Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

“All mankind will know that I, the Lord, am your Savior, your Redeemer.” (Isaiah 49:26)Once upon a time the earth was whole and beautiful, shimmering like an emerald, filled with glory, bursting with anticipation. Such wonders waiting to be unveiled, such adventures waiting to be yours. Creation was like a fairy tale, a great legend—only true.Once upon a time we were whole and beautiful too, glorious, striding through the Garden like the sons and daughters of God. We were holy and powerful; we ruled the earth and animal kingdom with loving-kindness.But Eden was vulnerable; something dark slithered in the shadows. Something most foul and sinister. Banished from heaven, Satan and his fallen warriors came seeking revenge.If the coming Restoration is to be fulfilled on the earth and in your life, Satan and his armies must be destroyed. He must never be allowed in again.You are letting the great stories awaken your imagination to the coming kingdom, fill your heart with brilliant images and hopeful expectation. Seize the moment crucial to the climax of every story and the redemption you long to see: that glorious moment when evil is defeated.———————————Think back to the movies you love—you should go watch the scene again when the enemy is defeated, and let it remind you of the day your true enemy is cast down. Forever. Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

Hopefully you will find a few folks who walk with God to also walk with you through the seasons of your life. But honesty — and Scripture — forces me to admit they are a rare breed. Few there are who find it. All the more reason for you to make the number less scarce, by becoming someone who walks with God and teaches others how.Look to those who have walked with God down through the ages. Certainly that is why the Bible is given to us. If God had intended it to be a textbook of doctrine, well then, he would have written it like one. But its not; it's overwhelmingly a book of stories—tales of men and women who walked with God. Approach the Scriptures not so much as a manual of Christian principles but as the testimony of God's friends on what it means to walk with him through a thousand different episodes. When you are at war, when you are in love, when you have sinned, when you have been given a great gift — this is how you walk with God. Do you see what a different mindset this is? It's really quite exciting.And there are those who have walked with God since the canon of Scripture closed. Here is an Athanasius, a Bonaventure, a Julian of Norwich, a Brother Lawrence, a Tozer — here is how they walked with God. When it comes to time and place, temperament and situation, they could not be more different. Julian lived in a cloister; Tozer lived in Chicago. Athanasius fled to the desert; Lawrence worked in the kitchen. But there is a flavor, a tang, an authenticity to their writings which underlies whatever it is they are trying at the moment to say. Here is someone who knew God, really knew him. This is what its like to walk with God, and that is what its like as well. Want more? Order your copy of Waking The Dead today

By the grace of God, we cannot quite pull it off. In the quiet moments of the day we sense a nagging within, a discontentment, a hunger for something else. But because we have not solved the riddle of our existence, we assume that something is wrong—not with life, but with us. Everyone else seems to be getting on with things. What's wrong with me? We feel guilty about our chronic disappointment. Why can't I just learn to be happier in my job, in my marriage, in my church, in my group of friends? You see, even while we are doing other things, "getting on with life," we still have an eye out for the life we secretly want. When someone seems to have gotten it together, we wonder, How did he do it? Maybe if we read the same book, spent time with him, went to his church, things would come together for us as well. You see, we can never entirely give up our quest. Gerald May reminds us,When the desire is too much to bear, we often bury it beneath frenzied thoughts and activities or escape it by dulling our immediate consciousness of living. It is possible to run away from the desire for years, even decades, at a time, but we cannot eradicate it entirely. It keeps touching us in little glimpses and hints in our dreams, our hopes, our unguarded moments. (The Awakened Heart)He says that even though we sleep, our desire does not. "It is who we are." We are desire. It is the essence of the human soul, the secret of our existence. Absolutely nothing of human greatness is ever accomplished without it. Desire fuels our search for the life we prize. The same old thing is not enough. It never will be.Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

If you woke each morning and your heart leapt with hope, knowing that the renewal of all things was just around the corner — might even come today — you would be one happy person. If you knew in every fiber of your being that nothing is lost, that everything will be restored to you and then some, you would be armored against discouragement and despair. If your heart’s imagination were filled with rich expectations of all the goodness coming to you, your confidence would be contagious; you would be unstoppable, revolutionary. Friends — don’t you let anyone or anything cheat you of this hope; it is your spiritual lifeline. You have barely begun to take hold of it. Do not let anything diminish the beauty, power, and significance of this hope above all hopes. Jesus lived the way he did in this world, for this world, because his hope was set beyond this world; that is the secret of his life. “Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed — that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God” (Hebrews 12:2 The Message). Oh yes, we need to make this practical. We need to take this hope so seriously we sell everything to buy this field. We must make this utterly real and tangible, so that over time our souls are truly anchored by it. Of all things we could do that would be the most practical, that has the most staggering implications. Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

And so Screwtape reveals the Enemy's ploy — first make humans flabby, with small passions and desires, then offer a sop to those diminished passions so that their experience is one of contentment. They know nothing of great joy or great sorrow. They are merely nice.Christianity has come to the point where we believe that there is no higher aspiration for the human soul than to be nice. We are producing a generation of men and women whose greatest virtue is that they don't offend anyone. Then we wonder why there is not more passion for Christ. How can we hunger and thirst after righteousness if we have ceased hungering and thirsting altogether?As C. S. Lewis said, "We castrate the gelding and bid him be fruitful."The greatest enemy of holiness is not passion; it is apathy. Look at Jesus. He was no milksop. His life was charged with passion. After he drove the crooks from the temple, "his disciples remembered that it is written: 'Zeal for your house will consume me'" (John 2:17). This isn't quite the pictures we have in Sunday school, Jesus with a lamb and a child or two, looking for all the world like Mr. Rogers with a beard. The world's nicest guy. He was something far more powerful. He was holy. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

Entering into the Sacred Romance begins with eyes to see and ears to hear. Where would we be today if Eve had looked at the serpent with different eyes, if she had seen at once that the beautiful creature with the charming voice and the reasonable proposition was in fact a fallen angel bent on the annihilation of the human race? Failure to see things as they truly are resulted in unspeakable tragedy. From that point on, the theme of blindness runs throughout Scripture. It's not merely a matter of failing to recognize temptation when we meet it; like Elisha's servant, we often fail to see the drama of redemption as well (2 Kings 6:15-17).Needless to say, Elisha's servant suddenly saw from a whole different perspective. I (John) think it's safe to assume he also experienced a bit of emotional relief— a recovery of heart. What for him had undoubtedly been a harrowing encounter became an exciting adventure.The apostle Paul experienced an even greater surprise on the road to Damascus. Thinking he was doing God a favor, he was hell-bent on crushing a tiny religious movement called the Way. But he had the plot and the characters completely confused. Paul, known at that time as Saul, was playing the role of Defender of the Faith, when in fact he was Persecutor of Christ. It took a bout of blindness to bring things into focus, and when the scales fell from his eyes, he never saw things the same way again. Paul later explained to the Romans that human sin and suffering are the result of foolish and darkened hearts, brought on by a refusal to see the Sacred Romance. It should come as no surprise that his most fervent prayer for the saints was that the scales would fall from the eyes of our hearts so that we might not miss the Sacred Romance (Eph. 1:18-19). Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

