Daily Reading
May 29, 2026
For some reason we keep forgetting that Jesus, in the Gospels, is operating in enemy territory. We project into the Gospel stories a pastoral backdrop, the quaint charm of a Middle Eastern travel brochure—picturesque villages, bustling markets, smili...
Daily Reading
May 28, 2026
We take folks through a discipleship program whereby they master any number of Christian precepts and miss the most important thing of all, the very thing for which we were created: intimacy with God. There are, after all, those troubling words Jesus...
Daily Reading
May 27, 2026
Life has a way of wearing on a person. Under the weight of losses, pressures, failures, and endless demands, something in our souls begins to wither. Passions dry up. The zeal of a beginning turns into a despairing end. A stone falls heavily down, cr...
Daily Reading
May 26, 2026
Dear friends, I hope you see clearly that more of God is our greatest need, our greatest joy, our only rescue. This isn’t optional. He’s the source of the strength and resiliency we need for this hour, the Life that allows us to enjoy everything else...
Daily Reading
May 25, 2026
Simone Weil was absolutely right—beauty and affliction are the only two things that can pierce our hearts. Because this is so true, we must have a measure of beauty in our lives proportionate to our affliction. No, more. Much more. Is this not God’s ...
Daily Reading
May 24, 2026
God says our latter glory will exceed our former. To our great loss, in our society we no longer value the wisdom and expertise that comes through living well through many years. Silver hair and wrinkles are earned.I have learned that being beautiful...
Daily Reading
May 23, 2026
Either we wake to tackle our “to do” list, get things done, guided by our morals and whatever clarity we may at the moment have (both rather lacking to the need, I might add); or we wake in the midst of a dangerous Story, as God’s intimate ally, foll...
Daily Reading
May 22, 2026
“‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death ‘or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:4–5)No more tears....
Daily Reading
May 21, 2026
At some point we all face the same decision—what will we do with the Arrows we’ve known? Maybe a better way to say it is, what have they tempted us to do? However they come to us, whether through a loss we experience as abandonment or some deep viola...
Daily Reading
May 20, 2026
Let me take you back now to the last cup of tea, Luke’s parting, and the ending of our family’s childhood era. It was the Saturday of his high school graduation. We had been through two others before and knew the ritual well. I believe in rituals; th...
Daily Reading
May 19, 2026
We live now in a culture of expertise, so completely second nature to us that we don’t give it a second thought. Cutting-edge advances in science and technology—ever sharpening, ever thrusting forward—are now available to anyone with an Internet conn...
Daily Reading
May 18, 2026
Our local zoo had for years one of the biggest African lions I’ve ever seen. A huge male, nearly five hundred pounds, with a wonderful mane and absolutely enormous paws. Panthera leo. The King of the Beasts. Sure, he was caged, but I’m telling you th...
Daily Reading
May 17, 2026
The book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.[Sam] Are there some things we should do that might not come easy to build a relationship with God, or can we find him in whatever we prefer to d...
Daily Reading
May 16, 2026
Whatever else we might believe about intimacy with God at this point, the truth is that God knows us very intimately. He knows what time you went to bed last night. He knows what you dreamed about. He knows what you had for breakfast this morning. He...
Daily Reading
May 15, 2026
We've all heard the story and missed the miracle—God begins his greatest work by including us. Even though we bungled it so badly the first time, back in Eden. Once again he shares in the excitement. Come with me, you have a part in this—the re-creat...
Daily Reading
May 14, 2026
Any movement toward freedom and life, any movement toward God or others, will be opposed.Marriage, friendship, beauty, rest—the thief wants it all. So, it becomes the devil’s business to keep the Christian’s spirit imprisoned. He knows that the belie...
Daily Reading
May 13, 2026
The sense of being part of some bigger story, a purposeful adventure that is the Christian life, begins to drain away again after those first-love years in spite of everything we can do to stop it. Instead of a love affair with God, your life begins ...
Daily Reading
May 12, 2026
Look, let’s go ahead and name the elephant in the room—some prayers work, and some prayers don’t. Why does that surprise and irritate us? Some diets work, but most don’t; no one is really surprised by that. We simply keep looking for the one that wil...
Daily Reading
May 11, 2026
Mothers teach, counsel, and guide. “Do not forsake your mother’s teaching” (Proverbs 1:8). Mothers comfort. “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). Mothers are a source of wisdom. The famous Proverb 31 was written by K...
Daily Reading
May 10, 2026
As large as the role is that our mothers play, the word mother is more powerful when used as a verb than as a noun. All women are not mothers, but all women are called to mother. To mother is to nurture, to train, to educate, to rear. As daughters of...
Daily Reading
May 9, 2026
We lose the Story every day. It is continually being stolen from us by the Evil One—the ultimate desconstructionist. He twists and spins and pulls apart the truth until the fragments we have left are unrecognizable. Or we lose it ourselves in the mar...
Daily Reading
May 8, 2026
And now? Now we are living somewhere toward the end of Act Three. We have a future, but this tale is not over yet — not by a long shot. We now live between the battle for Helm’s Deep and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Between the beaches of Norma...
Daily Reading
May 7, 2026
Somewhere along the way we all lose heart in marriage. We all do. It happens to the best of us. As Dan Fogelberg sang, Joy at the start Fear in the journey,Joy in the coming home A part of the heart gets lost in the learning, Somewhere along the road...
Daily Reading
May 6, 2026
As Jesus steps out from behind those thirty years of almost total obscurity into the task set before him, both men and demons begin to feel his fierce intention:He went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath began to teach the peopl...
Daily Reading
May 5, 2026
I can be a very driven man; I set very high standards; I push myself hard. There are certain “rewards” that come along with this way of living: I get a lot done; I can be successful. But that drivenness that the world so often rewards is really quite...
Daily Reading
May 4, 2026
A judge in his sixties, a real southern gentleman with a pinstriped suit and an elegant manner of speech, pulled me aside during a conference. Quietly, almost apologetically, he spoke of his love for sailing, for the open sea, and how he and a buddy ...
Daily Reading
May 3, 2026
Reserves are replenished when there’s more coming in than there is going out.That’s how it works. That’s why people come back from their vacations feeling better, and why folks who have taken real time off, like a sabbatical, come back almost differe...
Daily Reading
May 2, 2026
Playful, cunning, generous, fierce — not one moment of it is contrived. Jesus never plays to the audience, never kowtows to the opposition, never takes his cues from the circus around him. He is simply being himself.The diversity of Jesus’ actions, t...
Daily Reading
May 1, 2026
I think it was Archibald Hart who pointed out that because we are so accustomed to moving pedal to the metal in our own world, the thing we overlook in the Gospels are all of the in-between times when Christ and his followers were walking from one to...
Daily Reading
April 30, 2026
How to pray for guidance. First off, do whatever you can to reduce the pressure. Pressure is a killer; it nearly always gets in the way of hearing from God. As best you can, lay down the pressure as you seek guidance. Drama never helps; stress never ...