. Call the holy Name. And trust that, on the other side, you are awaited.

When you imagine your own final threshold, what name or words would you most want on your lips, and what does that longing reveal about the faith you carry?

If reflections like this one speak to you, I would be glad to have you walk alongside us. Subscribe to Rise and Inspire and receive each new Wake-Up Call gently in your inbox, a small daily turning of the heart toward what matters most.

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

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Word Count:1172

Why Am I Receiving WordPress Password Reset Emails I Never Requested?

Why Am I Receiving WordPress Password Reset Emails I Never Requested?

The reflection’s central message is:

An unexpected WordPress password reset email is usually not a sign of a hacked website, but it is a timely reminder to strengthen your digital security and remain vigilant.

Imagine opening your inbox early in the morning and finding a message from WordPress stating that a password reset has been requested for your website account. The surprise quickly turns into concern—especially when you never initiated such a request.

If you’ve ever received an unexpected WordPress password reset email, don’t panic. In most cases, it does not mean your website has been hacked. However, it is a reminder that website security deserves ongoing attention.

Understanding the Password Reset Email

WordPress automatically sends a password reset email whenever someone enters a valid username or email address on the login page and selects the “Lost Password” option.

This process does not require access to your account. Anyone who knows or guesses your username or email address can trigger the password reset email.

The key point is that receiving the email does not mean your password has been changed. A password change can occur only if someone accesses the reset link sent to your registered email address.

Why Does This Happen?

There are several common reasons:

  • Automated bots scanning WordPress websites.
  • Attempts to guess usernames associated with public websites.
  • Accidental password reset requests by visitors or team members.
  • General internet-wide login probing activities.

Popular blogs and long-established websites are especially likely to attract such automated attention.

What Should You Do?

1. Don’t Panic

If you did not request the password reset, simply avoid clicking the reset link unless you intend to change your password.

Most WordPress password reset emails clearly state that if the request was made in error, you can safely ignore it.

2. Verify Account Access

Log in to your website using your existing credentials. If you can access your dashboard normally, your account has likely not been affected.

3. Strengthen Your Password

A strong password remains one of the most effective security measures. Use a unique combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. Avoid reusing passwords across multiple services.

4. Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Two-factor authentication adds a second layer of protection. Even if someone obtains your password, they cannot access your account without the verification code generated on your phone or authentication app.

This single step dramatically improves account security.

5. Secure Your Email Account

Remember that your email account is the gateway to password recovery. Protect it with a strong password and two-factor authentication.

A secure email account is just as important as a secure website account.

6. Review Login Activity

Periodically review active sessions, connected devices, and security logs. Most hosting platforms and website management services provide tools to monitor account activity.

A Valuable Reminder for Bloggers

Unexpected password reset emails can be unsettling, but they often serve as a useful reminder to review security practices. In today’s digital environment, bloggers are not only content creators—they are also custodians of websites, accounts, and valuable online communities.

Regular security checks, strong passwords, two-factor authentication, and secure email accounts can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access.

Rather than viewing these emails with alarm, consider them an opportunity to strengthen your website’s defenses and ensure that your blogging journey remains safe and uninterrupted.

Final Thought

A password reset email you didn’t request is usually not a sign of a hacked website. More often, it is evidence that automated systems are constantly scanning the web. Staying informed, remaining vigilant, and adopting a few simple security habits can help bloggers protect what they have worked so hard to build.

Your content deserves to be shared with the world—but it also deserves to be protected.

Have you ever received a password reset email you didn’t request, and what steps did you take afterward?

If you enjoy practical insights on blogging, digital safety, and personal growth, consider subscribing. I’d love to share more thoughtful reflections and useful tips with you.

RISE & INSPIRE

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Word Count:699

Are the Languages You Speak an Asset or Just a Habit?

Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?

The translator I used to be is now a free feature on a device people already own. So the advantage of my languages is being devalued in real time. Which leaves a question I cannot price. What were these languages actually worth, and which one survives once the edge is gone?

The Currencies in My Head Are Being Devalued

I hold three currencies in my head, and I never chose the exchange rate between them.

There is the one I was issued at birth, before I could consent to anything. It came with the territory, literally. I did not earn it, study for it, or shop around for a better one. It was simply the denomination everyone around me transacted in, so I learned to count in it before I knew counting was a skill. Call it the home currency. Stable, deeply held, the one I still think and dream and curse in when no one is performing for an audience.