Adam was given the earth to rule, but when the test came — he folded. He didn’t speak, didn’t act on Eve’s behalf. Satan was there, attacking his wife, threatening the whole kingdom, and Adam didn’t do jack squat. He fell through his acquiescence, through his silence and passivity. That was how Satan became “the prince of this earth,” as Jesus called him. And why John said, “The whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19 NASB). Might I point out that many men fail as kings through abdication, through some sort of passivity? They refuse to take the role, or they refuse to make the tough decisions. Refuse to lead their people in battle. They look for a comfortable life. The other extreme, after Adam’s fall, is tyranny. Kings like Pharaoh and Saul and Herod. Men who use their power in order to control and manipulate. The pastor who won’t share the pulpit with anyone. The CEO who won’t take advice. The father who keeps his family cowed in fear. If a man would be a good king, he would do well to keep in mind these two extremes. The earth was given to man, but Satan usurped the throne, as Scar does in The Lion King, as Commodus does in Gladiator, as does Absalom, who seized David’s throne. Jesus came to win it back — to throw down the usurper, to break the claims of his rule, which were based entirely upon the sin of man. Through his absolute obedience to God and through his sacrificial death, he did indeed break every claim Satan might make to the kingdoms of this earth (see Col. 2:13–15). Now, “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given” to Jesus (Matt. 28:18 niv). And you, my brother, have been given that same authority. “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 2:6 NIV). To be seated with Christ in the heavenlies means that we share in his authority. He makes it plain in Luke 10:19: “I have given you authority ... to overcome all the power of the enemy” (NIV). Learning to live in this authority, to bring the kingdom of God to our little kingdoms on earth, that is what it means to become a true king. Want more? Order your copy of Fathered by God today

This is not to say the heart is only swirling emotion, mixed motives, and dark desire, without thought or reason. Far from it. According to Scripture, the heart is also where we do our deepest thinking. "Jesus, knowing what they were thinking in their hearts," is a common phrase in the Gospels. This might be most surprising for those who have accepted the Great Modern Mistake that "the mind equals reason and the heart equals emotion." Most people believe that. I heard it again, just last night, from a very astute and devoted young man. "The mind is our reason; the heart is emotion," he said. What popular nonsense. Solomon is remembered as the wisest man ever, and it was not because of the size of his brain. Rather, when God invited him to ask for anything in all the world, Solomon asked for a wise and discerning heart (1 Kings 3:9).Our deepest thoughts are held in our hearts. Scripture itself claims to be "sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (Heb. 4:12). Not the feelings of the heart, the thoughts of the heart. Remember, when the shepherds reported the news that a company of angels had brought them out in the field, Mary "pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19), as you do when some news of great import keeps you up in the middle of the night. If you have a fear of heights, no amount of reasoning will get you to go bungee jumping. And if you are asked why you're paralyzed at the thought of it, you won't be able to explain. It is not rational, but it is your conviction nonetheless. Thus, the writer of Proverbs preempts Freud by about two thousand years when he says, "As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Prov. 23:7 KJV). It is the thoughts and intents of the heart that shape a person's life. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

Forgive God? This idea is going to cause some readers to freak out. Just listen for a moment. If you are holding something in your heart against Jesus — the loss of someone you love, a painful memory from your past, simply the way your life has turned out — if you are holding that against Jesus, well, then, it is between you and Jesus. And no amount of ignoring it or being faithful in other areas of your life is going to make it go away. In order to move forward, you are going to need to forgive Jesus for whatever these things are. “But Jesus doesn’t need our forgiveness!” you protest. I didn’t say he did. I said that you need to forgive Jesus — you need it. Let me be clear: To forgive a person, we pardon a wrong done to us; "Forgiving" Jesus means to release the hurt and resentment we hold against him. This comes before understanding. We don’t often know why things have happened the way they have in our lives. What we do know is that we were hurt, and part of that hurt is toward Jesus, because in our hearts we believe he let it happen. Again, this is not the time for sifting theological nuances, but this is why it is so important for you to look at the world the way Jesus did — as a vicious battle with evil. When you understand you have an enemy that has hated your guts ever since you were a child, it will help you not to blame this stuff on God. Anyhow, the facts are it happened, we are hurt that it happened, and part of us believes Jesus could have done something about it and didn’t. That is why we need to forgive him. We do so in order that this part of us can draw near him again, and receive his love. Perhaps part of the fruit of that restoration will be that Jesus will then be able to explain to us why things happened the way they did. This is often the case. But whether we receive this or not, we know we need Jesus far more than we need understanding. And so we forgive. Restoration. That is our Jesus. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

Her child was snatched away from the dragon. ... Then there was war in heaven. (Revelation 12:5, 7 NLT) I would pay good money to have a nativity scene with Revelation 12 included. Not only would it capture the imagination, but it would also better prepare us to celebrate the holidays and to go on to live the Story Christmas invites us into.Your vision of the nativity was shaped by classic Christmas cards and lovely crèche displays. And while I still love those tableaus very much, I’m convinced they’re an almost total rewrite of the story. I understand this traditional imagery is probably dear to you, but friend, it’s also profoundly deceiving by creating all sorts of warm expectations—many quite subconscious—of what the nature of the Christian life is going to be like.But war in heaven the instant Jesus was born—this is an essential part of the Story. Yes — Christmas is the glow of candlelight, and a baby sleeping in a manger. It is starlight, shepherds in a field. But Christmas is also an invasion. The kingdom of God striking at the heart of the kingdom of darkness with violent repercussions. And victory.———————————Christmas is meant to remind us each year of the Great Story we live in. Not something cute and quaint from time gone by, but the most epic Story unfolding right now, all around us. What will help you remember that this year? Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

The incarnation is one of the greatest treasures of our faith. The world keeps pushing God away, feeling more comfortable with him up in the heavens somewhere. But in the coming of Jesus he draws near. Incredibly near. He takes on our humanity. How could he possibly get closer? He nurses at Mary’s breast.One of my favorite Christmas meditations comes from this passage by Chesterton (he is speaking of Bethlehem, and what it held in its foothills that fateful night):The strange kings fade into a far country and the mountains resound no more with the feet of the shepherds; and only the night and the cavern lie in fold upon fold over something more human than humanity.Savor that passage for a moment. The manger Mary used as a cradle held something more human than humanity? Do you think of Jesus as the most human human-being who ever lived?It’s true.The ravages of sin, neglect, abuse, and a thousand addictions have left us all a shadow of what we were meant to be. Jesus is humanity in its truest form. His favorite title for himself was the Son of Man. Not of God—of man. Too much “heavens” stuff pushes Jesus away. His humanity brings him close again. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

The best thing you can do at this point is simply begin to love Jesus.Just love him.It will open up your heart and soul to experiencing him, and to receiving his life. Just begin to make a practice of loving Jesus. As I’m driving in my car, I will simply tell him, “I love you.” Not once, like a sneeze, but over and over again: “I love, I love you, I love you.” It turns my whole being toward him in love. When I wake up and the sunshine is pouring through the window, I’ll say, “I love you.” I’ll look at a photograph of some fond memory, or some beautiful place, and I’ll say, “I love you.” A breeze will caress my face ever so gently, and I’ll turn into it and say, “I love you.” Anytime something makes me laugh. When I see a chipmunk or a wave, when I enjoy a movie. I love you, I love you, I love you. Find a few worship songs that lift your heart. Linger with them, play them over and over, and simply tell Jesus you love him. Put them on your iPod; play them in your car. The more you practice this, the richer it becomes. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

