Daily Reading
February 6, 2023
This is why we accept the false reverence — it’s like having a relationship with someone out of state. It doesn’t intrude into your life like a spouse or a good friend does. There is safety in the distance. We secure ourselves against a fuller experi...
Daily Reading
February 5, 2023
There is something mythic in the way a man is with a woman. Our sexuality offers a parable of amazing depth when it comes to being masculine and feminine. The man comes to offer his strength and the woman invites the man into herself, an act that req...
Daily Reading
February 4, 2023
Then from on high — somewhere in the distance there's a voice that calls — remember who you are. If you lose yourself — your courage soon will follow. (Gavin Greenaway and Trevor Horn, Sound the Bugle) You are going to need your whole heart in all it...
Daily Reading
February 3, 2023
Allow me, then, to review what we have encountered. First, our lives are not a random series of events; they tell a Story that has meaning. We aren't in a movie we've arrived at twenty minutes late; we are in a Sacred Romance. There really is somethi...
Daily Reading
February 2, 2023
I don’t think we’ve admitted to ourselves just how much belief is a choice. Some mornings you wake and feel God is near; the day looks hopeful. Next morning God seems far; the day has no color to it. For years I wrote this experience off to the ins a...
Daily Reading
December 14, 2022
The right words at the right time can prove a valuable lifeline. We thought it would be helpful to spotlight some key conversations we've had on the Wild at Heart podcast. Whether for the first time or a second pass, we hope you savor these stories a...
Daily Reading
October 2, 2022
This is the point of encountering those things in your life you cannot handle — you are forced to turn to Christ. Did you really think you could be kind for the rest of your life without the inner help of Jesus? One day of kindness is a miracle. What...
Daily Reading
October 1, 2022
As I was praying about my disappointments the other day, I noticed something lingering beneath the surface. I realized that somewhere along the way, I’d come to an agreement of sorts — I need this. Not that I want it, and very much. But that I need i...
Daily Reading
September 30, 2022
The book of Hebrews describes the prayer life of Jesus in the following way: “While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could deliver him” (5:7 NLT). That doesn’t sound like the way pra...
Daily Reading
September 29, 2022
I (John) just let out a deep sigh. That we even need to explain how beauty is so absolutely essential to God only shows how dull we have grown to him, to the world in which we live, and to Eve. Far too many years of our own spiritual lives were lived...
Daily Reading
September 28, 2022
Our false self demands a formula before he'll engage; he wants a guarantee of success; and mister, you aren't going to get one. So there comes a time in a man's life when he's got to break away from all that and head off into the unknown with God. Th...
Daily Reading
September 27, 2022
The religious technocrats of Jesus' day confronted him with what they believed were the standards of a life pleasing to God. The external life, they argued, the life of ought and duty and service, was what mattered. "You're dead wrong," Jesus said. "...
Daily Reading
September 26, 2022
Let's come back for a moment to original glory, the glory of God given to us when we were created in his image. So much light could be shed on our lives if we would explore what we were meant to be before things started going wrong. What was it that ...
Daily Reading
September 25, 2022
When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited him to eat with him; so he went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee, noticing that Jesus did not first wash before the meal, was surprised. Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Phar...
Daily Reading
September 24, 2022
It was to the most religious people of his time that Jesus spoke his strongest warnings about a loss of heart. It is tragic for any person to lose touch with the life of their heart but especially so for those of us who once heard the call in our hea...
Daily Reading
September 23, 2022
It is simply diabolical, despicable, downright evil that the heart should be so misunderstood, maligned, feared, and dismissed. But there is our clue again. The war we are in would explain so great a loss. This is the last thing the Enemy wants you t...
Daily Reading
September 20, 2022
Back to the drama in the Garden of Eden. Remember now, God gave us this story of the first marriage to help us get our bearings. It provides some very essential categories for navigating our marriages — like how gender is so fundamental to our identi...
Daily Reading
September 17, 2022
The madness about grief is you think you’ll feel better in a few days. Certainly in a few weeks. The average bereavement leave in corporate America is four days for a spouse or child and three days for a parent. Three days. That’s complete insanity. ...
Daily Reading
September 15, 2022
When my boys were teenagers, we badgered them into cleaning the windows one day. Come dinnertime, our family seated round the table, the brothers began — as all brothers do — to give each other grief about the day’s work. Sam and Luke had each taken ...
Daily Reading
September 14, 2022
Theodore Roosevelt is thought to have said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and boy, was he right. We tend to compare our worst to another person’s best, and we come out poorly. We compare another person’s smile with our inward sadness, and we hide...
Daily Reading
September 13, 2022
The Arrows strike at the most vital places in our hearts, the things we care most about. The deepest questions we ever ask are directly related to our hearts' greatest needs and the answers life gives us shape our images of ourselves, of life, and of...
Daily Reading
September 10, 2022
Why does every story have a villain? It's hard to think of a tale without one. As children, we learned to fear the Big Bad Wolf and the Troll under the bridge. As we grew older, we discovered more serious villains in the Star Wars series — Darth Vad...
Daily Reading
September 9, 2022
We must forgive those who hurt us. The reason is simple: Bitterness and unforgiveness set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that hold us captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds. Until you forgive, you remain their prisone...
Daily Reading
September 7, 2022
Endurance is what you need now. ... Then you will receive all that he has promised. “For in just a little while, the Coming One will come and not delay. And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away...
Daily Reading
September 6, 2022
"In this world you will have trouble." No kidding. Jesus, the master of understatement, captures in one sentence the story of our lives. He adds, "But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Why aren't we more encouraged? (Sometimes we'l...
Daily Reading
September 5, 2022
The next chapter of our story is precisely that — the chapter that follows all the chapters before and fits them perfectly. God is still telling a story; the next chapter is not disconnected from the rest. (I know it feels totally disconnected, but i...
Daily Reading
September 4, 2022
You will not think clearly about your life until you think mythically. Until you see with the eyes of your heart. About halfway through their journey — following a great deal of hardship and facing a good deal more — Frodo's devoted friend and serva...
Daily Reading
September 3, 2022
Jesus points to a field of wheat. Imagine trying to count the number of kernels in one acre. Immeasurable abundance. Turning our gaze to those luxuriant fields, he says, “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the ...
Daily Reading
September 2, 2022
The book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] What we want right off the bat is a map of some kind, a plan, a clear path to begin walking down. Something that makes it clear what ...
Daily Reading
August 17, 2022
The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] I believe you young men are the warrior generation this world needs. I believe you will see very trying times, perhaps even the end...