Then there is English, which I acquired the way a small economy acquires dollars. Not because it was beautiful, but because it was liquid. It is the reserve currency of the modern world, the one accepted at every counter, the medium through which my home currency could finally be exchanged for something beyond its borders. Every door that mattered seemed to have a sign on it, and the sign was in English. So I learned to hold reserves.

And there is a third, somewhere between the two. A regional language, useful within a radius, illiquid the moment I step outside it. Worth a great deal in one marketplace and almost nothing two states over. The kind of holding you keep because you grew up in that market, not because it travels.

For most of my life I thought of these as assets I owned. Holdings on a personal balance sheet. The home currency was my equity, the thing that made me who I am. English was my growth position, the one that compounded into opportunities, salaries, conversations, rooms I would never otherwise have entered. The regional one was a small local stake, sentimental, rarely traded but never sold.

And owning them felt like wealth. Because it was. Speaking more than one language is access others have to pay for. When I read a document in English, I am not waiting on a translator. When I move between my home language and the reserve one, I am buying meaning directly, at face value, while a monolingual buyer pays a premium for the same goods through subtitles, interpreters, and middlemen who take a cut. That gap, the difference between what I pay for understanding and what they pay, is the whole quiet advantage of a multilingual life.

That gap has a name. It is arbitrage.

An arbitrage is what happens when you can buy something in one market and sell it in another for more, simply because you have access the other party lacks. For years, that is exactly what my languages were. I could stand between two worlds and trade across the boundary. Information priced cheaply in one language, valuable in another, and me in the middle, fluent in both, taking the spread. The bilingual cousin who translates for the family. The colleague who can read the foreign supplier’s contract. The friend who negotiates in the local tongue and reports back. Every one of them is running an arbitrage, and the currency they are exploiting is comprehension itself.

But here is the thing every economist knows about an arbitrage. The moment everyone can see it, it closes.

Arbitrage survives only as long as the access is scarce. The instant the gap becomes available to everyone, the spread collapses to nothing, and the advantage you were quietly living on simply evaporates. And I am watching it happen in real time. The person who does not speak my languages now holds a small rectangle of glass that translates a menu by pointing at it, captions a foreign conversation as it is spoken, and reads the supplier’s contract aloud in flawless English a half second after it loads. The translator I used to be is now a free feature on a device they already owned.

So the spread is closing. The premium the monolingual buyer used to pay is dropping toward zero, which means the discount I used to enjoy is worth less every quarter. The reserve currency I worked so hard to accumulate is being printed for everyone, handed out at no cost, and like any currency printed without limit, it is being devalued. Not because I hold less of it, but because scarcity was the only thing that made holding it valuable.

Which forces an uncomfortable audit. If the arbitrage is closing, what were these languages actually worth? And to whom?

Maybe the market value was never the real holding. Maybe the home currency was never an asset to be traded at all, because the thing it buys cannot be bought in any other denomination. The machine can translate the words my grandmother said. It cannot translate what it felt like to be the only one in the room who understood them without trying. The regional language that travels nowhere may turn out to be the one position on the balance sheet that no amount of printing can devalue, precisely because no one was ever trading it.

So here is where the ledger leaves me. The currencies I accumulated for their exchange rate are being quietly devalued by a machine, and the one I dismissed as sentimental and illiquid may be the only thing I own that the machine cannot counterfeit. I spent years building reserves in the language that traveled. I am no longer sure I was holding the currency that mattered.

And if the spread closes completely, I am left with the only question I cannot price: what is a language worth once it stops being an edge and goes back to being just a way of belonging to someone?

Which language do you speak that the world says is worthless, but you would never trade away? And has machine translation changed how much you value the languages you actually worked to learn?

If you like takes that treat ordinary questions as problems to be audited rather than feelings to be shared, I send one of these out regularly. No noise, no filler, just an unconventional angle on something you thought you had already figured out. Subscribe and I will meet you in your inbox with the next one.

Written in response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 24 June 2026

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

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Word Count:1139

How Do You Stay Strong When Life Gets Tough?

Why Do the Righteous Shine Before the Darkness Lifts?

We are trained to postpone our light. We tell ourselves we will be generous once the money is steady, joyful once the diagnosis is clear, brave once the threat has passed. But Psalm 112 will not let us wait. It says the upright rise in the darkness, that the brightness of a faithful life does not depend on the brightness of its circumstances. Some of the most luminous people you will ever meet learned to shine while still weeping. 