A slave feels reluctant to pray; they feel they have no right to ask, and so their prayers are modest and respectful. They spend more time asking forgiveness than they do praying for abundance. An orphan is not reluctant to pray; they feel desperate. But their prayers feel more like begging than anything else. But not sons; sons know who they are. Mine were just home for the holiday; all three of them. They are young men now, out making their way in the world. And as is fitting to their stage in life, they are living on limited means. But when they come home, they get to feast. The refrigerator and pantry is theirs to pillage and they don’t have to ask permission. When we go out to dinner, there is no question that dad will take care of the bill. For they are sons—they get to live under their father’s blessing; they get to drink from the abundance of my house (Ps. 36:8). And when the holidays were over and they packed up and left, they took with them my best shoes, my best sunglasses, some of my favorite books, climbing gear, and cigars—with my absolute pleasure and blessing. Luke was the last to go; he was hoping to pillage some of my travel gear for an upcoming trip. I said, “You are my son—everything I have is yours. Plunder as you will.” This is how sons get to live; this is how a father feels toward his sons. Want more? Order your copy of Moving Mountains today

Everyone is trying to find their way to joy, and if not joy, at least happiness. That’s a good desire, by the way: It fuels our search. It keeps us moving forward. Folks who give up even wanting to be happy are deep into what might be called depression. But in Christendom there seems to be this perennial debate about how to get there. One camp, rising in popularity for obvious reasons, promises a life above and beyond suffering. If we just worship/believe/proclaim/whatever, we can live in the fullness of the kingdom of God right now! We don’t have to be sick/poor/hurting. Victory is ours! There is a way around the suffering! The other camp—often in reaction to these bold claims—tries very hard to say that no, the promises of God are mostly for later. The healing, the breakthrough, the victory is later. After you die. In heaven. Some of the advocates of this position are very, very dear saints, who, unable to find breakthrough, have made a theology of their own disappointment. I just want to point out two things: First, suffering is guaranteed to the saints. Jesus says to the disciples and to us, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Second, joy is clearly promised to the children of God in this life. Jesus said to His disciples, “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full” (John 16:24 nasb). It’s not an either/or situation, thank God. Because, as much as many of us have tried, we don’t seem to be able to rid the world of suffering just by worshipping longer or praying harder or whatever the magic method is supposed to be. I believe a great deal of breakthrough and healing is available in this life. The history of the church is filled with such stories. I also believe joy and breakthrough are not opposed to suffering but are available in the midst of it. Suffering is not a failure of faith on our part; its presence does not mean the absence of the promises of God. We can live with suffering and joy simultaneously. How does this work? Joy is deeply rooted in the availability of God and His kingdom right here, right now. Sometimes we find breakthrough. Sometimes we find a deeper knowing of God in our suffering. But neither breakthrough nor suffering is ultimately the point. The joy that Paul discovered, the joy that Jesus knew and invited us into, begins in a deeper experience of God, whatever our situation might be. Want more? Order your copy of Defiant Joy today

The angel was joined by a vast host of others—the armies of heaven—praising God and saying, “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” (Luke 2:13–14 NLT)As I reflect upon the mystery of the incarnation, and the great invasion of the kingdom that began under cover of darkness in a remote village in the Middle East, so many wonders flood my heart. The wild plan of God to come the way he did, where he did, when he did, as he did. The great battle in the heavens. The immense cost. The staggering series of events that began to unfold. It really is breathtaking, more than any other story ever told.But above all, what I wanted to offer you this Christmas is this one simple thought: It worked.God came for you, and all that he planned and all he intended in Jesus Christ has come true. The rule of evil has been broken. You are ransomed. Your life is now filled with the life of God. The kingdom of God has broken through. Redemption is unfolding all over the earth, and will come to a glorious climax with the return of Jesus. Sin no longer reigns over you. Restoration is yours, now. And so many other glories.It worked. Hold on to that truth this Christmas, dear friend.———————————This glorious victory needs to be celebrated! How can you celebrate this wonderful truth today? Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

Walk into any large mall, museum, amusement park, university, or hospital, and you will typically meet at once a very large map with the famous red star and the encouraging words "You are here". These maps are offered to visitors as ways to orient themselves to their situation, get some perspective on things. This is the Big Picture. This is where you are in that picture. Hopefully you now know where to go. You have your bearings.Oh, that we had something like this for our lives."This is the Story in which you have found yourself. Here is how it got started. Here is where it went wrong. Here is what will happen next. Now this—this is the role you've been given. If you want to fulfill your destiny, this is what you must do. These are your cues. And here is how things are going to turn out in the end."We can.We can discover the Story. Maybe not with perfect clarity, maybe not in the detail that you would like, but in greater clarity than most of us now have, and that would be worth the price of admission. I mean, to have some clarity would be gold right now. Wouldn't it? Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

When I consider all that is at stake in this journey I am on, how vulnerable are my heart and the hearts of those I love, I am moved to fall on my face and cry out to God for the grace to remember. George MacDonald says it better in poetry:Were there but some deep, holy spell, wherebyAlways I should remember thee ...Lord, see thou to it, take thou remembrance’s load:Only when I bethink me can I cry;Remember thou, and prick me with love’s goad.When I can no more stir my soul to move,And life is but the ashes of a fire;When I can but remember that my heartOnce used to live and love, long and aspire—Oh, be thou then the first, the one thou art;Be thou the calling, before all answering love,And in me wake hope, fear, boundless desire.(Diary of an Old Soul )The final burden of remembrance does not rest on us; if it did, we should all despair. Jesus is called the “author and perfecter of our faith” (Rom. 12:2). He is the One who put the romance in our hearts and the One who first opened our eyes to see that our deepest desire is fulfilled in him. He started us on the journey, even though we may for long seasons forget him, he does not forget us.I am always with you;you hold me by my right hand.You guide me with your counsel,and afterward you will take me into glory ...My flesh and my heart may fail,but God is the strength of my heartand my portion forever. (Ps. 73:23–24, 26) Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

As we love him, experience him, allow his life to fill ours, the personality of Jesus transforms our personalities. The timid become bold and the bold become patient and the patient become fierce and the uptight become free and the religious become scandalously good. “They looked to Him and were radiant” (Psalm 34:5 NASB). They looked to Jesus and became like him. Loving Jesus helps us to become what human beings were meant to be. As Athanasius said, “He became what we are that we might become what he is.” We aren’t the only ones who need this desperately; the world needs this to happen in us.Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

Every age has a certain spirit or mood or climate to it. Ours is busyness. We’re all running like lemmings from sunup to way past sundown. What’s with all the energy drinks? There must be dozens now. RocketFuel. CrankYouUp. Not to mention the coffeehouses on every corner. Why do we need all this caffeine? And why do so many of us now need sleep aids to rest at night? Our grandparents didn’t. We thought the age of technology would make life simpler, easier. It has us by the throat. We need to operate at the speed of computers. Seriously, I’m irritated that my e-mail takes four seconds to boot up now, when it used to take ten. I realize I’m not the first to put this down on paper. People have been making this observation for a long time. We are running around like ants do when you kick in their hill, like rats on a wheel, like Carroll’s Mad Hatter. And for some reason, we either believe we can’t stop or we don’t want to. Like the prodigal son, we are not going to do a thing about this until we wake one day to realize we are sick of it and we want a different life. Till then, the life of not living but getting things done has its benefits. For one, it provides us with an illusion of security — I am tackling life, I am staying on top of things. It’s a false security, but we don’t believe that. We believe it’s our only road to security. Stay on top of things. We might not be so honest as to say, “God doesn’t seem particularly involved in taking care of these things for me, so I have to do it.” But that is our underlying conviction. After all, if we believed God was going to take care of all that concerns us, we wouldn’t kill ourselves trying to hold our world up. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today

