{"id":5210,"date":"2026-02-05T08:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5210"},"modified":"2026-02-05T08:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T13:56:17","slug":"at-the-top-of-the-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/05\/at-the-top-of-the-list\/","title":{"rendered":"At the Top of the List"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>
\u00a0
Dr.\u00a0Craig Barnes,\u00a0who retired a few years ago as president of Princeton Theological Seminary, says he will never forget the time he was called to a hospital emergency room.

His good friend Duane Barney had suffered\u00a0a heart attack.

Barnes sat down beside Duane’s wife, Virginia.\u00a0After consoling her, they prayed together.\u00a0They\u00a0waited to hear some news, any news,\u00a0from the doctors who were taking care of Duane.\u00a0

They\u00a0talked to each other.\u00a0They made phone calls to family members who lived out of town. They sat quietly.\u00a0They prayed some more.\u00a0

Then they simply waited.\u00a0\u00a0

After a while, Virginia absentmindedly picked up Duane’s DayTimer. The ambulance driver had found it and given it to her.\u00a0

In his book\u00a0Hustling God<\/em>, Barnes recalls that as she began to thumb through the pages, “a gentle smile emerged on her tear-streaked face.”

On every page, she found\u00a0a list.\u00a0Underneath the record of each full day of appointments, Duane had hand-written a summary of\u00a0those things for which he was particularly thankful that day.

At the top of every list was the name Virginia.\u00a0\u00a0

Barnes writes, “Duane did not survive that heart attack.\u00a0But Virginia did.\u00a0Knowing that she was so dearly loved made all the difference at the end of Duane’s life.”

If someone sat down with your digital calendar or appointment book, what would they discover?

Would they see a life crammed full of\u00a0commitments, meetings, and activities, all carefully slotted into half-hour increments for maximum efficiency?\u00a0\u00a0

Or would there be evidence that you, like Duane, find time every day to express\u00a0gratitude?

It makes a difference whether we think love is a prize we have to earn by working very hard, or a gift we get to receive just because someone already loves us deeply.\u00a0\u00a0

God loves you like that.

As Barnes points out, every morning\u00a0we awaken\u00a0to a world we did not create,\u00a0just so we can receive, yet again, a salvation we did not earn.\u00a0

What makes God’s grace so amazing?\u00a0

Your name has always been\u00a0in his DayTimer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Craig Barnes,\u00a0who retired a few years ago as president of Princeton Theological Seminary, says he will never forget the time he was called to a hospital emergency room. His good friend Duane Barney had suffered\u00a0a heart attack. Barnes sat down beside Duane’s wife, Virginia.\u00a0After consoling her, they prayed together.\u00a0They\u00a0waited to hear some… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5211,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[363,104],"class_list":["post-5210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gratitude","tag-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5212,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5210\/revisions\/5212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}