In the early 1930s, just a few years before my birth, the Church of the Lutheran Brethren was instrumental in my parents grounding and continuing lifetime of nourishment in the Christian faith.

“Aline,” my grandmother insisted to my mother, “when you and Raymond get married and move to Minneapolis, I want you to look up the church that is associated with this newspaper” (showing Mom an issue of Broderbaandent, forerunner to Faith & Fellowship, to which she apparently subscribed).  “They have the right slant on spiritual things,” she said.

My folks did just that.  They discovered Ebenezer Lutheran Brethren church.  There they came alive in Christ under the ministry of Rev. Clarence Walstad.  It was there that my four siblings and I were baptized, confirmed, and where Ardy and I were married fifty-five years ago. Throughout our marriage the Church of the Lutheran Brethren has been a part of our lives, and remains so to this day.

In 2007, as I was coordinating the men’s ministries function at Bethel Lutheran Church in Fergus Falls, MN, I started distributing a weekly devotional reading titled the Monday Morning Lift.

Though I had long since retired from salaried work, I recalled how on Sunday evenings I would often find the thought of heading off to work in the morning a foreboding prospect.  My wife and I would regularly arrange to be in the company of friends on Sunday evenings, in part as a means of taking the edge off those anticipated Monday morning blues.  I imagined there were perhaps other men in the church who dealt with a similar malady.  It then occurred to me that a quick-read devotional thought centered in the truths of God’s Word and arriving in one’s office or home email late Sunday evening may be welcomed as a useful Monday Morning Lift.

As the Lift’s availability became known, the number of requests for inclusion in its distribution grew to include several hundred additional readers nationwide.

Those who know me well will attest to the fact that I’m one who “wears his life on his sleeve.”  These types tend to believe that whatever they are about and have experienced in life are things everybody should have the benefit of hearing.  Combine those traits with a huge appetite for God’s Word and an incurable mother-hen instinct, and you end up with a guy that simply has a need to do things like writing the Monday Morning Lift, and derives great pleasure in doing so.

I make no claim to being a seasoned theologian. I am, however, a grateful recipient of the gifts of God’s grace, principally the gift of faith to believe that the historical Jesus of Nazareth is in fact precisely who he claimed to be: God in human flesh coming as the Savior of the world.

I’m humbled that God has used the Monday Morning Lift to encourage believers and proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.

I live with an awareness of God’s abiding presence in my life as the Holy Spirit affirms within my spirit that it is in him “I live, move, and have my being.” Hence, I view the world, order my life, interact with others, and continue to witness from within this Christ-centered orientation. 

Raymond Seaver, Sr. served as Executive Director of the Minneapolis Heart Institute & Foundation until his retirement in 1994. In 2001 he became the oldest M.Div. recipient on record at the Lutheran Brethren Seminary when he graduated at the age of 67.

If you would like to receive the weekly email titled “Monday Morning Lift” please email Raymond Seaver, Sr. at rseaver@prtel.com.

Over the past several years readers have suggested that the weekly “Lifts” be compiled and put in book form. The outcome of those urgings has now been published as Monday Morning Lift - Personal Reflections on Biblical Themes and is available at www.ffbooks.org.

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