Parents will often wonder where their toddlers learned to lie or how they came into the world so self-centered. It doesn’t need to be taught to them; it is inherent to human nature. Paul makes clear in Romans, “Sin entered the world through one man ... through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners” (5:12, 19). Of course, I am simply restating the doctrine of original sin, a core tenet of Christianity essential to Scripture.But that is not the end of the Story, thank God. The first Adam was only “a pattern of the one to come” (Rom. 5:14). He would foreshadow another man, the head of a new race, the firstborn of a new creation, whose life would mean transformation to those who would become joined to him: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man [Adam] the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man [Christ, the Last Adam] the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).A man comes down from heaven, slips into our world unnoticed, as Neo does in The Matrix, as Maximus does in Gladiator, as Wallace does in Braveheart. Yet he is no ordinary man, and his mission no ordinary mission. He comes as a substitute, a representative, as the destroyer of one system and the seed of something new. His death and resurrection break the power of the Matrix, release the prisoners, set the captives free. It is a historic fact. It really happened. And it is more than history. It is mythic in the first degree. Lewis said, “By becoming fact, it does not cease to be myth; that is the miracle.” Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

The armies of Israel have drawn up against the armies of the Philistines, but not a single shot has been fired from any bow. The reason, of course, is Goliath, a mercenary of tremendous size and strength, renowned for his skill in combat. He's killed many men bare-handed, and no one wants to be next. David is barely a teen when he goes to the camp and sees what is going on. He offers to fight the giant, at which point he is brought before the king, who in turn attempts to dissuade the lad. Saul says, "You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth" (1 Sam. 17:33 NIV). Sound advice, the likes of which I wager any of us would offer under the same circumstances. David replies:Your servant has been keeping his father's sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. (verses 34-37 NIV)Being a shepherd David learned lessons here that would carry him the rest of his life. The life of the shepherd was not a sweet little life with lambs around. It was a hard job, out in the field, months camping out in the wild on your own. And it had its effect. There is a settled confidence in the boy-he knows he has what it takes. But it is not an arrogance-he knows that God has been with him. He will charge Goliath, and take his best shot, trusting God will do the rest. That "knowing" is what we are after and it only comes through experience. And may I also point out that the experiences David speaks of here were physical in nature, they were dangerous, and they required courage.Want more? Order your copy of Fathered by God today

They will call him Immanuel, which means “God is with us.” (Matthew 1:23 NLT)I was listening to a few refrains from “O Holy Night”: “A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” and something deep in my spirit said, O yes, dear Jesus, we need hope. Come for this weary world. Actually, this world is more than weary, it’s coming apart at the seams. Something deep is unraveling. I wonder if you’ve felt it too. The barrenness of spirit, a desolation creeping across the earth.You can see this through the great ache of social concern—the rallying to offer a helping hand, which is easier than offering Jesus. Now, we are to care for the poor and the oppressed. Yes. But let me ask: What is the unique contribution of Christianity to this weary world? It’s not social concern. It is Jesus and his kingdom. God didn’t offer the shepherds a grant for their micro economics, or the little outcast family an apartment. He offered them a Savior. He offered them himself. There’s simply no other way to save this weary, unraveling world.Think again about the gift in the manger. God saw what the world most desperately needed, and what he chose to give us was ... himself. To care for the world is to offer Jesus Christ. This is the message of Christmas. “Let every heart prepare him room.” Then heaven and nature will sing. Then will break the new and glorious morn. Jesus, may your hope and glory come.———————————Father — I receive the gift of Christmas. I receive the gift of Jesus Christ and all it means for my life. Thank you, with all my heart. Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

He enables us to love. He gives us the greatest treasure in all creation: a heart. For he intends that we should be his intimate allies, to borrow Dan Allender's phrase, who join in the Sacred Circle of intimacy that is the core of the universe, to share in this great Romance.Just as we have lost our wonder at the world around us, we have forgotten what a treasure the human heart is. All of the happiness we have ever known and all of the happiness we hope to find is unreachable without a heart. You could not live or love or laugh or cry had God not given you a heart.And with that heart comes something that just staggers me.God gives us the freedom to reject him.He gives to each of us a will of our own.Good grief, why? He knows what free-willed creatures can do. He has already suffered one massive betrayal in the rebellion of the angels. He knows how we will use our freedom, what misery and suffering, what hell will be unleashed on earth because of our choices. Why? Is he out of his mind?The answer is as simple and staggering as this: if you want a world where love is real, you must allow each person the freedom to choose. Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

Fear causes us to make agreements like, “I cannot trust you will stay, so I will do everything in my power to make you stay.” Or “I cannot trust that I will not be hurt, so I will keep my distance from everyone.” Or “I cannot trust that you will not be hurt, so I will do my best to keep you as safe as possible in every conceivable way.” Yet God wants us to trust. To trust Him. God is nothing if not trustworthy: He is good. He is faithful. He is for us. Everything He has done has been out of love for us. We can see this even in the extravagance of the world He created and placed us in. Look around. Look at the beauty and the splendor of creation. Look at the majesty presented in the sunrise, in the sunset, and in the stars; the sky is strewn with abundant glory. Look even at the Colorado River flowing with endless whimsy, wonder, and strength. And look at your-self. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, a vessel of the Holy Spirit, the very dwelling place of God, because He loves you and wants to share your life with you every single moment. God is our partner. He is our ally. He is our friend. He is our helper. We can trust Him. And because we can trust Him, we no longer have to live in fear. We can step out in trust, in faith, and live with His strength. Where is He inviting you to trust Him? With your family? With your lack of one? With an adventure, a move, a class, a friendship, a kayak trip? Where is He asking you to step out in faith and go forward not in your own strength but His? In your own healing? In pursuing more of His life for you, in you? No matter what area of your life God is calling you to trust Him with, know that because of His trustworthiness, you don’t have to be afraid. You can pray, “Jesus, come and uproot my fear. Replace it with a revelation of Your goodness. Overwhelm my fear with Your love. Come into the gap in my soul between what I profess to believe and what I truly do. I want to know You. Deeply. Truly. In the way that lends itself to easily trusting You. Come for me again, oh Faithful Friend.” Want more? Order your copy of Defiant Joy today

In the gospel of John, Jesus extends the offer to anyone who realizes that his life just isn't touching his deep desire: "If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! For the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow out from within" (John 7:37-38 NLT). His message wasn't something new, but it confounded the religious leaders of the day. Surely, those scripturally learned Jews must have recalled God's long-standing invitation to them, spoken seven hundred years earlier through the prophet Isaiah,Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. (55:1-2)Somehow, the message had gotten lost by the time Jesus showed up on the scene. The Jews of his day were practicing a very soul-killing spirituality, a lifeless religion of duty and obligation. Desire was out of the question. No wonder they feared Jesus. He came along and started appealing to desire. To the weary, Jesus speaks of rest. To the lost, he speaks of finding your way. Again and again and again, Jesus takes people back to their desires. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matt. 7:7). These are outrageous words, provocative words. Ask, seek, knock — these words invite and arouse desire. What is it that you want? They fall on deaf ears if there is nothing you want, nothing you're looking for, nothing you're hungry enough to bang on a door over. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

