Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

All good things come to an end. I hate that phrase. It's a lie. Even our troubles and our heartbreaks tell us something about our true destiny. The tragedies that strike us to the core and elicit the cry "this isn't the way it was supposed to be!" are also telling the truth — it isn't the way it was supposed to be. And so Pascal writes,Man is so great that his greatness appears even in knowing himself to be miserable. A tree has no sense of its misery. It is true that to know we are miserable is to be miserable; but to know we are miserable is also to be great. Thus all the miseries of man prove his grandeur; they are the miseries of a dignified personage, the miseries of a dethroned monarch … What can this incessant craving, and this impotence of attainment mean, unless there was once a happiness belonging to man, of which only the faintest traces remain, in that void which he attempts to fill with everything within his reach?Should the king in exile pretend he is happy there? Should he not seek his own country? His miseries are his ally; they urge him on. And so let them grow, if need be. But do not forsake the secret of life; do not despise those kingly desires. We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain — money, position, the approval of others, or just to get away from the discontent itself — it's not worth it. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" (Matt 16:26). Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book Becoming a King.Let’s face it, there’s nothing like marriage to allure us and at the same time make us spontaneously combust with fear or anger at a moment’s notice. In the middle years of marriage, youthful fantasies can give way to painful realities. Mike Mason spoke some of my favorite words on the disruptive power of marriage.A marriage, or a marriage partner, may be compared to a great tree growing right up through the center of one’s living room. It is something that is just there, and it is huge, and everything has been built around it, and wherever one happens to be going — to the fridge, to bed, to the bathroom, or out the front door — the tree has to be taken into account. It cannot be gone through; it must respectfully be gone around. It is somehow bigger and stronger than oneself. True, it could be chopped down, but not without tearing the house apart. And certainly it is beautiful, unique, exotic; but also, let’s face it, it is at times an enormous inconvenience.A decorated U.S. Special Forces warrior recently confessed to me, “I can handle any firefight and a three-hundred-man ambush, no problem. My role and objectives in war are clear. It is my life at home I can’t handle — my marriage, my kids, my mortgage. I’m failing. I feel like I live in Afghanistan and I’m deployed to my home in Texas.”Nothing will expose more of the unfinished places in us than our marriage. Marriage is the most difficult relationship in which to love well, because it is the one in which it is least possible to hide. She’s always there. You can’t blow the whistle, throw a flag, stop the clock. It’s real-time, live-ammo training for the masculine soul. She sees it all — or at least the results of it all.What if the disruption is actually intended by God as a personal invitation to engage in the very thing that would recover, in time, that which you most deeply desire? Want more? Order your copy of Becoming a King today

We are invited to become followers of Jesus. Not just believers. Followers. There is a difference. Follower assumes that someone else is doing the leading. As in “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ...He goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:3–4). The Bible invites us to an intimacy with God that will lead us to the life we are meant to live. If we will follow him. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; / I will counsel you and watch over you” (Psalm 32:8). God promises to guide us in the details of our lives. In fact, the psalm continues, “Do not be like the horse or the mule, / which have no understanding / but must be controlled by bit and bridle / or they will not come to you” (v. 9). What would it be like to yield to Christ in the details of our lives? What would it be like to follow his counsel and instruction in all the small decisions that add up to the life we find ourselves living? It would be ... amazing. I think we would find ourselves saying, as David did, “You have made known to me the path of life” (Psalm 16:11). This is the privilege and the joy of sheep that belong to a good shepherd. He leads them well. He leads them to life. So, back to the question, What is the life you want me to live? It is a good question — maybe one of the most important questions we could ever bring to God. He created us, after all. He knows why. He knows what is best for each of us. If we could learn from him the life he wants us to live — the details, the pace of life, the places we are to invest ourselves and the places we are not to — we would be in his will. And there we would find life. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today

“What people think of me” is a very powerful motivator. It is still shaping us more than we’d like to admit. It shapes our theology, our politics, our values.Do any of us go through one entire day being utterly true no matter how many different environments we move through? Do you even know the true you? Is there a true you? Whether it is born of fear or longing or uncertainty or cunning or wickedness, it is so natural for us to shape ourselves according to the moment we scarcely notice how much we do it. Now, toss in the promise of reward — wealth, power, success, the adoration of others—and boy, oh boy, is it hard to be true.Only when you have taken an honest look inside yourself, and seen what really fuels the things you do, will you appreciate how utterly remarkable it is to be true. And how utterly desirable. We are given the story of Jesus’ wilderness trial to help us understand that Jesus has been tried—and proven true. Remember now, Jesus wasn’t cheating; it was a genuine test of his character, so profoundly terrible, to be seduced by the evil one himself, that Jesus needed angels to minister to him afterward.We typically think of integrity as the ability to resist temptation by resolve. And that’s a good thing; self-discipline is a good thing. But there is another level of integrity, the kind where you don’t even want the seduction that is being presented to you. Goodness runs so deep, so pervasive through your character and your being that you don’t even want it. We respect the man who is able to reject sexual temptation. But how much more the man whose soul is such that he does not want any woman but the woman he loves and is married to. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

There is nothing so inspiring to a man as a beautiful woman. She’ll make you want to charge the castle, slay the giant, leap across the parapets. Or maybe, hit a home run.A man wants to be the hero to the beauty. Young men going off to war carry a photo of their sweetheart in their wallet. Men who fly combat missions will paint a beauty on the side of their aircraft; the crews of the WWII B-17 bomber gave those flying fortresses names like Me and My Gal or the Memphis Belle. What would Robin Hood or King Arthur be without the woman they love? Lonely men fighting lonely battles. Indiana Jones and James Bond just wouldn’t be the same without a beauty at their side, and inevitably they must fight for her. You see, it’s not just that a man needs a battle to fight; he needs someone to fight for. Remember Nehemiah’s words to the few brave souls defending a wall-less Jerusalem? “Don’t be afraid ... fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.” The battle itself is never enough; a man yearns for romance. It’s not enough to be a hero; it’s that he is a hero to someone in particular, to the woman he loves. Adam was given the wind and the sea, the horse and the hawk, but as God himself said, things were just not right until there was Eve.Yes, there is something passionate in the heart of every man. Want more? Order your copy of Wild at Heart today