Today’s reflection sits with three darknesses and asks where the light rises inside each one. I would love for you to read it and tell me which darkness you are walking through right now.

RISE & INSPIRE

Wake-Up Calls

 

They Shine Before the Dawn

A Wake-Up Call on the Light That Rises in the Dark

Psalm 112:4–5

Reflection #170 of 2026  •  Post Streak #1066

Tuesday, 24 June 2026

 

VERSE FOR TODAY

“They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright; they are gracious, merciful, and righteous. It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice.”

— Psalms 112:4–5

പരമാർഫഹൃദയന്‌ അന്‌ധകാരത്തിൽ പ്രകാശമുദിക്കും; അവൻ ഉദാരനും കാരുണ്യവാനും നീതിനിഷ്ഠനുമാണ്‌.

ഉദാരമായി വായ്‌പ കൊടുക്കുകയും നീതിയോടെ വ്യാപരിക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നവനു നൻ‌മ കൈവരും.

— സങ്കീർത്തനങ്ങൾ 112:4–5

This is a strong and inspiring meditation on Psalm 112:4–5 that remains faithful to Scripture while offering hope and practical guidance for readers facing difficult circumstances. 

 

WATCH & REFLECT

 

Reflection

Beloved in Christ, read the verse slowly, because it says something the eye easily skips. Light rises in the darkness for the upright. Not after the darkness. Not once the night has spent itself and grey has crept over the hills. In the darkness. While it is still black. While the long hours still have their grip. That is where the light of the righteous rises — not at the far end of the trouble, but in the very middle of it.

This is the strange and stubborn promise of Psalm 112, and it is meant to wake you up. We are trained to wait for dawn before we shine. We tell ourselves we will be generous once the money is steady, joyful once the diagnosis is clear, brave once the threat has passed. We postpone our light until the dark lifts. But the psalmist will not let us. He says the upright rise in the darkness — that the brightness of a faithful life does not depend on the brightness of its circumstances. The child of God carries a light that the night cannot switch off.

Consider the first darkness: grief. Something has been lost that cannot be returned, and the house is quiet in the wrong way. Conventional wisdom says wait — wait until the ache dulls, until you feel like yourself again, and then perhaps you can be of use to someone. But the psalm says the light rises here, in the grief, not on its far side. Some of the most luminous people you will ever meet are people who learned to shine while still weeping. They did not wait for the sorrow to end. They let God kindle something in the middle of it, and that flame warmed everyone who came near.

Then a second darkness: injustice. You have been wronged, and the wrong has not been put right. The verdict went the wrong way, the credit went to the wrong person, the door was shut by a hand that should have opened it. Here the temptation is to dim — to grow bitter, to harden, to wait in the shadows until vindication comes. But hear what the psalm dares to claim about the upright: they are gracious, merciful, and righteous. Those are God’s own words, His own attributes, lent to His people. The grace you show when you have every reason to withhold it, the mercy you extend when no one would blame you for refusing — that is not your light at all. It is God’s light, shining through you before your circumstances ever turn. Borrowed radiance, given in the dark.

And a third darkness: uncertainty. You do not know how it ends. The matter is unresolved, the future unwritten, and you must keep walking without the comfort of knowing where the road bends. This is perhaps the hardest dark of all, because there is nothing to brace against — only the not-knowing. Yet even here the light rises, and notice the shape it takes. The psalm does not say the upright sit and glow. It says they deal generously and lend; they conduct their affairs with justice. The light has hands. It does things. While you wait in the uncertainty, you keep giving, keep dealing fairly, keep doing the next right thing — and in that faithful action, unseen, the light is already rising.

That is the whole secret of this verse, and it is good news for your Wednesday morning. The light of the righteous is not a feeling that arrives when life improves. It is a posture you take while life is still hard. It is generosity offered before the account is safe. Justice practised before it is rewarded. Mercy given before it is deserved. The world will tell you to wait for dawn. The psalm tells you to be the light that proves dawn is coming.

So rise, beloved, while it is still dark. Do not wait for the night to end before you let God shine through you. The same God who is Himself gracious, merciful, and righteous has placed His own brightness in you, and no darkness you are walking through has the power to put it out. It is well — the psalm promises it — with the one who keeps giving, keeps dealing justly, keeps shining when shining makes no earthly sense. And one day, sooner than you fear, you will look up and find that the sky has been quietly turning grey at the edges all along. The dawn was always coming. You were simply asked to shine before it arrived.