God speaks to Israel through the prophet Isaiah when she is surrounded by enemies and making every effort to appease them through diplomacy, gifts, treaties, and bribes, and says this to her:"You went to Molech with olive oil and increased your perfumes. You sent your ambassadors far away; you descended to the grave itself! You were wearied by all your ways, but you would not say, 'It is hopeless.' You found renewal of your strength, and so you did not faint" (Isa. 57:9-10).God calls Israel to repent by admitting her weariness and fainting. Instead, she looks for ways to use her personal assets to redeem herself. Jesus spoke to the people about rest and thirst. The Pharisees demanded that they obey a constantly growing weight of religious laws and traditions, and chastised them for staggering under the load. They led people in the exact opposite direction from where their salvation lay —in admitting their weariness and fainting. As long as they hoped in their self-sufficiency, they would not call out to God and receive forgiveness, healing, and restoration.So many of our contemporary churches operate on this same system of guilt. When our people are crying out for communion and rest, we ask them to teach another Sunday school class. When they falter under the load, we admonish them with Scriptures on serving others. One wonders what would happen if all activity motivated by this type of guilt were to cease for six months. Much of organized Christianity would collapse even as the Pharisees saw happen to their own religious system. As Jesus talked about thirst and rest, he brought people to the reality of their own heart. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

Believing God is good in the midst of waiting is incredibly hard. Believing God is good in the midst of immense sorrow, loss, or pain is even more difficult. Those are the times that our faith, the treasure of our hearts, is tested by fire and becomes gold. What we come to know of God and the terrain he comes to inhabit in our hearts through the trial leads people to say, “I wouldn’t change a thing.” That’s the crazy, supernatural realm of God. I know that there have been many times when God didn’t answer your prayers in the way you wanted or in the timing you wanted. But what he did in the end was far better. Even if the “far better” was your coming to depend on him more deeply through the travail. All of us are living lives that are wondrous and filled with heartaches. That is real. I can only imagine what you are living in … waiting for … longing for … weeping for. Holding on to your faith for. I know what I am living in. Gold is being forged. Priceless, immeasurable gold. To paraphrase Philip Yancey: faith believes ahead of time what can only be seen by looking back. There will come a day when we will look back and understand. But in the waiting, may God strengthen our hearts to hold on to his. Want more? Order your copy of Becoming Myself today

“A man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then to return. So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas. ‘Put this money to work,’ he said, ‘until I come back.’“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’“He was made king, however, and returned home. Then he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money, in order to find out what they had gained with it.“The first one came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned ten more.’‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.“The second came and said, ‘Sir, your mina has earned five more.’“His master answered, ‘You take charge of five cities.’” (Luke 19:12–19) The allegory is hardly veiled. Clearly, Jesus is the man of noble birth who left to have himself appointed king (which took place at his ascension) and will return. Upon his return, he rewards his faithful servants (that would be us, his followers). He repeats the promise but ups the ante in the tale of the sheep and goats: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world” (Matthew 25:31–36). We’ve gone from houses to cities to kingdoms. We are given kingdoms. Which helps to make sense of why we are said to reign with him. Can you see the theme here? The victorious king gladly rewards his faithful companions. It is a mind-set almost entirely lost to our age. Who even talks about reward anymore? Who anticipates it? Expects it? Honestly, I have never had one private conversation with any follower of Christ who spoke of their hope of being handsomely rewarded. Not once. Ever. This isn’t virtue, friends; we have not exceeded the saints and Scripture itself in our humility. It is a sign of our complete and total bankruptcy.Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

The Lord will march out like a champion, like a warrior he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies. ... Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give nations in exchange for you, and peoples in exchange for your life. ...Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth — everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. (Isaiah 42:13, 43:4–7)In the world’s darkest moment, love shines through. In spite of betrayal, idolatry, and chronic unbelief on our part, God loves us and pursues us. And his love wins the ransom of mankind. Jesus of Nazareth — the great Prince, son of the King — comes and gives his life to rescue his beloved.Christianity is the greatest love story the world has ever known.All of this is still unfolding, by the way — right now, as you read these words. The great and terrible clash between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness continues. They are fighting for the human heart. At its core this ancient struggle comes down to one question: Can a kingdom of love prevail? God insists that “love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8). Satan laughs. The world laughs. Something in us laughs, too. It sounds so utterly naïve. Love never fails? It seems like the most failure-prone thing on earth. Want more? Order your copy of Love & War today

Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”The narrow way is filled with story after story of God unearthing a man’s desire — and then hiding him. David was told he’d be king, then spent the next fourteen years hiding out in caves with a bunch of misfits. Joseph was told he’d be elevated to a place above all his brothers, then was thrown into a pit by those brothers and sold into slavery. It was many years and much suffering before he was ready, in his soul as a man, to lead all those God had entrusted to his care.We’ve often assumed that desire and its fulfillment are intended for the same season. But what if the desire was planted in us first and foremost to fuel the slow and steady process of becoming the kind of person who can handle all that has been entrusted to him by God? What if there was a path other than fighting bravely and dying quickly? If there was, would you take it?The ascent of the masculine soul is powered by this radical idea: our inward life is intended to become greater than our outward life. In God’s humor and wildness, he often seems to use the external demands on our lives to invite us deeper into this internal process. Rather than taking the bait to build my kingdom, I must pause, take inventory, and ask, Who do I want to become? Want more? Order your copy of Becoming a King today

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] There are two basic approaches to college education. Plan A is merely “career grooming.” Choose the professional trajectory your life will take, follow the prescribed courses that will prepare you to enter that profession, and proceed as quickly as possible up the ranks. I understand the appeal of this approach because it seems to make sense and promise results — at least on paper. Colleges love to promise career results and parents love those promises. But there are an awful lot of disappointed econ majors out there working at Starbucks. “Follow this plan and you’ll get this life” can be a real shocker when it doesn’t pan out; it leaves you feeling betrayed if this was the assumption you were working under. This is especially true in a volatile global economy. Plan A ignores one vital piece of reality: very few people end up working in the field they studied in college. I don’t know anyone, personally. Even my doctor friend grew tired of the medical profession and now works in a nonprofit. I majored in theater as an undergrad and then did a master’s in counseling; Mom chose sociology. Now we are both writers. Life just doesn’t follow a clean, clear, and linear path. More importantly, people don’t. I’m reading a fascinating book called Shop Class as Soulcraft; the author is a young man who graduated with a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Chicago, took a sweet job as executive director of a Washington think tank, found himself constantly tired and dispirited, and after six months quit to pursue his dream of running a motorcycle repair shop. Times have changed. My father came from the generation who graduated college, signed on with a company, and stayed for life. But today’s signs indicate that your generation will have something like nine different careers — not merely jobs but careers — over the course of your life. Want more? Order your copy of Killing Lions today

Christ did not die for an idea. He died for a person, and that person is you. But there again, we have been led astray. Ask any number of people why Christ came, and you'll receive any number of answers, but rarely the real one. "He came to bring world peace." "He came to teach us the way of love." "He came to die so that we might go to heaven." "He came to bring economic justice." On and on it goes, much of it based in a partial truth. But wouldn't it be better to let him speak for himself ?Jesus steps into the scene. He reaches back to a four-hundred-year-old prophecy to tell us why he's come. He quotes from Isaiah 61:1, which goes like this:The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.The meaning of this quotation has been clouded by years of religious language and ceremonial draping. What is he saying? It has something to do with good news, with healing hearts, with setting someone free.Christ could have chosen any one of a thousand other passages to explain his life purpose. But he did not. He chose this one; this is the heart of his mission. Everything else he says and does finds its place under this banner: "I am here to give you back your heart and set you free." That is why the glory of God is man fully alive: it's what he said he came to do. But of course. The opposite can't be true. "The glory of God is man barely making it, a person hardly alive." How can it bring God glory for his very image, his own children, to remain so badly marred, broken, captive? Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