God sets his own image on the earth. He creates a being like himself. He creates a son. The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)It is nearing the end of the sixth day, the end of the Creator's great labor, as Adam steps forth, the image of God, the triumph of his work. He alone is pronounced the son of God. Nothing in creation even comes close. Picture Michelangelo's David. He is ... magnificent. Truly, the masterpiece seems complete. And yet, the Master says that something is not good, not right. Something is missing ... and that something is Eve.The Lord God cast a deep slumber on the human, and he slept, and He took one of his ribs and closed over the flesh where it had been, and the Lord God built the rib He had taken from the human into a woman and He brought her to the human. (Gen. 2:21-23 Alter)She is the crescendo, the final, astonishing work of God. Woman. In one last flourish creation comes to a finish not with Adam, but with Eve. She is the Master's finishing touch. How we wish this were an illustrated book, and we could show you now some painting or sculpture that captures this, like the stunning Greek sculpture of the goddess Nike of Samothrace, the winged beauty, just alighting on the prow of a great ship, her beautiful form revealed through the thin veils that sweep around her. Eve is ... breathtaking.Given the way creation unfolds, how it builds to ever higher and higher works of art, can there be any doubt that Eve is the crown of creation? Not an afterthought. Not a nice addition like an ornament on a tree. She is God's final touch, his pièce de résistance. She fills a place in the world nothing and no one else can fill. Want more? Order your copy of Captivating today

I knew a man who was fired from his job at a Christian high school because one of the church elders saw him purchasing cigarettes at the local grocery store. They canned him, even though he was the best teacher they had. Now, first off, the Bible does not prohibit smoking. But this has become a favorite of the technical morality police in certain churches. What is even more diabolical about the story is the pleasure these Pharisees had in firing the young teacher. Their judgment was swift and severe; their self-righteous smugness was far sicker than this guy smoking a cigarette. Jesus calls this straining gnats but swallowing camels (Matthew 23:23-24).The poison of technical rule-keeping is that it shifts the focus from serious issues to ridiculous peccadilloes, thus allowing the legalist to live what he believes is a “righteous life” when in fact he is failing at the very things God majors in. Take as an example a man who hates his wife; he resents her. But he has never committed adultery; he is “faithful” to her. He prides himself on his selective morality — keeping the letter of the law while ignoring massive problems in his heart. Is this holiness?Ask yourself what it would take for a person to get fired from your church, your Christian school or ministry. What is your church’s understanding of holiness? What are the categories they are thinking in? It is a very revealing test. The scriptures say that the way you treat people is a little more important than whether you smoke, for heaven’s sake. Pride and arrogance are far more serious issues than swearing; idolatry and hatred are far more serious than how fast you drive. Want more? Order your copy of Free to Live today

I have a practice that has become an absolute lifesaver: The One Minute Pause.I simply take sixty seconds to be still and let everything go.As I enter the pause, I begin with release. I let it all go—the meetings, what I know is coming next, the fact I’m totally behind on everything, all of it. I simply let it go. I pray, Jesus—I give everyone and everything to you. I keep repeating it until I feel like I’m actually releasing and detaching. I give everyone and everything to you, God. All I’m trying to accomplish right now is a little bit of soul-space. I’m not trying to fix anything or figure anything out. I’m not trying to release everything perfectly or permanently. That takes a level of maturity most of us haven’t found. But I can let it go for sixty seconds. (That’s the brilliance of the pause—all we are asking ourselves to do is let go for sixty seconds.) And as I do, even as I say it out loud—I give everyone and everything to you–—my soul cooperates a good bit. I’m settling down. I even sigh, that good sigh.Then I ask for more of God: Jesus—I need more of you; fill me with more of you, God. Restore our union; fill me with your life.You’ll be surprised what a minute can do for you. Even more so as you get practiced at it. Honestly, you can do this pause nearly anytime, anywhere—in your car, on the train, after you get off your phone. I know it seems small, but we have to start somewhere. This pause is accessible; it’s doable.As David wrote in the Psalms, “I have calmed and quieted myself” (131:2). Or, “I’ve cultivated a quiet heart.” This is the world we live in, raise our kids in, navigate our careers in, and so we need to find things that are simple and accessible to begin to take back our souls. The One Minute Pause is within reach. The practice itself is wonderful, and it opens space in your soul for God to meet you there.---------------The Pause app is available for iPhone and Android for FREE. Look for the One Minute Pause by Wild at Heart, then share it with everyone you know! Your soul will thank you every day.Download for iPhoneDownload for Android Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today

It's the great company at the party in Titanic that brings such happy tears. It's the boys making it safely home in Apollo 13. It's Maximus reunited with his family. So the fellowship finds Gandalf alive — no longer Gandalf the Grey, fallen beyond recovery in the mines of Moria, but Gandalf the White, whom death can never touch again. So Frodo and Sam are rescued from the slopes of Mount Doom, and when they wake, it is to a bright new morn. This is our future.After he laid down his life for us, Jesus was laid in a tomb. He was buried just like any other dead person. Family and friends mourned. Enemies rejoiced. And most of the world went on with business as usual, clueless to the Epic around them. Then, after three days, also at dawn, his story took a sudden and dramatic turn.Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?" But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples ... 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.'" (Mark 16:2-7)Jesus came back. He showed up again. He was restored to them. He walked into the house where they had gathered to comfort one another in their grief and asked if they had anything to eat. It was the most stunning, unbelievable, happiest ending to a story you could possibly imagine. And it is also ours. Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

We cannot control what God, the Romancer, is up to, but there is a posture we can take. There is an openness to this stage that will enable us to recognize and receive the wooing. So let me ask—are you willing to let go of your insistence to control, meaning, to allow for a life that exists beyond the realm of analysis, to let some portions of your life be impractical, to cease evaluating all things based on their utility and function? Coming closer to the heart, are you willing to let passion rise in you, though undoubtedly it may unnerve you? To permit the healing of some of your deepest wounds? To let yourself be run through as with a rapier by Beauty itself? Are you willing, at some level, to be undone? Then we may proceed. To enter into the Romance we must slow down, or we will miss the wooing. Turn off the news and put on some music. Take a walk. Take up painting, or writing or reading poetry. Better still, what was it that stirred your heart over the years? Go and get it back. This is hard to do, especially for men who are out conquering the world. But remember — what the evil one does to a good warrior if he cannot keep him in the battle is to bury him with battles. Wear him down with fight after fight. But life is not all about the battle. The Romance is always central. Listen again to David: Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear;though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek:that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. (Ps. 27:3–4 NIV) He knows battle, knows what it is to have God come through for him. He does not fear it; he is confident as a seasoned warrior is confident. But, he does not make it his heart’s desire. What he seeks is not battle — what he seeks is the romance with God. “To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord.” For we must remember: the battle is for the Romance. What we fight for is the freedom and healing that allow us to have the intimacy with God we were created to enjoy. To drink from his river of delights. Want more? Order your copy of Fathered By God today

