I love being happy. But happiness is unpredictable; it feels vulnerable because it is tied to my circumstances. And don’t we all know it. One day you’re up; next day you’re down. Circumstantial happiness is an emotional roller coaster; it can...
READ MOREOur thoughts flow downhill like water. If we aren’t aware of what we are thinking, our thoughts wander, leading us down windy ways through dark woods. We lose perspective; we start speculating; we come to terrible conclusions in about seven...
READ MOREAnd they lived happily ever after. Stop for just a moment, and let it be true. They lived happily ever after.
These may be the most beautiful and haunting words in the entire library of mankind. Why does the end of a great...
In heaven, things are not stained or broken; everything is as it was meant to be. Think for a moment of the wonder of this. Isn't every one of our sorrows on earth the result of things not being as they were meant to be? And so when the kingdom...
READ MOREWe are each created to accomplish a work worthy of God; it is one of our deepest yearnings. And we will, in the kingdom; not just once, but many, many times over. Are we employed in the actual restoration itself? I don’t know for certain. “They...
READ MOREImagine what it would be like if you were never, ever able to wake from your nightmares. Like being tumbled under the waves and never able to find the surface again. That there is a reality for us to wake to is a gift beyond words.
... READ MOREI thought of the last story we have from the life of the prophet Elisha. Jehoash was king of Israel at the time, and he went to visit Elisha on his sickbed. He knew that without the help of this great prophet, the future of Israel was looking dim...
READ MORE“He is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings grass from the earth.” (2 Samuel 23:4)
What makes your heart awaken? For what awakens your heart is worth paying...
Can you imagine if on your honeymoon one of you sneaked off for a rendezvous with a perfect stranger? Adam and Eve kicked off the honeymoon by sleeping with the Enemy. Then comes one of the most poignant verses in all Scripture: "What is this you...
READ MOREThe book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.
[John] You simply cannot neglect the heart and get away with it. The mind is a beautiful...
READ MOREThe Religious Man or Woman is a popular story option in which we try to reduce the wildness of life by constructing a system of promises and rewards, a contract that will obligate God to grant us exemption from the Arrows. It really doesn't...
READ MOREWe now are going to war. This is the beginning of the end.
The hour is late, and you are needed. We need your heart.
If there were something more I could do to help you see, I wish to God I could have done it. Tears fill...
Imagine, friends, a world without evil. Every demon has been swept away. Simply imagine a world without evil people, where everyone loves God and overflows with his holy love. You look to your right and left, and you only see people you can trust...
READ MOREHearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all...
READ MOREThe way to begin to get free of this debris, to remove these limits you’ve unknowingly placed on Jesus, is first to name what the problem is. Where are you having a hard time with Jesus? Where is your struggle with him?
Do you...
READ MOREThis is what Jesus nearly always does when he comes to mend those rifts in our hearts. He brings his comfort and mercy to those times and places where we suffered the shattering blow, and the heart in that place often feels the same age as it was...
READ MOREOnce we begin thinking of all the deceptions the Enemy is about with regard to our lives, we have a tendency to become obsessed with him, fearful of what he is going to do next. Once we take him seriously, he switches from his tactic of “I’m not...
READ MOREWe all have a way that we do life. We might call it our personality, or our natural bent — the way we handle pressure, the way we listen, the way we look for happiness, the way we control our world. We didn’t sit down one day and willfully choose...
READ MOREMaybe the most devastating limit is simply the idea that “Jesus doesn’t act like that anymore.” (Or, “Jesus doesn’t act like that with me.”) Sure —he was amazing in the Gospels. But that was then and this is now and things have changed. Or so the...
READ MORELet me say this again: the story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it. I hope you are beginning to see that more clearly now. Otherwise, much of the Bible will...
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