Daily Reading
July 15, 2025
"Don't be afraid of embracing the disappointment you feel, old or new. Don't be scared of the unreasonable joy either. They're the highway markers home."We snort with disdain at such quaint sentiments, and our choice made, strike off down the straigh...
Daily Reading
July 14, 2025
Something is happening to the human heart. You need to understand what it is if you would make sense of any of this. Human beings are by nature ravenous creatures; a famished craving haunts every one of us. We were created for utter happiness, joy, ...
Daily Reading
July 13, 2025
There is the joy of having someone save a place for us. We walk into a crowded room at church or at a dinner party and someone across the way waves us over, pointing to a chair he's held on to especially for us. For a moment we feel a sense of relief...
Daily Reading
July 12, 2025
Now — what is your part? What is your role in the Story? In truth, the only one who can tell you that is the Author. To find our lives, we must turn to Jesus. We must yield our all to him and ask him to restore us as his own. We ask his forgiveness f...
Daily Reading
July 11, 2025
The devil has more temptations than an actor has costumes for the stage. And one of his all-time favorite disguises is that of a lying spirit, to abuse your tender heart with the worst news he can deliver — that you do not really love Jesus Christ an...
Daily Reading
July 10, 2025
Aren't there times in your life that if you could, you would love to return to? I grew up in Los Angeles but spent my boyhood summers in Oregon where both my mother and father's parents lived. There was a beauty and innocence and excitement to those ...
Daily Reading
July 9, 2025
We human beings are made up of three interwoven parts. As Paul says, “May God himself ... sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:23). We are body, s...
Daily Reading
July 8, 2025
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] The more you know yourself, the more this will prove an immensely helpful category. (And please, as Socrates urged, do not live an une...
Daily Reading
July 7, 2025
Athletes will tell you that working out is not the most important part of training. Recovery is. The number one cause of athletic injuries is the lack of recovery time between training sessions.Let me repeat this because it’s so counterintuitive — re...
Daily Reading
July 5, 2025
Oh! Ephraim is my dear, dear son, my child in whom I take pleasure!Every time I mention his name,my heart bursts with longing for him!Everything in me cries out for him.Softly and tenderly I wait for him. (Jer. 31:20 The Message) Put your own name in...
Daily Reading
July 4, 2025
But far and above the most revealing aspect of anyone’s character is how he handles people. Friends, I hope you understand this — the way a person handles others is the acid test of his true nature. How is Jesus with people? What’s he like to be arou...
Daily Reading
July 3, 2025
We want to be as clear as possible what we mean by an “agreement.” Satan is a liar, “the father of lies” (John 8:44), so utterly convincing he deceived a glorious man and woman to betray God, whom they walked with every day. I think we tend to dismi...
Daily Reading
July 2, 2025
How have we learned Christ? It ought to be a startling thought, that we may have learned him wrong. That must be far worse than not to have learned him at all: his place is occupied by a false Christ, hard to exorcise! The point is, whether we have l...
Daily Reading
July 1, 2025
One of the deepest ways a woman bears the image of God is in her mystery. By mystery we don't mean "forever beyond your knowing," but "something to be explored." "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter," says the book of Proverbs, "to search out ...
Daily Reading
June 30, 2025
Until we come to terms with war as the context of our days, we will not understand life. We will misinterpret 90 percent of what is happening around us and to us. It will be very hard to believe that God’s intentions toward us are life abundant; it w...
Daily Reading
June 29, 2025
Something has crept into our assumptions about Jesus that makes it almost impossible to relate to him, not to mention love him. I say "crept" because it has not been a conscious decision; few of the things that shape our actual convictions are. I thi...
Daily Reading
June 28, 2025
Jesus says that as our Good Shepherd, he is leading us. What an encouraging thought. Jesus is leading you, and he is leading me. He is shepherding us. I can feel something in my heart loosening even now as I consider this. Okay. I don’t have to make ...
Daily Reading
June 27, 2025
True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don’t trust a...
Daily Reading
June 26, 2025
Over the years we’ve come to see that the only thing more tragic than the things that have happened to us is what we have done with them.Words were said, painful words. Things were done, awful things. And they shaped us. Something inside of us shifte...
Daily Reading
June 25, 2025
Jesus said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you…” (Matthew 13:11). One of those secrets is this—the entire spiritual realm works on authority. Just like all the kingdoms do in fairy tales (they get all their g...
Daily Reading
June 24, 2025
According to the part of the story God has allowed us to see, the Haunting we sense is his calling us forth on a journey. The resurrection of our heart requires that the Sacred Romance be true and that is precisely what the Scriptures tell us. As Fre...
Daily Reading
June 23, 2025
You will reign, dear ones, over glorious kingdoms and realms within the great and glorious kingdom of our Father—a role we certainly need some preparation for. In another favorite Narnia story, The Horse and His Boy, the lost prince of Archenland is ...
Daily Reading
June 22, 2025
Camels have an Achilles’ heel. But their vulnerability is hidden by their legendary resilience: these famous “ships of the desert” have been crossing dune seas since before the time of Abraham. The stamina and strength of camels is truly impressive —...
Daily Reading
June 21, 2025
Watch Jesus with "the rich young ruler":"One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had grea...
Daily Reading
June 20, 2025
You may recall the story Jesus told of the man who entrusted three of his servants with thousands of dollars (literally, “talents”), urging them to handle his affairs well while he was away. When he returned, he listened eagerly to their reports. The...
Daily Reading
June 19, 2025
God calls us to run away to Him, not from Him. He asks us to not fix our gaze on other people’s lives and compare them to our own but to look to Him for the source of our worthy life. He asks us to find our rest in Him. He is our resting place. When ...
Daily Reading
June 18, 2025
Many awful things have been done with the doctrine of hell. “You’ll go to hell for that” has been used to condemn all sorts of things that God does not condemn. You know… “Don’t smoke, don’t chew, don’t go with girls who do.” Furthermore, those who h...
Daily Reading
June 17, 2025
The book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.A man whose identity flows out of deep validation doesn’t wilt under criticism. He enjoys applause when it comes but frankly isn’t desperate for ...
Daily Reading
June 16, 2025
There’s a passage in the book of Hebrews we don’t like very much.“Although he was a son”—it is speaking about Jesus Christ–“he learned obedience from what he suffered” (5:8).Dang. If Jesus needed to learn through suffering, well, it just doesn’t leav...
Daily Reading
June 15, 2025
I am here to tell you that you can get your heart back. But I need to warn you — if you want your heart back, if you want the wound healed and your strength restored and to find your true name, you’re going to have to fight for it. Notice your reacti...