The coming of Jesus of Nazareth was like the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. A dangerous mission, a great invasion, a daring raid into enemy territory, to save the free world, but also to save one man.Jesus told a story like that in order to shed light on his own coming: "If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one?" (Matt. 18:12). In the midst of the great invasion, like the storming of the beaches at Normandy, God yet sets his eye on one lost soul. On you.Historically speaking, Jesus of Nazareth was betrayed by one of his followers, handed over to the Romans by the Jewish religious leaders, and crucified. But there was a Larger Story unfolding in that death. He gave his life willingly to ransom us from the Evil One, to pay the price for our betrayal, and to prove for all time and beyond any shadow of a doubt that the heart of God is good. And that your heart matters to him, matters more than tongue can tell.He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Col. 1:13-14) Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man. (1 Corinthians 15:49 NLT)You’ll be made perfect. Finally, the totality of your being will be saturated only with goodness. Think of all that you’re not going to have to wrestle with anymore. The fear that has been your lifelong battle, the anger, the compulsions. No more internal civil wars; no doubt, no lust, no regret; no shame. What has plagued you these last many years? What has plagued you all your life? Your Healer will personally lift it from your shoulders.What tender intimacy is foretold when you’re promised that your loving Father will wipe every tear from your eyes personally — not only tears of sorrow, but all the tears of shame, guilt, and remorse. That moment alone will make the whole journey worth it.Yet there’s more. You will be free, alive, whole, young, valiant. You’ll have the character, the internal holiness, of Jesus himself.You’ll finally be everything you’ve ever longed to be. Not only that — it can never be taken from you again. “Eternal” life means life unending, life that never dims nor fades away. You’ll be in your glory to live as you were meant to live and take on the kingdom assignments God has for you.———————————It is so good for our hearts and souls just to linger a moment with these beautiful promises. Think of all that you’re not going to have to wrestle with anymore. Let the relief of it lift your heart today. Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

“The sorrows of our lives are in great part his weaning process. We give our hearts over to so many things other than God. We look to so many other things for life. I know I do. Especially the very gifts that he himself gives to us — they become more important to us than he is. That’s not the way it is supposed to be. As long as our happiness is tied to the things we can lose, we are vulnerable.” This truth is core to the human condition and to understanding what God is doing in our lives. We really believe that God’s primary reason for being is to provide us with happiness, give us a good life. It doesn’t occur to us that our thinking is backward. It doesn’t even occur to us that God is meant to be our all, and that until he is our all, we are subhuman. The first and greatest command is to love God with our whole being. Yet, it is rare to find someone who is completely given over to God. And so normal to be surrounded by people who are trying to make life work. We think of the few who are abandoned to God as being sort of odd. The rest of the world — the ones trying to make life work — seem perfectly normal to us. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today

Being unable to defeat God through raw power, Satan’s legions decide to wound God as deeply as possible by stealing the love of his Beloved through seduction. And having “seduced them to his party,” to ravish them body and soul; and having ravished them, to mock them even as they are hurled to the depths of hell with God himself unable to save them because of their rejection of him. This is Satan’s motivation and goal for every man, woman, and child into whom God ever breathed the breath of life. Like a roaring lion, he “hungers” for us.Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. (1 Peter 5:8–9)God could have given up on the love affair with mankind. He could have resorted to power and demanded our loyalty, or given us a kind of spiritual lobotomy that would take away our choice to love him. Even now, he could easily obliterate our Enemy and demand the allegiance of our hearts, but the love affair that began in the laughter of the Trinity would be over, at least for us. And Satan’s accusation that the kingdom of God is established only through raw power would be vindicated. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

When Jesus died, that most holiest of curtains was ripped in half. Torn, top to bottom. And who was it that did that? Surely not the priests. It was God himself. He took that veil and ripped it in two.So why do we insist on stitching it back up?A whole lot of what passes for worship, sacrament, and instruction in Christian circles is sewing lessons — hanging that veil again. Done in the same spirit that says, “God is too holy for us to approach.” I’ve read it countless places, written by popular theologians. I’ve heard it said many times from the pulpit. We must not be too familiar with God. Do not presume to come too close.Said who?They are trying to re-create the Holy of Holies in the name of reverence. Except, it was God who ripped that curtain forever with his own two hands. That is clearly over. Understanding this truth will open up new realms for you in relating to Jesus, and enable your heart to love him. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

We live in a world filled with beauty and wonder, adventure and laughter, but also too often filled with difficulty, fear, danger, and pain. Courage is the quality of spirit that enables one to face danger, pain, difficulty, or fear with confidence. We can have confidence! Not based on our own ability to manage life but based on the faithfulness of Jesus. Confidence is from the Latin words con and fide, which mean “with faith.” Our confidence rests in the strength and goodness of God. Living a life of courage is not about striving to become something or someone else. It is resting by faith in the God who says, I have called you, and I will do it! (1 Thess. 5:24)...The secret is you can’t. You can’t. But Jesus can. Christ in you can. He is the secret! There is nothing that makes God tremble. Jesus who died on the cross for you entered into the worst nightmare imaginable and demanded that Satan hand over the keys to hell. Jesus rose triumphantly and is seated at the right hand of God… Jesus is alive today and living his life through you. Want more? Order your copy of Becoming Myself today