Faithful believers should not wait for their circumstances to improve before reflecting God’s character. God’s light shines through graciousness, mercy, justice, and generosity even in seasons of grief, injustice, and uncertainty.

 

A Prayer for Today

Gracious and merciful LORD, You are the light that no darkness has ever overcome. Teach me not to wait for my circumstances to brighten before I let You shine through me. When I grieve, kindle Your warmth in me. When I am wronged, lend me Your grace. When I cannot see how things will end, steady my hands to keep giving and keep dealing justly. Make me a light that rises in the dark, so that others may take heart and know that the dawn is on its way. Through Christ our Lord, who is the Morning Star, Amen.

 

Peace be with you this day, and courage for the week ahead.

— Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, for Rise & Inspire

Which of the three darknesses are you walking through right now, grief, injustice, or uncertainty, and what would it look like to let your light rise in the middle of it rather than waiting for it to lift? Share a line in the comments; it may be the very thing another reader needs to read today.

If verses like this one tend to find you on the right morning, you are welcome to receive Rise & Inspire reflections in your inbox each day. Subscribe below, and let a single Scripture steady your next sunrise.

Today’s reflection is written by Johnbritto Kurusumuthu, inspired by the Bible verse for 24 June 2026, shared this morning by His Excellency, the Rt. Rev. Dr Selvister Ponnumuthan, Bishop of the Diocese of Punalur — a cherished practice he has faithfully continued for over three years.

Rise & Inspire  •  Wake-Up Calls  •  Reflection #170 of 2026  •  Post Streak #1066

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Do Older People Have All the Wisdom to Share?

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

We tend to assume wisdom flows one way, from the older to the younger. But the longer I live, the more I doubt it. The young still forgive without a ledger, ask their impossible questions, and believe the world can be better. Somewhere along the way, many of us lost all three. Here is a reflection on what the young still know that age made us forget, and why the arrow of mentorship may point both ways.

The reflection’s central truth is:

Wisdom does not belong exclusively to age. God often teaches adults through the qualities children naturally possess—wonder, forgiveness, openness, trust, and hope. True wisdom flows in both directions, and spiritual maturity means growing older without losing these childlike virtues.

The Best Advice I Can Give the Young Is This: Don’t Take Mine

There is a quiet arrogance built into the very question. What is the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you? The phrasing assumes the arrow of wisdom points only one way — downward, from the older to the younger, from the experienced to the untried. We have grown so comfortable with that assumption that we no longer notice it. And yet the longer I live, the more I am convinced it is mostly wrong.

So here is my advice to the young, and I offer it knowing how strange it sounds from a man my age: do not take my advice too seriously. Watch, instead, what you already know how to do that I have forgotten.

You still know how to begin a thing without first calculating whether you will finish it well. You forgive on Tuesday what wounded you on Monday, and you do it without a ledger. You ask “why” without embarrassment. You weep openly and laugh from somewhere deep, untrained by years of learning to manage your face. You believe, still, that the world can be made better, and you have not yet been persuaded that this belief is naïve. These are not the deficiencies of inexperience. These are competencies. And somewhere on the long road of becoming respectable, I lost most of them.

The Gospel, I think, knew this before any of us. When the disciples came arguing about who was the greatest — the oldest argument in the world, the argument the original prompt quietly takes for granted — Jesus did not settle it by ranking them. He set a child in the midst of them and said that unless they turned and became like that child, they would not even enter the kingdom. Not teach the child. Not correct the child. Become like the child. The direction of mentorship was reversed in a single sentence. The small one was placed at the centre, and the accomplished men were told to learn.

“Out of the mouth of babes and infants you have ordained strength,” the Psalmist sang, long before. Strength — not cuteness, not charm. There is a power in the unguarded heart that the guarded heart spends decades trying to recover, often without success, and at great expense to therapists.

I do not say this to flatter the young or to romanticise youth, which has its own follies and can be cruel and shallow as easily as anyone. I say it because I have watched too many people my age mistake the accumulation of caution for the acquisition of wisdom. We call our fears “prudence.” We call our cynicism “realism.” We call the slow closing of our hearts “maturity.” And then we sit the young down and instruct them to become more like us, as though our weathered defensiveness were the summit of the human project rather than one of its sadder casualties.