"Somehow," notes Os Guinness, "we human beings are never happier than when we are expressing the deepest gifts that are truly us." Now, some children are gifted toward science, and others are born athletes. But whatever their specialty, all children are inherently creative. Give them a barrel of Legos and a free afternoon and my boys will produce an endless variety of spaceships and fortresses and who knows what. It comes naturally to children; it's in their nature, their design as little image bearers. A pack of boys let loose in a wood soon becomes a major Civil War reenactment. A chorus of girls, upon discovering a trunk of skirts and dresses, will burst into the Nutcracker Suite. The right opportunity reveals the creative nature.This is precisely what happens when God shares with mankind his own artistic capacity and then sets us down in a paradise of unlimited potential. It is an act of creative invitation, like providing Monet with a studio for the summer, stocked full of brushes and oils and empty canvases. Or like setting Martha Stewart loose in a gourmet kitchen on a snowy winter weekend, just before the holidays. You needn't provide instructions or motivation; all you have to do is release them to be who they are, and remarkable things will result. As the poet Hopkins wrote, "What I do is me: for that I came."Oh, how we long for this — for a great endeavor that draws upon our every faculty, a great "life's work" that we could throw ourselves into. "God has created us and our gifts for a place of his choosing," says Guinness, "and we will only be ourselves when we are finally there." Our creative nature is essential to who we are as human beings — as image bearers — and it brings us great joy to live it out with freedom and skill. Even if it's a simple act like working on your photo albums or puttering in the garden — these, too, are how we have a taste of what was meant to rule over a small part of God's great kingdom.Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

The coronation of Jesus. Perhaps the most joyful, certainly the most triumphant moment in history, second only to the resurrection. For now the glorious kingdom will come, the eternal summer romp of men and angels. His crowning ensures the triumph of a kingdom of laughter and beauty and life, forever. But it was a long and circuitous road to that throne. No king has ever taken such a humble path. His first step is a staggering descent — the Son of God becomes a son of man.Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient. (Philippians 2:5–8 nrsv)“Humbled himself?” Humility hardly begins to describe the incarnation.It boggles the mind. The eternal Son of God, “Light of Light, Very God of Very God ... one substance with the Father,” spent nine months developing in Mary’s uterus. Jesus passed through her birth canal. He had to learn to walk. The Word of God had to learn to talk. He who calls the stars by name had to learn the names of everything, just as you did. “This is a cup. Can you say cup? Cuuup.”Or did you think baby Jesus came into the world with the vocabulary of Dictionary.com? Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

Rescuing the human heart is the hardest mission in the world.The dilemma of the Story is this: we don't know if we want to be rescued. We are so enamored with our small stories and our false gods, we are so bound up in our addictions and our self-centeredness and take-it-for-granted unbelief that we don't even know how to cry out for help. And the Evil One has no intention of letting his captives walk away scot-free. He seduces us, deceives us, assaults us—whatever it takes to keep us in darkness.Like a woman bound to an affair from which she cannot get free, like a man so corrupted he no longer knows his own name, the human race is captive in the worst way possible — we are captives of the heart.Their hearts are always going astray. (Hebrews 3:10)God is filled with the jealousy of a wounded lover. He has been betrayed time and again.The challenge God faces is rescuing a people who have no idea how captive they are; no real idea how desperate they are. We know we long for Eden, but we hesitate to give ourselves back to God in abandoned trust. We are captivated by the lies of our Enemy.But God has something up his sleeve. Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

Each person knows that now his body is the temple of God: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?" (1 Cor. 6:19). Indeed it is. "Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16). Okay — each of us is now the temple of God. So where, then, is the Holy of Holies? Your heart.That's right — your heart. Paul teaches us in Ephesians that "Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith" (3:17). God comes down to dwell in us, in our hearts. Now, we know this: God cannot dwell where there is evil. "You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell" (Ps. 5:4). Something pretty dramatic must have happened in our hearts, then, to make them fit to be the dwelling place of a holy God.Of course, none of this can happen for us until we give our lives back to God. We cannot know the joy or the life or the freedom of heart I've described here until we surrender our lives to Jesus and surrender them totally. Renouncing all the ways we have turned from God in our hearts, we forsake the idols we have worshiped and given our hearts over to. We turn, and give ourselves body, soul, and spirit back to God, asking him to cleanse our hearts and make them new. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

Most people go through their entire lives without anyone, ever, speaking honest, loving, direct words to the most damaging issues in their lives. Pause for a moment, and count the times this has been done for you. Better, pause and count the times you have offered this to someone you love. Let’s be honest — why aren’t we more honest with each other? Because it will cost us. Socrates didn’t exactly get a warm reception for telling the truth. John the Baptist got his head handed to him on a platter for telling it like it is. Kill the messenger. We don’t want to pay that bill. If we speak as honestly as Jesus does, if we even venture into the hallowed sanctuary of someone else’s precious sin, it is going to make the relationship messy to say the least. Why won’t you tell your mother-in-law that she is a fearful, controlling woman? Why won’t you tell your pastor that his children hate him, hate his sanctified hypocrisy? Why won’t you tell your best friend that most of the time they are selfish and self-centered, and you carry all the burden of maintaining the relationship? We’re cowards, that’s why. As I push a little more deeply into my own motives, I realize I just don’t care enough. I know what it’s like to be with so-and-so. I see their effect on others. But I pretend I don’t see; I turn a blind eye. I probably make a dozen choices a day not to see what I see. We all do. And why is that, really? Because to risk speaking as Jesus does takes time, because then I’m involved, because who knows what their reaction will be, because, because, because. What I’m saying is I don’t really care enough to risk the tension, backlash, penalties, or rejection. And so our collective silence — carefully justified as being polite or not wanting to be judgmental or whatever — our silence dooms each of us to remaining that hardened Pharisee or controlling Martha for the rest of our lives. Jesus is the boy in the tale of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” — while everyone else fawns and feigns, pretending, looking the other way, he says, “Excuse me, but did you know that you are buck naked?” I’m not stunned by Jesus’ words to either of his hosts. I’m stunned by the courage and love this takes. The man shoots straight. Sometimes he’s playful; sometimes he’s fierce; the next moment he’s generous. This is the beauty of his disruptive honesty — you can count on Jesus to tell you the truth in the best possible way for you to hear it.Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

You have a heart for redemption. Your kingdom heart longs for restoration and reconciliation, for justice, for the recovery of all that has been lost. What is the redemption that your heart longs for on a global level? What passions arouse your heart? Is your heart for a people group? A community or nation? For the arts or sciences? You have very particular passions for justice and redemption, and they will be realized. Your heart needs to know this—they will be realized. And what is the redemption your heart aches for on a personal level—for your family, your friends? What cries fill your prayers in the night? Oh, to see the day that alcohol no longer holds a family line in its grips; when abuse no longer tears a family apart. Nor poverty, or shame, or mental illness. You have very special and particular longings for redemption for those you love. And, my dear friends—those longings were given to you by the God who shares them, and they, too, will be fulfilled. Can plunder be taken from warriors,or captives be rescued from the fierce? But this is what the LORD says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh; they will be drunk on their own blood, as with wine. Then all mankind will knowthat I, the LORD, am your Savior, your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” (Isaiah 49:24–26) The promise of justice fulfilled is one of the great hopes of the coming kingdom. Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