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Ps. 147:3)Yes, we have all been wounded in this battle. And we will be wounded again. But something deeper has also happened to us than mere wounds.I expect that all of us at one time or another have said, "Well, part of me wants to, and another part of me doesn't." You know the feeling — part of you pulled one direction, part of you the other. Part of me loves writing and genuinely looks forward to a day at my desk. But not all of me. Sometimes I'm also afraid of it. Part of me fears that I will fail — that I am simply stating what is painfully obvious, or saying something vital but incoherent. I'm drawn to it, and I also feel ambivalent about it. Come to think of it, I feel that way about a lot of things. Part of me wants to go ahead and dive into friendship, take the risk. I'm tired of living alone. Another part says, Stay away — you'll get hurt. Nobody really cares anyway. Part of me says, Wow! Maybe God really is going to come through for me. Another voice rises up and says, You are on your own.Don't you feel sometimes like a house divided?Take your little phobias. Why are you afraid of heights or intimacy or public speaking? All the discipline in the world wouldn't get you to go skydiving, share something really personal in a small group, or take the pulpit next Sunday. Why do you hate it when people touch you or criticize you? And what about those little "idiosyncrasies" you can't give up to save your life? Why do you bite your nails? Why do you work so many hours? Why do you get irritated at these questions? You won't go out unless your makeup is perfect — why is that? Other women don't mind being seen in their grubbies. Something in you "freezes" when your dad calls — what's that all about? You clean and organize; you demand perfection — did you ever wonder why? Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

The life we have is so far from the life we truly want, and it doesn’t take us long to find someone to blame. In order for our longings to be filled, we need the cooperation of others. I long for a loving embrace and a kind word when I get home. I long for my boys to listen attentively when I talk about important life lessons. I want my work to be appreciated. I want my friends to be there for me in hard times. “No man is an island,” wrote John Donne, and he could have been speaking of desire. We need others—it’s part of our design. Very few of our desires are self-fulfilling; all our deepest longings require others to come through for us. Inevitably, someone stands in the way.At its best, the world is indifferent to my desires. The air traffic controllers aren’t the least affected when I’ve been traveling for a week and the flight they’ve chosen to cancel is my last chance to get home to my family. So long as it doesn’t affect them, they couldn’t care less. We suffer the violation of indifference on a daily basis, from friends, from family, from complete strangers. We think we’ve grown to accept it as part of life, but the effect is building inside us. We weren’t made to be ignored. And though we try to pretend it doesn’t really matter, the collective effect of living in a world apathetic to our existence is doing damage to our souls. Events such as bad traffic or delayed flights are merely the occasions for our true desperation to come out. As our desires come into direct conflict with the desires of another person, things get downright hostile. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

When the Bible tells us that Christ came to “redeem mankind” it offers a whole lot more than forgiveness. To simply forgive a broken man is like telling someone running a marathon, “It’s okay that you’ve broken your leg. I won’t hold that against you. Now finish the race.” That is cruel, to leave him disabled that way. No, there is much more to our redemption. The core of Christ’s mission is foretold in Isaiah 61: The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,because the LORD has anointed meto preach good news to the poor.He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,to proclaim freedom for the captivesand release ... for the prisoners. (v. 1) The Messiah will come, he says, to bind up and heal, to release and set free. What? Your heart. Christ comes to restore and release you, your soul, the true you. This is the central passage in the entire Bible about Jesus, the one he chooses to quote about himself when he steps into the spotlight in Luke 4 and announces his arrival. So take him at his word — ask him in to heal all the broken places within you and unite them into one whole and healed heart. Ask him to release you from all bondage and captivity, as he promised to do. As MacDonald prayed, “Gather my broken fragments to a whole ... Let mine be a merry, all-receiving heart, but make it a whole, with light in every part.” But you can’t do this at a distance; you can’t ask Christ to come into your wound while you remain far from it. You have to go there with him. Lord Jesus, I give my life to you — everything I am, everything I have become. I surrender myself to you utterly. Come and be my Lord. Be my healer. I give you my wounded heart. Come and meet me here. Enter my heart and soul, my wounds and brokenness, and bring your healing love to me in these very places. Want more? Order your copy of Wild at Heart today

Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?" "No," they answered. He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" ... When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread ... Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." (John 21:4-12)Now think about this for a minute. You're the Son of God. You've just accomplished the greatest work of your life, the stunning rescue of mankind. You rose from the dead. What would you do next? Have a cookout with a few friends? It seems so unspiritual, so ordinary. Do you see that eternal life does not become something totally "other," but rather that life goes on — only as it should be?Jesus did not vanish into a mystical spirituality, becoming one with the cosmic vibration. Jesus has a body, and it's his body. His wounds have been healed, but the scars remain — not gruesome, but lovely, a remembrance of all he did for us. His friends recognize him. They share a bite to eat. This is our future as well — our lives will be healed and we shall go on, never to taste death again. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

Here’s what I am learning: A grateful heart is a heart that is free. An ungrateful heart is a heart that is bound. Gratitude inevitably leads to freedom. The root of the word gratitude is the Latin word gratis, which means free. If gratitude and freedom are connected etymologically, wouldn’t it make sense that the two are connected spiritually as well? When we cultivate hearts bent toward seeing the good we’ve been given, it frees us from the sludge of negativity so we can experience joy. God created us to be a thankful and joyful people. He formed us so intentionally that joy will only flourish in a soil rich with gratitude. In fact, without gratitude, we do not have the capacity for joy. God wired our brains in such a way that it is impossible to feel joy without a posture of thankfulness preceding it. According to research published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, gratitude primes the brain for positive emotions: it “stimulates the hypothalamus (a key part of the brain that regulates stress) and the ventral tegmental area (part of our ‘reward circuitry’ that produces the sensation of pleasure).” We are called to be thankful in everything. Not for everything, but in everything. And we must be if we are to experience the deep joy that is meant to dwell in the very center of our being. Thankfulness is the key that opens the door to the joy we are meant to walk in. A grateful heart is a heart that is free. An ungrateful heart is a heart that is bound. I’m picturing Eeyore here. Or Puddleglum. Neither sees the good but only the possibility for the worst. To them, disaster not only looms but is probably coming in the next moment. Their fictional feet are chained to the ground with a heaviness that binds. I recognize myself in them. To be free, I need to look back at my life and the lives of others and remember the faithfulness of God. Though sometimes it may feel as though it would take a miracle to be lifted out of the mire of worry and transferred to a place of gratefulness, the choice is ours to make. Remember: “Eucharisteo—thanksgiving—always precedes the miracle.” (Voskamp; One Thousand Gifts)Gratitude is the key, friends. Gratitude unlocks joy. And to be grateful, we need to remember the reason for our gratitude—we are grateful because we have been rescued. Want more? Order your copy of Defiant Joy today