The truth is humbler and more beautiful. Wisdom does not travel in one direction. It moves between people who are willing to learn from one another, and the willingness matters more than the age. The grandfather teaches the grandchild patience; the grandchild teaches the grandfather wonder. Neither exchange is complete without the other. To pretend that only the elder gives and only the younger receives is to impoverish them both.

So if you are younger than I am, here is the whole of what I have to offer, and it is less an instruction than a plea. Guard the things in you that the years will try to take. Keep asking your impossible questions. Keep your capacity to be astonished. Keep forgiving without a ledger. Do not let anyone — least of all an older person quoting Scripture — convince you that growing up means growing hard.

And when you meet someone my age who has somehow kept these things alive into old age, sit at their feet. They have learned the hardest lesson of all: how to become old without ceasing to be young. They are the ones worth listening to. The rest of us are still trying to find our way back to where you already stand.

That, in the end, is the best advice I can give. Be slow to take advice — and quick to notice everything the advice-givers have lost.

Written in response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 23 June 2026

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

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What Is the Last Question You Will Ever Be Asked?

What Is the Last Question You Will Ever Be Asked?

Just found out the last question you will ever be asked is the same one you can answer this morning. Plot twist: you already know how the story ends.

Drawing from 1 John 5:5, the reflection reminds readers that the most important question of life—and eternity—is whether they have placed their trust in Jesus. Everything that seems important in the world eventually fades, but faith in Christ endures and leads to victory over the world. 

The Last Question

1 John 5:5

“Who is it who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?”

യേശു ദൈവപുത്രനാണെന്നു വിശ്വസിക്കുന്നവനല്ലാതെ മറ്റാരാണു ലോകത്തെ ജയിക്കുന്നത്‌?

1 യോഹന്നാന്‍ 5 : 5

Begin at the end.

Picture the last hour of a long life. The room is quiet. The machines have been turned down. Outside the window the world goes on exactly as it always has — traffic, deadlines, headlines, ambition — but none of it reaches this room anymore. In here, everything has gone still. And in that stillness, every loud thing you ever chased has fallen silent.

The promotion you bled for. Gone quiet.

The opinion of people you feared. Gone quiet.

The money, the reputation, the comparison, the endless racing to be enough. All of it, hushed.

At the very end, the world that once seemed so enormous shrinks down to the size of a single question. Not “What did you achieve?” Not “What did you own?” Not even “What did you suffer?” Just this: Did you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?

That is the last question. And here is the staggering truth — it is also the first.

Because the verdict you will hear at the end is the very same verdict being offered to you this morning. You do not have to wait until the final hour to know how your life resolves. John tells you now, while your heart is still beating and your day is still ahead: the one who conquers the world is the one who believes.

Now walk backward from that deathbed, back through the noise of living, and watch what happens.

Step back twenty years from the end, into the thick of a working life — the striving, the exhaustion, the quiet fear that you are falling behind. The world is roaring its question at you here, too: Who do you think you are to overcome me? And the answer is the same as it will be in the final hour. You are the one who believes. The victory does not arrive at the end as a reward for surviving. It is yours in the middle of the fight.

Step back further, to your hardest year — the grief, the diagnosis, the betrayal, the night you were certain you would not make it through. The world looked unconquerable then. But notice: you are reading this. You did make it through. And the thing that carried you was never your own strength. It was a name you held onto when you had nothing else. He was the Son of God in your darkest year exactly as He is the Son of God at your last breath.

Step back all the way to today. To this ordinary morning, before the noise begins again. The world is about to ask its question one more time. And you already know your answer, because you have heard how the story ends.

This is what John is doing in this verse. He asks “Who conquers?” as though it were an open question — but it is not. It was settled at an empty tomb two thousand years ago, when the One who looked utterly defeated walked out of death alive. The verdict was read over history before it is ever read over you. So you are not fighting for victory. You are fighting from it.

And here is the part that should make you rise: the conqueror in this verse is not the strongest, the smartest, the most disciplined, or the most impressive. John strips away every credential you thought you needed. The one left standing at the end of the world is simply the one who believed. Not the one who never doubted. Not the one who never fell. The one who, through it all, kept their grip on the truth that Jesus is the Son of God.

That means the victory is not beyond your reach. It is not waiting on the far side of more effort. It is as near as your faith — and faith is something you have right now, in this room, on this ordinary day.