Caring for our own hearts isn’t selfishness; it’s how we begin to love.Yes, we care for our hearts for the sake of others. Does that sound like a contradiction? Not at all. What will you bring to others if your heart is empty, dried up, pinned down? Love is the point. And you can’t love without your heart, and you can’t love well unless your heart is well.When it comes to the whole subject of loving others, you must know this: how you handle your own heart is how you will handle theirs. This is the wisdom behind Jesus’ urging us to love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31). “A horrible command,” as C. S. Lewis points out, “if the self were simply to be hated.” If you dismiss your heart, you will end up dismissing theirs. If you expect perfection of your heart, you will raise that same standard for them. If you manage your heart for efficiency and performance, that is what you’ll pressure them to be.“But,” you protest, “I have lots of grace for other people. I’m just hard on myself.” I tried the same excuse for years. It doesn’t work. Even though we may try to be merciful toward others while we neglect or beat up ourselves, they can see how we treat our own hearts, and they will always feel the treatment will be the same for them. They are right. Eventually, inevitably, we will treat them poorly too. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

We need God to help us understand his Word. We can’t separate a walk with God from our reading of Scripture. The two go hand in hand. Like having a tour guide as you wander the halls of the Louvre. “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:15–17). Too many people approach Scripture without an intimacy with God, and they either end up frustrated because they’ve gotten so little out of it or, far worse, amass an intellectual understanding quite apart from any real communion with God. It usually results in religious pride. The Bible is meant to be read in fellowship with God. Things can get really weird if we don’t. Having offered that caveat, let me say that the more we know the Scriptures and, the more they become a part of us, the more we’ll find that we can walk with God. Having spent a good deal of time in the Word of God, you’ll give the Holy Spirit a library within you to draw upon. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today

I bought a new journal this week because my old one had filled up, and I had more time this morning than usual to linger with God before heading into the day. So I pour myself a cup of coffee, sit down on the couch, and pull out the journal. I always feel strange about writing on the first page of a new journal—all those clean, white pages, nothing yet having been set down. It feels momentous. Kind of like a new beginning. Or at least a new era. What will unfold? And what should I put on the first page? I always have this feeling that it needs to be significant. After all, this is the opening page of a new book in my life, the next chapter with God. It seems to deserve something weighty. Something transcendent. Looking down at the blank page, I quietly ask God in my heart, What needs to go here? You know what he said. My love. So that is what I write down. That is all I write on that opening page. Two words. “My love.” It is more than enough. Whatever else gets written in this journal, whatever stories told, whatever prayers, all the processing of life, let it all come under this. Let it be a continuation of this. His love. I sit there and look at it—let it sink in. I am turning my heart toward his love. Letting it be true. Letting it be life to me. What else, Lord? Believe my love. Yes, I do. I believe your love. And something in me is shifting. I am coming to believe it more than I ever have. It is changing me. I feel less driven. Less compulsive. Less grasping. And less empty. I feel like I want to stay here. To live in his love. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today

In Romans 8, Paul says something outrageous. He says that all our sufferings are "not worth comparing" with the glory that will be revealed in us. The human race has seen an unspeakable amount of suffering. What can possibly make that seem like nothing? "The glory that will be revealed in us" (8:18). The Great Restoration. Paul then goes on to say, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed" (v. 19). The release of a fully restored creation is being more or less held back, waiting upon our restoration. Only when we have been restored can we take our place again as the kings and queens of creation. Or did you not know? The day is coming when Christ will appoint you as one of his regents over his great and beautiful universe. This has been his plan all along.When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. Then the King will say to those on his right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." (Matt. 25:31-34, emphasis added)Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. I tell you the truth, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. (Matt. 24:45-47, emphasis added)And they will reign for ever and ever. (Rev. 22:5, emphasis added) Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

Now, rest is just one of the ways we receive the life of God. We stop, set all of our busyness down, and allow ourselves to be replenished. This is supposed to happen regularly. The original prescription was weekly. So why does rest feel like a luxury? Seriously, it feels irresponsible. We think we can drive ourselves like oxen fifty weeks a year, resurrect in a two-week vacation, then go back and do it all again. That is madness. My pushing and striving cut me off from the life I so desperately need. I don’t even think to stop and ask, Is this what you’d have me do, Lord? Do you want me to paint the bathroom? Volunteer at church? Stay late at work? So God sends this downpour to keep me from squandering my vacation by running like a greyhound. He loves me too much to leave me to my own devices. I’m back to the shepherd and the sheep. When the sheep follow the shepherd, they find pasture. They find life. Life doesn’t just magically come to us. We have to make ourselves available to it. There is a lifestyle that allows us to receive the life of God. I know that if I will live more intimately with Jesus and follow his voice, I will have a much better chance of finding the life I long for. I know it. If I will listen to his voice and let him set the pace, if I will cooperate in my transformation, I will be a much happier man. And so a new prayer has begun to rise within me. I am asking God, What is the life you want me to live? If we can get an answer to that question, it will change everything. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today

The question lodged deep in our hearts, hidden from our conscious minds, is: "Do you care for me, God?"What's under that question?Blaise Pascal, in his Pensées, says, "The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of." What's under that question is our personal stories, often punctuated by the Message of the Arrows: parents who were emotionally absent; bedtimes without words or hugs; ears that were too big and noses that were too small; others chosen for playground games while we were not; and prayers about all these things seemingly met with silence. And embedded in our stories, deep down in our heart, in a place so well guarded that they have rarely if ever been exposed to the light of day, are other grief-laden and often angry questions: "God, why did you allow this to happen to me? Why did you make me like this? What will you allow to happen next?" In the secret places of our heart, we believe God is the One who did not protect us from these things or even the One who perpetrated them upon us. Our questions about him make us begin to live with a deep apprehension that clings anxiously to the depths of our hearts ... "Do you really care for me, God?"This is the question that has shipwrecked many of our hearts, leaving them grounded on reefs of pain and doubt, no longer free to accompany us on spiritual pilgrimage. We might be able to rationalize away that question by telling ourselves that we need to be more careful, or that sometimes others are just bad. We can even breathe a sigh of relief when we realize that trouble has come from our own sin. But even the careful, legalistic, and constricted lifestyle that arises out of thinking we can avoid trouble through our own devices shipwrecks when the Arrows seem to strike us out of nowhere. What are we to make of God's wildness in allowing these things to happen? Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

Our experience of Jesus is limited most often by the limits we put on him! A painful truth, but also a hopeful one. Perhaps we can take down some of those barriers. Most of the limits we put on Jesus happen unconsciously. Sometimes we place the limits intentionally. And of course, a trainload is dumped on us by our context (in which case the parable could begin, “One day a man was boarded up inside his house by his past,” or, “by the leaders of his religious community”). But I’m not looking to fix blame. I’m trying to help us find Jesus. As I said at the beginning of the book, though Jesus has been vandalized by both religion and the world, he is still alive and very much himself. He’s still the same beautiful outlaw, with the same personality — though it does require removing some debris nowadays to know him as he truly is. Step one to a deeper experience of Jesus is knowing what to look for. That’s why we have been looking at his personality, setting him free from the religious marshmallow. If you can hang on to this, an entire new world will open up for you. This is a Jesus you can actually love because this is who he is. Step two involves removing some of the debris that has been piled in the way, so that we can begin to experience him, share our lives with him. For example, if you believe, for whatever reason, that “Jesus doesn’t speak to me,” it’s going to be hard to hear him speaking to you. Or believe it was him when he does. For the very same reasons, if you hold in your heart that “Jesus doesn’t really love me,” as poor Jolie did, then it will be awfully hard to experience the love of Jesus. Are you following me? It is a stunning realization: You will find Jesus pretty much as you expect to. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