Certainly storytelling is one of the great pleasures in the kingdom. God clearly takes it very seriously—he made reality in the shape of a story. Would you like to write? Illustrate? Act? Produce? Perhaps we get to take workshops from the great artists! These things are not obliterated when we step into the life to come; God renews all things. Willard assures us, We will not sit around looking at one another or at God for eternity but will join the eternal Logos, “reign with him,” in the endlessly ongoing creative work of God. It is for this that we were each individually intended, as both kings and priests (Exod. 19:6; Rev. 5:10). ... A place in God’s creative order has been reserved for each one of us from before the beginnings of cosmic existence. His plan is for us to develop, as apprentices to Jesus, to the point where we can take our place in the ongoing creativity of the universe. (Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy) Just as Adam and Eve were commissioned to, only this time around on a higher level, with greater powers, creatively engaged in very real and tangible things. We know we eat in the city; surely the joy of eating doesn’t end with the feast. Who grows the food? Who brings it to market? What chefs prepare it? It is unlike God to just “zap” these things into existence while we sit around doing nothing, bored to death. He creates us to create. Jesus linked the promise of the Restoration directly to familiar things like fields and lands, confirming the earlier prophetic visions of the Old Testament: “See, I will createnew heavens and a new earth.The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create,for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.I will rejoice over Jerusalemand take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of cryingwill be heard in it no more ... They will build houses and dwell in them;they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.”(Isaiah 65:17–19, 21) Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

The gospel says that we, who are God's beloved, created a cosmic crisis. It says we, too, were stolen from our True Love and that he launched the greatest campaign in the history of the world to get us back. God created us for intimacy with him. When we turned our back on him he promised to come for us. He sent personal messengers; he used beauty and affliction to recapture our hearts. After all else failed, he conceived the most daring of plans. Under the cover of night he stole into the enemy's camp incognito, the Ancient of Days disguised as a newborn. The Incarnation, as Philip Yancey reminds us, was a daring raid into enemy territory. The whole world lay under the power of the evil one and we were held in the dungeons of darkness. God risked it all to rescue us. Why? What is it that he sees in us that causes him to act the jealous lover, to lay siege both on the kingdom of darkness and on our own idolatries as if on Troy—not to annihilate, but to win us once again for himself? This fierce intention, this reckless ambition that shoves all conventions aside, willing literally to move heaven and earth. We've been offered many explanations. From one religious camp we're told that what God wants is obedience, or sacrifice, or adherence to the right doctrines, or morality. Those are the answers offered by conservative churches. The more therapeutic churches suggest that no, God is after our contentment, or happiness, or self-actualization, or something else along those lines. He is concerned about all these things, of course, but they are not his primary concern. What he is after is us—our laughter, our tears, our dreams, our fears, our heart of hearts. Remember his lament in Isaiah, that though his people were performing all their duties, "their hearts are far from me" (29:13 italics added). How few of us truly believe this. We've never been wanted for our heart, our truest self, not really, not for long. The thought that God wants our heart seems too good to be true. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

This is the world [God] has made. This is the world that is still going on. And he doesn't walk away from the mess we've made of it. Now he lives, almost cheerfully, certainly heroically, in a dynamic relationship with us and with our world. "Then the Lord intervened" is perhaps the single most common phrase about him in Scripture, in one form or another. Look at the stories he writes. There's the one where the children of Israel are pinned against the Red Sea, no way out, with Pharaoh and his army barreling down on them in murderous fury. Then God shows up. There's Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who get rescued only after they're thrown into the fiery furnace. Then God shows up. He lets the mob kill Jesus, bury him ... then he shows up. Do you know why God loves writing such incredible stories? Because he loves to come through. He loves to show us that he has what it takes.It's not the nature of God to limit his risks and cover his bases. Far from it. Most of the time, he actually lets the odds stack up against him. Against Goliath, a seasoned soldier and a trained killer, he sends ... a freckle-faced little shepherd kid with a slingshot. Most commanders going into battle want as many infantry as they can get. God cuts Gideon's army from thirty-two thousand to three hundred. Then he equips the ragtag little band that's left with torches and watering pots. It's not just a battle or two that God takes his chances with, either. Have you thought about his handling of the gospel? God needs to get a message out to the human race, without which they will perish ... forever. What's the plan? First, he starts with the most unlikely group ever: a couple of prostitutes, a few fishermen with no better than a second-grade education, a tax collector. Then, he passes the ball to us. Unbelievable. Want more? Order your copy of Wild at Heart today

According to the Scriptures, the heart can be troubled, wounded, pierced, grieved, even broken. How well we all know that. Thankfully, it can also be cheerful, glad, merry, joyful, rejoicing. The heart can be whole or divided—as in that phrase we often use, "Well, part of me wants to, but the other part of me doesn't." It can be wise or foolish. It can be steadfast, true, upright, stout, valiant. (All of these descriptions can be found by perusing the listings for the word heart in any concordance.) It can also be frightened, faint, cowardly, melt like wax. The heart can be wandering, forgetful, dull, stubborn, proud, hardened. Wicked and perverse. I think we know that as well.Much to our surprise, according to Jesus, a heart can also be pure, as in, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matt. 5:8). And even noble, as in his story about the sower: "But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop" (Luke 8:15). The Bible sees the heart as the source of all creativity, courage, and conviction. It is the source of our faith, our hope, and of course, our love. It is the "wellspring of life" within us (Prov. 4:23), the very essence of our existence, the center of our being, the fount of our life.There is no escaping the centrality of the heart. God knows that; it's why he made it the central theme of the Bible, just as he placed the physical heart in the center of the human body. The heart is central; to find our lives, we must make it central again. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

What will we do in heaven? The Sunday comics picture saints lying about on clouds, strumming harps. It hardly takes your breath away. The fact that most Christians have a gut sense that earth is more exciting than heaven points to the deceptive powers of the Enemy and our own failure of imagination. What do we do with the idea of “eternal rest”? That sounds like the slogan of a middle-class cemetery. We know heaven begins with a party, but then what? A long nap after the feast? The typical evangelical response — “We will worship God” — doesn’t help either. The answer is certainly biblical, and perhaps my reaction is merely a reflection on me, but it sounds so one-dimensional. Something in my heart says, That’s all? How many hymns and choruses can we sing?We will worship God in heaven, meaning all of life will finally be worship, not round after round of “Amazing Grace.” The parable of the minas in Luke 19 and the talents in Matthew 25 foreshadow a day when we shall exercise our real place in God’s economy, the role we have been preparing for on earth. He who has been faithful in the small things will be given even greater adventures in heaven. We long for adventure, to be caught up in something larger than ourselves, a drama of heroic proportions. This isn’t just a need for continual excitement, it’s part of our design. Few of us ever sense that our talents are being used to their fullest; our creative abilities are rarely given wings in this life. When Revelation 3 speaks of us being “pillars in the temple of our God,” it doesn’t mean architecture. Rather, Christ promises that we shall be actively fulfilling our total design in the adventures of the new kingdom. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

