Daily Reading
June 20, 2024
The history of a man's relationship with God is the story of how God calls him out, takes him on a journey, and gives him his true name. Most of us have thought it was the story of how God sits on his throne waiting to whack a man broadside when he s...
Daily Reading
June 19, 2024
We aren't meant to figure life out on our own. God wants to father us. The truth is, he has been fathering us for a long time — we just haven't had the eyes to see it. He wants to father us much more intimately, but we have to be in a posture to rece...
Daily Reading
June 18, 2024
Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”Years ago I came across a very revealing story recounted by Gordon Dalbey. He told of a nun who worked in a men’s prison. One year she brought some Mother’s Day cards to d...
Daily Reading
June 17, 2024
Scripture tells us that we might at any time entertain an angel simply by welcoming a stranger. The serpent in the garden is really the Prince of Darkness. The carpenter from Nazareth — there is more to him than meets the eye as well. Things are not ...
Daily Reading
June 16, 2024
Whatever the details might be, when a man speaks of the greatest gift his father gave him — if his father gave him anything at all worth remembering — it is always the passing on of masculinity.This is essential, for life will test you. Like a ship a...
Daily Reading
June 15, 2024
We’ve got to remember, folks, that no matter how promising an idea sounds, if God’s not in it, you don’t want to be in it either. This is true of a relationship, career change, buying or selling a house, even something as simple as a vacation. We onl...
Daily Reading
June 14, 2024
In our eagerness to see good happen, Christians often jump straight into praying, without first pausing and aligning ourselves with Jesus —l ike a trombone player who simply starts playing her part without waiting for the conductor; or an athlete who...
Daily Reading
June 13, 2024
The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,because the LORD has anointed meto proclaim good news to the poor.He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,to proclaim freedom for the captivesand release from darkness for the prisoners. (Isaiah 61:1) The...
Daily Reading
June 12, 2024
I don’t recall a worship song with the word cunning in it. “Thou Art Cunning,” or “Cunning, Cunning, Cunning.” Do we interpret his actions in our lives as perhaps part of some cunning plan? That delayed answer to prayer — is there something brilliant...
Daily Reading
June 11, 2024
Jesus of Nazareth is given many names in Scripture. He is called the Lion of Judah. The Bright and Morning Star. The Wonderful Counselor. The Prince of Peace. The Lamb of God. There are many, many more — each one a window into all that he truly is, a...
Daily Reading
June 10, 2024
Resignation is not just the sigh that groans with something gone wrong. Such a sigh can be redemptive if it does not let go of the Haunting we have all experienced of something presently lost. Resignation is the acceptance of the loss as final. It is...
Daily Reading
June 9, 2024
You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you’ll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren’t willing to receive from...
Daily Reading
June 8, 2024
This isn’t complicated. We simply start saying, “I love you” as we turn our attention towards him for a moment or two. As I do so I find it helpful to recall some reason I love God: his goodness, the beauty of the world (ninety thousand caribou stack...
Daily Reading
June 7, 2024
Most of us have been misinterpreting life and what God is doing for a long time. "I think I'm just trying to get God to make my life work easier," a client of mine confessed, but he could have been speaking for most of us. We're asking the wrong ques...
Daily Reading
June 6, 2024
There is the story of subduing the storm and immediately after, the encounter with Legion. In all three synoptic Gospels, these two stories are linked—a frightening storm, and then a frightening demoniac. In all three accounts, Jesus — who was sleepi...
Daily Reading
June 5, 2024
Christians are designed to live in and enjoy the benefits of two ecosystems, two realities — the physical and the spiritual, the earth and the heavens. Each world offers graces for human flourishing. The natural world is saturated with beauty, and be...
Daily Reading
June 4, 2024
One of the most profound surprises that has come about through walking with God has been with regard to people. People make up a very large part of our lives. We’re surrounded by people. We deal with others every day, from the driver in front of us, ...
Daily Reading
June 3, 2024
Is there any doubt that the God John beheld (Rev. 4:3, 6) was beautiful beyond description? But of course. God must be even more glorious than this glorious creation, for it "foretells" or "displays" the glory that is God's. John said God was as radi...
Daily Reading
June 2, 2024
Because of Jesus, we have every reason to be known as people of deep hope and joy. But does that mean we are going to be running around singing and dancing and smiling every moment of our lives? Are you able to? Am I? Is that what it means to “rejoic...
Daily Reading
June 1, 2024
But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for wha...
Daily Reading
May 31, 2024
The meadowlark has long been my favorite songbird. I love its song because it evokes so many summer days out in the fields and streams of the West. Its song means summer, hay meadows, long lazy days, fly-fishing. More than anything else, it has becom...
Daily Reading
May 30, 2024
So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about – He is looking for us. —Simon TugwellCan it possibly get any more uncertain than this? We so long for life to be better than it is. We ...
Daily Reading
May 29, 2024
The shriveled figure lay in the sun like a pile of rags dumped there by accident. It hardly appeared to be human. But those who used the gate to go in and out of Jerusalem recognized him. He was disabled, dropped off there every morning by someone in...
Daily Reading
May 28, 2024
When the going gets rough, we're going nowhere without desire. And the going will get rough. The world, the minions of darkness, and your own double-mindedness are all set against you. Just try coming alive, try living from your heart for the Sacred ...
Daily Reading
May 27, 2024
“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).The Greek word here for “the world” we are crucified to is kosmos. It is quite an encompassing term, in...
Daily Reading
May 26, 2024
It's undeniable: the new covenant, accomplished through the work of Christ, means that we have new hearts. Our hearts are good. Or God's a liar. Until we embrace that stunning truth, we will find it really hard to make decisions, because we can't tru...
Daily Reading
May 25, 2024
Where has Jesus come through for you? Really. Take a moment and remember. And then write it down. Remembering fertilizes our hope. It makes our faith burgeon and bloom. It strengthens our belief in the promises of God that He is good and He is for us...
Daily Reading
May 24, 2024
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] When we moved into our first place, Susie started having some intense nightmares, something that isn’t common for her. After a couple of...
Daily Reading
May 23, 2024
We cannot know the plans of God for us beyond His promises that He is working for our good at all times. And often we are far from comfortable as we wait. But, just as David wrote in the psalm, we, too, can remember God’s great love and faithfulness ...
Daily Reading
May 22, 2024
You might think that keeping Jesus all mysterious and heavenly is the proper thing to do, but consider this: When he came, he came as presented in the Gospels — very much human, a person, a man, with a very distinct personality. This is the primary w...