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 r...
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 bel...
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 y...
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 a...
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 gar...
Daily Reading
February 19, 2024
Lately, the surge is toward “justice Christianity” — intervening to prevent human trafficking or slavery, caring for indigenous cultures or for the planet itself. And it is right and it is wrong. My goodness, yes, of course God cares about justice. B...
Daily Reading
February 18, 2024
Why don’t I wake with a joyful heart? Joy was just here. Where did it go? I began to realize that what I’ve done for most of my life is resign myself to this idea: I’m really not going to have any lasting joy. And from that resignation, I’ve gone on ...
Daily Reading
February 17, 2024
We are not what we were meant to be, and we know it. If, when passing a stranger on the street, we happen to meet eyes, we quickly avert our glance. Cramped into the awkward community of an elevator, we search for something, anything to look at inste...
Daily Reading
February 16, 2024
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] Our adolescent culture really does play into our confusion; with so many answers supposedly on the other side of our keyboards, we o...
Daily Reading
February 15, 2024
I’ve come to the place where I have had to stop telling people, “I’ll pray for you.” I simply know that despite my good intentions — and these promises are almost always spoken with good intent — I know that nine times out of ten I just don’t remembe...
Daily Reading
February 14, 2024
The only person that can satisfy the aching abyss of the human heart is Jesus Christ. —Oswald Chambers I hate Valentines Day. There, I said it. Most of the guys reading this just thought, Yes! I can’t believe he said that. Most of the women just ...
Daily Reading
February 13, 2024
John Wesley was thirty-five when he experienced the now famous "warming" of his heart — not his mind — toward Christ, and knew in that moment he had become not merely a Christian, but something more — a lover of God. Shortly after, he penned the hymn...
Daily Reading
February 12, 2024
There are three desires that I have found essential to a woman’s heart, which are not entirely different from a man’s and yet they remain distinctly feminine. Not every woman wants a battle to fight, but every woman yearns to be fought for. Listen to...
Daily Reading
February 11, 2024
His ability to live with all these qualities we’ve seen, in such a way that no one quality dominates—as is so often the case in our personalities—eclipsing the richness of the others. To live in such a way that there is always something of an element...
Daily Reading
February 10, 2024
The reason a woman wants a beauty to unveil, the reason she asks, Do you delight in me? is simply that God does as well. God is captivating beauty. As David prays, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may...gaze upon the beauty o...
Daily Reading
February 9, 2024
Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are his judgments. (Revelation 19:1–2) Evil judged and utterly destroyed. Forever and ever. Not just in the fairy tale, but in your story. Satan, his armies, and every fo...
Daily Reading
February 8, 2024
In [Christ] you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ. (Col. 2:11) It’s not just that the Cross did something for us. Something deep a...
Daily Reading
February 7, 2024
I always felt it strange that God needed to command us to love him. (It is the first and greatest of all the commandments.) Now I see better. When God calls us to love him as our “first love,” it is not only because he deserves to hold that place in ...
Daily Reading
February 6, 2024
Choosing love will open spaces of immense beauty and joy for you, but you will be hurt. You already know this. You have retreated from love countless times in your life because of it. We all have. We have been and will be hurt by the loss of loved on...
Daily Reading
February 5, 2024
We are now far into this Epic that every great story points to. We have reached the moment where we, too, must find our courage and rise up to recover our hearts and fight for the hearts of others. The hour is late, and much time has been wasted. Asl...
Daily Reading
February 4, 2024
To live as an authentic, ransomed, and redeemed woman means to be real and present in this moment. If we continue to hide, much will be lost. We cannot have intimacy with God or anyone else if we stay hidden and offer only who we think we ought to be...