The biblical canon ends with Jesus making this final statement:Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. (Revelation 22:12)Reward, reward, reward — it fills the pages of both Testaments. Saint Paul expected to be rewarded for his service to Christ, as have the saints down through the ages. Patrick, that mighty missionary to the Irish, prayed daily, “In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward. ... So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.” It is our barren age that is out of sync with the tradition. So C. S. Lewis could write,If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.“The unblushing promises of reward” stopped me in my tracks the first time I read it years ago. I’ve never heard a contemporary Christian use it. Unblushing means boldfaced, unashamed; it means brazen, outlandish, and thoroughly unapologetic. Did you know the promises of reward offered to you in Scripture are bold, unashamed, brazen? Did you even know that reward is a central theme in the teachings of Jesus, and in the Bible as a whole? I think a false humility has crept in; I think we somehow see ourselves above our forebears in the faith when we ignore the category entirely and set out to live the life given to us in Scripture. It is entirely untrue to the nature of God, and to human nature.Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? (1 Corinthians 9:7)God seems to be of the opinion that no one should be expected to sustain the rigors of the Christian life without very robust and concrete hopes of being brazenly rewarded for it. Now, yes, yes — there is a place for altruism, no doubt about it. But we have in our pride or in our poverty let a false humility creep in. Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

Warfare prayer is not a “back-up” category when all else fails. It is not a specialty form of prayer for the uniquely called or gifted. Yes — there are some who become “experts” in this field, just as there are some who become especially trained to heal or to preach the gospel. But we are all called to preach the gospel; we are all called to resist the enemy. You are living out your daily life in the context of war. The men and women who choose to equip themselves and become practiced in warfare prayer are the ones who enjoy the greatest freedom and breakthrough — the “glorious freedom of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). In fact, by choosing to rule in this category of reality (there is a way things work), you will discover a wonderful surprise — all those passages in Scripture that shout with praises of triumph and victory, all those hallelujahs with fireworks going off will suddenly make sense to you: I will give thanks to you, lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.My enemies turn back; they stumble and perish before you. (Ps. 9:1–3) These fabulous passages—and there are thousands in both the Old and New Testament—they have been a puzzle and irritation to most postmodern Christians. Until they discover the reality of the war, and the power of wielding the triumph of Christ and his authority. Then they begin singing and praising like this! The experience is like discovering the missing chapters to your story. Want more? Order your copy of Moving Mountains today

In this desperate hour we have a crucial role to play. Of all the Eternal Truths we don't believe, this is the one we doubt most of all. Our days are not extraordinary. They are filled with the mundane, with hassles mostly. And we? We are...a dime a dozen. Nothing special really. Probably a disappointment to God. But as C. S. Lewis wrote, "The value of...myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by 'the veil of familiarity.'"You are not what you think you are. There is a glory to your life that your Enemy fears, and he is hell-bent on destroying that glory before you act on it. This part of the answer will sound unbelievable at first; perhaps it will sound too good to be true; certainly, you will wonder if it is true for you. But once you begin to see with those eyes, once you have begun to know it is true from the bottom of your heart, it will change everything.The story of your life is the story of the long and brutal assault on your heart by the one who knows what you could be and fears it. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

What Jesus primarily models for us is how to draw our life from the Father. This passage from Philippians — one of the earliest hymns of the faith — says that Jesus more than humbled himself when he came to earth. He emptied himself:Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. (Philippians 2:6–7)The kenosis of Christ, a mystery we cannot fully explain nor explain away — the choice Jesus made to “empty” himself of his divine powers and prerogatives in order to take on the limitations of humanity.If Jesus was pretending to be a man, then his life is so far beyond ours it can’t really be a model for us to follow. To err is human, to forgive is divine and all that. But, if Jesus chose a genuine humanity, and drew his power from the Father as we must do, then we can live as he did. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far – I will find you. —Nathaniel to Cora in The Last of the MohicansOne of my favorite games growing up was "kidnapped and rescued." I know many little girls who played this — or wished they had. To be the beauty, abducted by the bad guys, fought for and rescued by a hero — some version of this had a place in all our dreams. Like Sleeping Beauty, like Cinderella, like Maid Marian or like Cora in The Last of the Mohicans, I wanted to be the heroine, and have my hero come for me. Why am I embarrassed to tell you this? I simply loved feeling wanted and fought for. This desire is set deep in the heart of every little girl — and every woman. Yet most of us are ashamed of it. We downplay it. We pretend that it is less than it is.Think about the movies you once loved, and the movies you love now. Is there a movie for little girls that doesn't have a handsome prince coming to rescue his beloved? Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Little Mermaid. A little girl longs for romance, to be seen and desired, to be sought after and fought for. So the Beast must win Beauty's heart in Beauty and the Beast. So in the gazebo scene in The Sound of Music, the Captain finally declares his love to Maria by moonlight and song and then, a kiss. And we sigh.When we are young, we want to be precious to someone — especially daddy. As we grow older, the longing matures into a longing to be pursued, desired, wanted as a woman. "Why am I so embarrassed by the depth of my desire for this?" asked a young friend just the other day. We were talking about her life as a single woman, and how she loves her work but would much rather be married. "I don't want to hang my life on it — but still, I yearn." Of course. You're a woman.Now, being romanced isn't all that a woman wants and we are certainly not saying that a woman ought to derive the meaning of her existence on whether she is being or has been romanced by a man or not … but don't you see that you want this? To be desired, to be pursued by one who loves you, to be someone's priority? Most of our addictions as women flare up when we feel that we are not loved or sought after. At some core place, maybe deep within, perhaps hidden or buried in her heart, every woman wants to be seen, wanted, and pursued. We want to be romanced. Want more? Order your copy of Captivating today

