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About the Book
"Hello Tomorrow" by Cindy Trimm is a book that offers insights and strategies for breaking free from the limitations of the past and embracing a hopeful and purposeful future. Trimm provides guidance on how to transform your mindset, renew your spirit, and take practical steps towards creating a brighter tomorrow filled with success and fulfillment.
Calvin Miller
Calvin Miller was a pastor, professor and storyteller, best known for The Singer Trilogy, a mythic retelling of the New Testament story in the spirit of C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. Miller passed away on the afternoon of August 19, 2012, due to complications after heart surgery. He was 75.
A prolific artist and a writer's writer, Miller garnered respect and praise throughout his career from peers like Luci Shaw, Max Lucado and Philip Yancey. He was the author of more than forty books of popular theology and Christian inspiration including such recent books as Letters to Heaven, The Path of Celtic Prayer, Letters to a Young Pastor and his memoir Life Is Mostly Edges.
In addition to his twenty years of pastoral service at Westside Church in Omaha, Nebraska, Miller was also a great mentor to many students and leaders through his preaching and pastoral ministry classes at Beeson Divinity School. Calvin Miller, never one to multiply words, used just four to describe his rule of life: "Time is a gift."
RESCUE FROM THE SLUSH PILE
In October 1973 one important book was rescued from the slush pile (the stack of unsolicited manuscripts every publisher receives) by assistant editor Don Smith. He read a manuscript by a little-known Baptist pastor in Nebraska that was a poetic retelling of the life of Jesus—portraying him as a Troubadour. Both he and Linda Doll excitedly encouraged Jim Sire to take this imaginative manuscript seriously. In February 1974 Sire wrote the author, Calvin Miller, that IVP wanted to publish his book The Singer.
Months before, Miller had been waking up nights, stirred to write this tale, perhaps unconsciously inspired by the recent Broadway hits Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. Later Miller wrote:
When the manuscript was done, I sent it to Jim Sire at InterVarsity Press. “It’s good,” he said, “but we want to think about it a couple of weeks before we give you an answer.” So I waited until finally the letter came. They were going to do it. Jim Sire had done his Ph.D. on John Milton, and the fact that he liked it was joy immeasurable to me. “But,” he cautioned, “we’re going to print five thousand of these. They may not do well—in fact we may end up with four thousand of them on skids in our basement for the next ten years. Still, it’s a good book and deserves to be in print.”
Far more than a thousand copies sold. Actually, over three hundred times that amount sold in its first decade. It became “the most successful evangelical publication in this genre.” The Singer was followed in two years by The Song (paralleling the story of the early church in Acts) and two years after that by The Finale (inspired by the book of Revelation). Publication of The Singer changed Miller’s life. Even though he stayed in the pastorate for many years, it set him on a course of writing and speaking that he could not have imagined.
blessed even in the worst - how to give thanks in every circumstance
A couple of years ago, social media revolted against the hashtag #blessed. It often seemed to be employed to brag about expensive vacations or impressive accomplishments under the guise of humility. But home décor stores do not seem to have gotten the message. They have shelves stocked with all kinds of signs and accessories so we can declare to the world — or at least anyone who comes into our houses — that we are indeed “blessed.” But what do we mean when we say that we are blessed? Is it an expression of gratitude for the things we have, the health we enjoy, or the people we love? Are these things really at the center of what it means to be blessed? The Source of Blessing From the first chapter to the last, the Bible’s story is one of blessing — blessing pronounced, blessing promised, blessing anticipated, and blessing experienced. We begin to get a sense of what it really means to be blessed in Numbers 6:22–27: The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” These words were not given for Israel’s priests to use to ask God for his blessing, leaving them to wonder whether or not God would give it. Rather, God took the initiative to assure his people of his settled intention to bless them. He seemed to want to make it clear that he intended to be personally involved in their lives as the source of all the goodness they would enjoy. So the first thing we learn from this blessing is that God is the source of every blessing in our lives. He blesses us by keeping us secure, extending his grace, and flooding our lives with his healing and wholeness. He is fully engaged, fully determined, and fully able to fill our lives with the security, grace, and peace we all long for. The Substance of Blessing But he is more than the source  of blessing; God is also the substance  of blessing. Experiencing God’s blessing is not merely getting good things from  God. The essence of blessing is getting more of  God. It is looking up to see affection and approval radiating from his face. To be blessed is to be confident that God has not and will never ignore or abandon us. “Anything and everything good that emerges from our lives will be a result of God’s sovereign presence in it.” Since more of God himself is the substance of blessing, whenever we ask him to bless us, we’re essentially inviting him to pervade all of the ordinary aspects of our lives. When we ask him to bless our plans, we’re inviting him into them, inviting him to even disrupt or change them, believing that his plans are always better than ours. In asking for his blessing we’re confessing that the outcome of our lives will not be the sum of our grand efforts or accomplishments. Instead, anything and everything good that emerges from our lives will be a result of his sovereign presence in it. Blessed Even at the Worst Times If we really believe that God is the substance of blessing, we won’t confess that we’re blessed only in the circumstances that seem good. Instead, when times are hard, and even when the worst things we can imagine are happening to us, we’ll be able to say that we are blessed. We’ll call ourselves blessed and mean it because we’re experiencing the presence of God with us and in us — in ways we were barely aware of when life seemed easy. Because we know the Lord is keeping us and being gracious to us, our sense of security and peace won’t be so tied to our circumstances. In our desperation for him during difficult times, we’ll find ourselves incredibly blessed by an increased sense of his companionship and comfort. The Reason God Can Bless Us So how is it that God can be so good to us? On what basis can God bless us so generously? You and I can anticipate being showered with God’s blessing only because Jesus experienced the full measure of God’s curse in our place. Christ was given what we deserve so that we might be given what Christ deserves. This is the too-good-to-be-trueness of the gospel. “We enjoy God’s blessing only because Jesus experienced the full measure of God’s curse in our place.” We can be sure that the Lord will keep and protect us because Christ was not protected. We can revel in having the Lord’s face turned toward us only because he turned his face away from his own Son as he hung on the cross. We can be sure that the Lord will lift up his countenance upon us only because when he looks at us, he sees us robed in the righteousness of Christ. He is able to grant us his peace only because his anger was exhausted on another. To be blessed is to be joined to Christ so securely that we have an ever-increasing sense that we are being kept by and for God. Because we are recipients of lavish grace, we can be honest with God and other people about our sin. Because the Lord is giving us peace, we can face the future confident that there is therefore now no condemnation for us because we are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). We can shout it for the world to hear, post it for the social media world to read, and nail it to every wall in our home: we are truly, deeply, eternally blessed in Christ.