If we forget — no, when we forget — who God is, what He has done, and who we are in Him and to Him, we put ourselves in great peril. We cannot live well nor arrive at the end of our journey triumphant unless we remember. Yes, there are many things that help us to remember. But one that constantly surrounds us — if we will have the eyes to see — is nature itself. Creation shouts the glory of the Lord. It speaks of His character, His power, His generosity, His presence. It tells us of God’s beauty, His splendor, His majesty, and His goodness. I was reminded of this last summer when we spent a week surrounded by the majesty of the Tetons. The deep blue of Jackson Lake holding the gaze of the immovable jagged lines of mountains grand. The otherworldly sounds of bugling elk, varied and haunting, weaving through the air. The magnificent bulls running to chase one another off in their annual challenge of strength. Summer at its zenith like a ripe peach ready to fall. Greens hinting of gold, the last fling of intense summer heat wild in its glory. Natural beauty is more than a balm. It is a testament. Nature is God’s Pinterest page, reminding us that joy is the greatest reality. That there is beauty that is deep and untouchable. That there are rhythms to nature and tempos to life. Goodness and truth prevail. The promises of God are eternal. Sitting on our back porch the other morning, looking and listening as the quiet new day began, I was reminded again of all these things. I love the early morning hours. The stillness. The gentle breezes through the aspens. The light feet of a passing curious chipmunk. The flurry of a hummingbird as it wings its way to the feeder. Sunshine. Warmth. Beauty. God speaks through creation. And what does He speak of? Goodness. Presence. Intimacy. Care. Splendor. Strength. Tenderness. Love. Bounty. Magnificence. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you” (Isa. 55:12 NASB). Of course they will.Want more? Get your copy of Defiant Joy today

Life is now a battle and a journey. As Eugene Peterson reminds us, “We must fight the forces that oppose our becoming whole; we must find our way through difficult and unfamiliar territory to our true home.” It’s not that there aren’t joy and beauty, love and adventure now — there are. The invasion of the kingdom has begun. But life in its fullness has yet to come. So we must take seriously the care of our hearts. We must watch over our desire with a fierce love and vigilance, as if we were protecting our most precious possession. We must do battle with the enemies of our hearts — those sirens that would seduce and shipwreck our desire and those arrows that aim to kill it outright. And we must journey forward, toward God, toward the Great Restoration and the Adventures to come. How awful to reach the end of our life’s road and find we haven’t brought our hearts along with us.So let me say it again: life is now a battle and a journey. This is the truest explanation for what is going on, the only way to rightly understand our experience. Life is not a game of striving and indulgence. It is not a long march of duty and obligation. It is not, as Henry Ford once said, “one damn thing after another.” Life is a desperate quest through dangerous country to a destination that is, beyond all our wildest hopes, indescribably good. Only by conceiving of our days in this manner can we find our way safely through. You see, different roads lead different places. To find the Land of Desire, you must take the Journey of Desire. You can’t get there by any other means. If we are to take up the trail and get on with our quest, we’ve got to get our hearts back...which means getting our desire back. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

When we forget (and oh, how we forget), our senses can trigger an awakening of remembrance and place, and suddenly we are back as though it were yesterday. Sense-memory is such an exquisite gift from God, especially our sense of smell; the olfactory system is the one most laden with memory. You’ve experienced this I’m sure — one whiff of cut grass, canned peaches, salt air or pine bark, and you are back in your dearest places and memories. For me, the sweet, moist, almost tobacco-like blend of cottonwood, willow, and river bottom—riparian ecosystems—will forever mean summer, adventure, wildness, family. As I watch the snow fall outside my window, I return to the stories of this past summer, and my soul is nourished. Comforted. Opened again to the goodness of God.Try this: name three beautiful truths that came to you last year, moments when you had utter clarity and your soul was practically rescued by it. No? How about this: name three delightful gift experiences from God in the last several months. You see what I mean. Forgetfulness is a spiritual pandemic ravaging humanity, with dangerous and lethal repercussions. This is why God strikes the bells to “remember” so often in the Old and New Testaments:Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. (Deuteronomy 4:9)In that day their strong cities ... will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation. You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. (Isaiah 17:9–10)Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast. (Revelation 3:3)By the way, this intentional use of memory is a cure for one of the soul’s most common diseases, that “what have you done for me lately?” posture we fall into towards God. That unattractive attitude of ransomed Israel when they whined, “Sure, you delivered us from slavery; you’ve miraculously fed us every morning; but what about spring water? Can you do that? What about some meat?” I hate this part of me. Will you come through for my children this time? For this trip? This need? It’s embarrassing.Memory pulls us out by turning back to the goodness of God in our past. It allows us to savor the many gifts he has given. I’m suggesting you establish a practice of it. Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today

Walking with God leads to receiving his intimate counsel, and counseling leads to deep restoration. As we learn to walk with God and hear his voice, he is able to bring up issues in our hearts that need speaking to. Some of those wounds were enough to break our hearts, create a rift in the soul, and so we need his healing as well. This is something Jesus walks us into—sometimes through the help of another person who can listen and pray with us, sometimes with God alone. As David said in Psalm 23, he leads us away, to a quiet place, to restore the soul. Our first choice is to go with him there—to slow down, unplug, accept the invitation to come aside. You won't find healing in the midst of the Matrix. We need time in the presence of God. This often comes on the heels of God's raising some issue in our hearts or after we've just relived an event that takes us straight to that broken place, or waking as I did to a raw emotion.Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. (Ps. 86:11-12)When we are in the presence of God, removed from distractions, we are able to hear him more clearly, and a secure environment has been established for the young and broken places in our hearts to surface. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”For many years, we were like just about everybody else: unconsciously forsaking honest soul rest, always going, with overfilled calendars and little to show in the category of true rest and simple delight. Sundays were much like other days, packed with activity and low on rest, restoration, or sacred space.Out of immense pain and burnout, we began our recovery and eventually chose to cultivate a lifestyle fueled by weekly and annual sabbath. One day a week is now a no-fly zone in our house. We don’t do things that aren’t somehow connected to Eden and the restoration of all things. These days are set aside for conversation, space, and any sorts of activities that allow us to hit pause on all the “not yet” and “not done,” choosing to delight in the goodness of the life we have experienced in God.In general when we sabbath, the cell phones are off, we don’t schedule things, we wake up and linger, and we play and take our time. It annoys friends and frustrates people who can’t find us (but I believe it’s my ministry to them now). It takes immense courage to stop and settle in, because you’re never done. One buddy lamented this afternoon, “I will die with emails in my in-box.”When do you truly stop and settle in? Not because the work is done, but because you have become the kind of person who is able to value a pause — and even more, a celebration, right within the “unfinished” — as fuel for the soul? Want more? Order your copy of Becoming a King today