Mary broke the neck of the jar open and slowly poured some of the perfume on Jesus’s head and then poured the rest on his feet. Then she did something extremely intimate and scandalous. She unbound her hair and wiped his feet with it, even though a respectable woman did not let down her hair in public…The Gospels tell us that the disciples were indignant and rebuked her harshly. What a waste of money! A whole year’s wages poured out for nothing! Think of how many poor families could eat for a week on that. They saw only money. Mary saw only Jesus.Have you ever had your motives misunderstood? Have you ever had someone criticize the way you worship or spend your time or money, the way you minister or believe or come through or don’t come through? It has happened to me countless times, and I hate it. Jesus isn’t so fond of it either. When people judge you, that is. Especially for loving him. Jesus knows well that it hurts to be misunderstood and judged. He knows that it is part of the sorrow of living in a fallen world. We hurt others when we interpret their actions through lenses of misunderstanding wrought in our brokenness and sin. We are hurt by others when they do it to us. And when it happens to us, how are we supposed to defend ourselves? What did Mary do? Well, Mary didn’t say a word in her own defense — but Jesus did. Jesus always defends a worshipper. Sometimes God will ask us to speak — in love — but always he is our Defender. Want more? Order your copy of Becoming Myself today

That strength so essential to men is also what makes them heroes. If a neighborhood is safe, it's because of the strength of men. Slavery was stopped by the strength of men, at a terrible price to them and their families. The Nazis were stopped by men. Apartheid wasn't defeated by women. Who gave their seats up on the lifeboats leaving the Titanic, so that women and children would be saved? And have we forgotten — it was a Man who let himself be nailed to Calvary's Cross. This isn't to say women can't be heroic. I know many heroic women. It's simply to remind us that God made men the way they are because we desperately need them to be the way they are. Yes, a man is a dangerous thing. So is a scalpel. It can wound or it can save your life. You don't make it safe by making it dull; you put it in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing.If you've spent any time around horses, you know a stallion can be a major problem. They're strong, very strong, and they've got a mind of their own. Stallions typically don't like to be bridled, and they can get downright aggressive-especially if there are mares around. A stallion is hard to tame. If you want a safer, quieter animal, there's an easy solution: castrate him. A gelding is much more compliant. You can lead him around by the nose; he'll do what he's told without putting up a fuss. There's only one problem: Geldings don't give life. They can't come through for you the way a stallion can. A stallion is dangerous all right, but if you want the life he offers, you have to have the danger too. They go together.Want more? Order your copy of Wild at Heart today

Everything in you may be saying, “But you don’t understand. I want to eat that whole box of chocolates (or sleep with my boyfriend, or let my anger really fly). That’s what really seems like life to me right now.” God says, “I know you do, but it’ll kill you in the end. What you think is life is not. That’s not the comfort (or the love, or the significance) you are seeking. You’ll wind up destroying yourself.” The commands of God become our tutor in the healing of our desire. We need the Law because our instrument is out of tune; we’re not clear all the time on what it is we really desire.And so the first command comes first. God tells us to love him with all our hearts and all our souls, with all our minds and all our strength. It’s not a burden but a rescue, a trail out of the jungles of desire. When we don’t look for God as our true life, our desire for him spills over into our other desires, giving them an urgency they were never intended to bear. We become desperate, grasping and arranging and worrying over all kinds of things, and once we get them, they end up ruling us. It’s the difference between wants and needs. All we truly need is God. Prone to wander from him, we find we need all sorts of other things. Our desire becomes insatiable because we’ve taken our longing for the Infinite and placed it upon finite things. God saves us from the whole mimetic mess by turning our hearts back to him. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:1–4) I love this passage and have spent a good deal of time here. But today I’m struck by the phrase “he goes on ahead of them.” It’s almost as if I’d never noticed it before, never given it my heart’s attention. Jesus goes ahead of us. That is so reassuring, and that is such a different view than the one with which I approach each day. Or better, it reveals to me the way that I see each day. Here’s what happens. I connect with God in the morning in prayer and sometimes through reading of some sort. But then a shift occurs. Somewhere between prayer, and having breakfast, and getting the boys off to school, and getting to work myself, and beginning to answer e-mails and tackle projects, a subtle parting occurs. I don’t feel as though I am following Jesus going ahead of me. I just sort of take it for granted that I am blazing the trail. Until this morning I never would have put it into those words. But this passage makes me realize that I don’t see our relationship as God going on ahead of me. But I want to. Oh, how I want to. My heart is engaged. This is no intellectual exercise, but a living and immediate conversation with God through his Word. Do you really, Jesus? Do you really go on ahead of me? That is such a better view of God, a view where he is engaged with us and intimately involved in the world and in our lives. As I think about it now, I think I have been something of an unconscious Deist. God is there, but I’m doing my darnedest down here while he is sort of smiling down on me, not really engaged in the details. That view is not true of him, and it is an awful way to live. I think of George MacDonald’s wonderful insight: If to myself—“God sometimes interferes”—I said, my faith at once would be struck blind.I see him all in all...A love he is that watches and that hears. (Diary of an Old Soul) I do believe this. Why don’t I believe it in the day-to-day events of my life? Maybe the issue goes more like this: I do believe Christ leads us, but I make no conscious effort to follow him in all the “in-between” times, where life is really being lived. The question is, will I follow God, as opposed to just going on my way into each day? That is the transition to a better life. To be asking him where he is headed and what he is doing throughout the day. So that while he is going on ahead of me, I am following. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today

