Daily Reading
March 20, 2024
Winter tarries long at six thousand feet. Here in the Rocky Mountains, spring comes late and fitfully. We had snow again last week—the second week in May. I've come to accept that spring here is really a wrestling match between winter and summer. It ...
Daily Reading
March 19, 2024
Remember that little guy I told you about, with the shiny boots and a pair of six-shooters? The best part of the story is that it wasn't all pretend. I had a place to live out those dreams. My grandfather, my father's father, was a cowboy. He worked ...
Daily Reading
March 18, 2024
You are the son of a kind, strong, and engaged Father, a Father wise enough to guide you in the Way, generous enough to provide for your journey, offering to walk with you every step.This is perhaps the hardest thing for us to believe — really believ...
Daily Reading
March 17, 2024
The resurrection of Jesus was the first of many, the forerunner of our own. He paved the way, as the saying goes.The fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life aga...
Daily Reading
March 16, 2024
“‘For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes.Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heartsand turn, and I ...
Daily Reading
March 15, 2024
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] I’d love to share what thirty years of marriage (and twenty counseling young people) has taught me. But let me begin with a question: ...
Daily Reading
March 14, 2024
Your heart is going to grow for the kingdom, more and more as you mature, which allows us to receive more and more of God and enjoy so much more of the life he’s giving. But this can be very disorienting if you don’t understand what’s taking place wi...
Daily Reading
March 13, 2024
Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”The context of the journey of deliverance from the false self and restoration of the true self is unique, but the process is universal. It begins with awareness. The first...
Daily Reading
March 12, 2024
I am haunted by the stories of people who make the summit of Everest. Such incredible devotion is required, such total focus of body, soul, and spirit. Reaching the top of the world's tallest mountain becomes for those who try the central driving for...
Daily Reading
March 11, 2024
In our psychological age, we have come to call our affairs "addictions," but God calls them "adultery." Listen again to his words to the Israelites through Jeremiah:You are a swift she-camel running here and there, a wild donkey accustomed to the des...
Daily Reading
March 10, 2024
What did Jesus mean when he promised us life? I go back to the source and what I find is just astounding.I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)I tell you the truth," Jesus said to th...
Daily Reading
March 9, 2024
How much of what we do is motivated by fear of man? Think of it — to be entirely free of false guilt, free from pressure, from false allegiances. It would be absolutely extraordinary.This is what gives Jesus the ability to say such startlingly honest...
Daily Reading
March 8, 2024
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. (Psalm 23:1-3).He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3)Heal me, O Lord, and I wi...
Daily Reading
March 7, 2024
When Jesus speaks of the Restoration, he does so in very tangible terms, pointing to the recovery of normal things like houses and lands:“Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne ... everyone who...
Daily Reading
March 6, 2024
One of the strangest quirks of life here on this planet is the fact that the one face we hardly ever see is the one closest to us: our own. As we move about in the world every day, our face is always right before us and always just beyond us. Somebod...
Daily Reading
March 5, 2024
Learn to hear the voice of God. Yep. It’s the simplest, most helpful, least practiced treasure and it will literally rescue you in countless ways. The secret of the Christian life — and Christian marriage — is that you don’t have to figure it out. Yo...
Daily Reading
March 4, 2024
Right above my bed I think I shall hang a sign that says, GOD EXISTS. You see, I wake most mornings an unbeliever. It seems that during the night, I slip into forgetfulness, and by the time the new day comes, I am lost. The deep and precious truths t...
Daily Reading
March 3, 2024
The single most significant decision that has changed my prayer life more than any other, the one step that has brought about greater results than all others combined is this (drum roll, please)...Asking Jesus what I should pray.So simple, and so rev...
Daily Reading
March 2, 2024
Jesus’ manner can be appreciated only in light of a deeper river flowing in him, this fierce intentionality. Otherwise, you get those popular and ridiculous portraits of Jesus as the wandering storyteller, no more controversial or dangerous than a cl...
Daily Reading
March 1, 2024
Our hearts long to recover a sense of wonder; it is one of the reasons only the child-heart can receive the kingdom. Remember now — we shall be as children again:“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belo...
Daily Reading
February 29, 2024
I have in my files a copy of a letter written by Major Sullivan Ballou, a Union officer in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Regiment. He writes to his wife on the eve of the Battle of Bull Run, a battle he senses will be his last. He speaks tenderly to ...
Daily Reading
February 28, 2024
So much of the journey forward involves a letting go of all that once brought us life. We turn away from the familiar abiding places of the heart, the false selves we have lived out, the strengths we have used to make a place for ourselves and all ou...
Daily Reading
February 27, 2024
To make room for God to fill the vessel of our soul, we have to begin moving out some of the unnecessary clutter that continually accumulates there like the junk drawer in your kitchen. Everybody has a junk drawer, that black hole for car keys, pens,...
Daily Reading
February 26, 2024
When he left Rivendell, Frodo didn't head out with a thousand Elves. He had eight companions. Jesus didn't march around backed by legions of angels, either. He had twelve men—knuckleheads, every last one of them, but they were a band of brothers. Thi...
Daily Reading
February 25, 2024
The time has come for us to quit playing chess with God over our lives. We cannot win, but we can delay the victory, dragging on the pain of grasping and the poison of possessing. You see, there are two kinds of losses in life. The first is shared by...
Daily Reading
February 24, 2024
When God comes to call Jeremiah to be his prophet of hard sayings to Judah, Jeremiah protests, saying, "'Ah, Sovereign LORD ... I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.' But the LORD said to me, 'Do not say, "I am only a child." You must go to ...
Daily Reading
February 23, 2024
Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”The first doorway we must travel through on our path toward becoming a king is to choose sonship. It is a choice.Are we willing to become our Father’s sons again?Will you ...
Daily Reading
February 22, 2024
Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. —Henri J. M. Nouwen When I was young, I thought that following God and being a Christian would lead to a life that was kind of easy, filled only with happiness an...
Daily Reading
February 21, 2024
To wait is to learn the spiritual grace of detachment, the freedom of desire. Not the absence of desire, but desire at rest. St. John of the Cross lamented that “the desires weary and fatigue the soul; for they are like restless and discontented chil...
Daily Reading
February 20, 2024
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the gard...