So live today the way you will wish you had lived when you reach that final, quiet hour. Hold the name that outlasts every noise. Let the world roar; you already know which voice gets the last word.

You have read the ending. You are the one who conquers.

Believe it — and rise.

— Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Wake-Up Calls  •  Reflection #169 of 2026

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Are You Inspired by Brilliance or by Quiet Faithfulness?

Who are you most inspired by?


True greatness is not found in shining brightly for a moment, but in faithfully keeping the lamp lit throughout a lifetime.

The most inspiring people are not those who draw attention to themselves, but those whose lives reflect God’s grace, humility, and faithfulness. They are vessels of light rather than its source.  

Here is something I have been thinking about. The person who inspired me most at twenty is not the person who inspires me most today. Back then I admired brilliance, the people who had clearly arrived. Now I am moved by something quieter, the ones who simply keep showing up, year after year, when no one is keeping score. And here is what surprised me when I wrote it down: the shift was never really about them. It was about me. Our heroes are confessions. They reveal the wound we are trying to heal and the virtue we have come to prize. I would love to know if you have felt this same shift. The new post is on the blog.

The People Who Move Us Change — and That Is the Point

On who inspired me then, who inspires me now, and what the difference reveals

Ask me at twenty who inspired me most, and I would have answered without hesitation. Ask me today, and I find myself pausing — not because no one comes to mind, but because the kind of person who moves me has quietly, almost imperceptibly, changed. The name has shifted. So has the reason. And I have come to believe that the shift itself is worth more than either answer.

Inspiration, it turns out, is a mirror. Tell me who you admire, and you have told me who you are trying to become.

Then: the one who dazzled

In my younger years I was drawn to brilliance. The figure I most admired was someone who could hold a room — quick, accomplished, visibly successful, the sort of person whose achievements arrived in a steady, enviable stream. I studied how they spoke. I wanted the certainty they seemed to carry, the way the world appeared to arrange itself around their competence.

What I was really chasing, I now see, was arrival. I wanted to be impressive. And so I was inspired by impressiveness — by the people who had clearly gotten somewhere, who stood at a height I had not yet reached. It was an inspiration built on distance. I looked up, and the looking up was the whole of it.

There was nothing wrong with this. The young are meant to admire the summit; it is what makes them climb. But admiration of that kind has a short shelf life. The summit, once reached or once seen clearly, turns out to be just another stretch of ground.

Now: the one who endures

These days I am moved by something far quieter. The person who inspires me now is not the most brilliant in the room but the most faithful to it — someone who shows up, day after unremarkable day, and does the small right thing when no one is keeping score. I think of a person who keeps a single private discipline for years without announcement, simply because it is good and because they said they would.

This is a harder kind of greatness to notice. It photographs poorly. It wins no immediate applause. But it is the kind that holds weight over a lifetime, and the older I get the more I understand that consistency is the rarest talent of all. Anyone can be inspired for an afternoon. Almost no one sustains it for thirty years.

Where I once admired height, I now admire constancy. Where I looked up, I now look closely. The change is not that my standards fell, but that they deepened. I stopped asking “who has arrived?” and started asking “who keeps going?” — and the second question, I have found, is the one that actually teaches you how to live.

What the difference reveals

Here is the part that surprised me. The shift in who inspires me was never really about them. It was about me.

At twenty I admired success because I was insecure about my own. At this stage of life I admire faithfulness because I have learned, sometimes the hard way, what it costs and how much it matters. Our heroes are confessions. They reveal the wound we are trying to heal and the virtue we have come to prize. When the people who move us change, it is usually a sign that we have changed first — that some quieter, steadier self has begun to emerge beneath the one that only wanted to be impressive.

There is a gentle faith dimension to this for me as well. I have come to think that the truest inspiration does not draw attention to the person at all, but points through them to something larger — a grace they carry rather than possess, a light they pass along rather than generate. The people I most admire now seem aware that they are vessels, not sources. And perhaps that is the final maturity of inspiration: to be moved less by those who shine, and more by those who simply, faithfully, keep the lamp lit.

A question to carry

So I will leave you with the question that this prompt left with me. Picture the person who inspired you most at twenty, and the person who inspires you most today. If the two are different — and they probably are — do not rush past the gap between them.

Sit with it. Because in that gap is the quiet record of who you have become.

Written in response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 22 June 2026

Johnbritto Kurusumuthu

Founder 

RISE & INSPIRE

Inspiration • Faith • Education • Technology • Personal Development

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