Let me take you back now to the last cup of tea, Luke’s parting, and the ending of our family’s childhood era. It was the Saturday of his high school graduation. We had been through two others before and knew the ritual well. I believe in rituals; they are the last signposts left in a culture of impermanence. But as we sat in the bleachers, unable to stop the unfolding ceremony, watching Luke slowly approach the stage in cap and gown, I was on the brink of sobbing shamelessly. How is this not just loss? my heart cried to God. Tell me—how is everything not just loss? At that moment everything felt like loss. Jesus replied immediately, Oh, John—nothing is lost. Some of you may have experienced in a sermon or during personal Bible study, perhaps in a time of prayer or in a counselor’s office, the ability of Jesus to communicate an entire concept in a single moment. You have a revelation. The Creator of our mind and soul can give to us a sweeping understanding as if by transfusion. If I put into words the revelation given in that moment in the forty-second row at an ordinary high school commencement, Jesus showed me something like this: When the kingdom comes, my dear, heartbroken friend, nothing that was precious to you in this life will be lost. No memory, no event, none of your story or theirs, nothing is lost. How could it be lost? It is all held safe in the heart of the infinite God, who encompasses all things. Held safe outside of time in the treasuries of the kingdom, which transcends yet honors all time. This will all be given back to you at the Restoration, just as surely as your sons will come back to you. Nothing is lost. The effect was nearly instantaneous. I went from a desolate parent saying good-bye—not just to our last child but to an entire era—to a beloved son who had just been given a sneak preview into the Christmas morning that will come upon all the earth. I underwent a complete emotional transformation. All time had stopped in the moment before that moment; now I was completely fine. My body relaxed back into the chair like a man who had just set forth on a Caribbean cruise. I wanted to shout out, “You can carry on—I’m good now." Nothing is lost. If you will just let go of your anger and cynicism for a moment, just allow it to be true for a moment, well then—your heart is going to take a pretty deep breath. Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way. (J. R. R. Tolkien)The Sacred Romance calls to us every moment of our lives. It whispers to us on the wind, invites us through the laughter of good friends, reaches out to us through the touch of someone we love. We've heard it in our favorite music, sensed it at the birth of our first child, been drawn to it while watching the shimmer of a sunset on the ocean. It is even present in times of great personal suffering — the illness of a child, the loss of a marriage, the death of a friend. Something calls to us through experiences like these and rouses an inconsolable longing deep within our heart, wakening in us a yearning for intimacy, beauty, and adventure. This longing is the most powerful part of any human personality. It fuels our search for meaning, for wholeness, for a sense of being truly alive. However we may describe this deep desire, it is the most important thing about us, our heart of hearts, the passion of our life. And the voice that calls to us in this place is none other than the voice of God. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.[Sam] One of the best feelings I had as a young man was cutting the ties I had to you and Mom financially. I mean, I was grateful for your help in college, but I couldn’t stand being dependent afterward. There is something innate in me that knows I am meant to handle things on my own. Maybe it’s even a primal sense that I should be capable of putting food on the table. Whatever it is, financially standing on my own is a core need for me to feel like a man.[John] Right—so we have left the question of money aside and focused on labor, and we find that honest work and its fruits are very good things. This is crucial in the move from boy to man. Money forces us to grow up; it is a constant dose of reality, and reality is a gift from God. It has this marvelous way of grounding us.Want more? Order your copy of Killing Lions today

Look at the life of Jesus. Notice what he did. When Jesus touched the blind, they could see; all the beauty of the world opened before them. When he touched the deaf, they were able to hear; for the first time in their lives they heard laughter and music and their children's voices. He touched the lame, and they jumped to their feet and began to dance. And he called the dead back to life and gave them to their families.Do you see? Wherever humanity was broken, Jesus restored it. He is giving us an illustration here, and there, and there again. The coming of the kingdom of God restores the world he made.God has been whispering this secret to us through creation itself, every year, at springtime, ever since we left the Garden. Sure, winter has its certain set of joys. The wonder of snowfall at midnight, the rush of a sled down a hill, the magic of the holidays. But if winter ever came for good and never left, we would be desolate. Every tree leafless, every flower gone, the grasses on the hillsides dry and brittle. The world forever cold, silent, bleak.After months and months of winter, I long for the return of summer. Sunshine, warmth, color, and the long days of adventure together. The garden blossoms in all its beauty. The meadows soft and green. Vacation. Holiday. Isn't this what we most deeply long for? To leave the winter of the world behind, what Shakespeare called "the winter of our discontent," and find ourselves suddenly in the open meadows of summer?If we listen, we will discover something of tremendous joy and wonder. The restoration of the world played out before us each spring and summer is precisely what God is promising us about our lives. Every miracle Jesus ever did was pointing to this Restoration, the day he makes all things new.Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

Flames are licking all around us, aren’t they? All the time. Saint Peter describes our life here on this earth as a “fiery ordeal” (1 Peter 4:12). Tragedies and heartache and pressures and illnesses and irritations grand and small show up indiscriminately, and they do not limit themselves to one season.I know that in comparison to most, my own life has not been so bad. I am not a refugee. I am not living in the middle of a drought-filled land, praying that my child will survive another day. My daily reality is not set in a war zone (well, at least not one that can be seen). I am not living on the streets. I have a roof over my head. I have running water that will not make me ill. When I put my feet on the floor after a night’s sleep, there is carpet underneath them. I am a resident of the United States and living a life of luxury in comparison to 90 percent of the human population. I’m very aware of all this.But such facts, though true and humbling, don’t help me most of the time. Too often they serve only to shame me and keep me from being present to the sorrow in my life that threatens to swallow up everything, like a forest fire that looms near. Too near. Yes, I want to be aware of others in the world. I do want to grow in compassion, but that will require me to feel my own pain, to not run from it through comparisons that only serve to diminish my own hard. When I do not have compassion for myself in my own trials, my compassion for others also goes down —both for those whose sorrows I have known in part and those whose sorrows I have not. Besides, the grace of God is not present in my comparisons. It is here for me in my moment. If I run from my reality, I also run from the presence of God.So my heart scans the horizon in the quiet of the morning when the faint smell of smoke rises, and I ask, “Where are You, God?” And the answer comes from deep within. “I’m right here.” Want more? Order Your Copy of Defiant Joy today

The secret of happiness is this: God is the love you are longing for. We live in a love story. We are created for romance and we have an insatiable capacity for it. Now, God gave us such a heart; it was one of his first gifts to us. (You have to have a heart to live in a love story). Then he gives to us this world that is so breathtakingly beautiful. The earth is filled with the love of the Lord (Psalm 33:5) and you see it in the fact that he made grass just firm enough that it stands up straight like a carpet, but not too firm that it hurts you when you run on it with bare feet. And he makes snow just firm enough for snowballs and sledding, but not so firm that it hurts us when it falls; it falls so softly. He makes birds and their songs just loud enough to be delightful, and he creates our ear to delight in the sound. Do you begin to see the tenderness and the love of God through all creation? All of this is the love of God wooing you. Some of you found the romance of God at the beach. Some of you found it on the rivers or in the meadows, some of you found it in books. All that has ever stirred your heart, that was God romancing you. For as the Bible says, “Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father above.” (James 1:17) Want more? Order your copy of Love & War today

Jesus kept coming back to this central issue, over and over, driving at it in his teachings, his parables, his penetrating questions. If you look again, through the lens that most of us feel fundamentally fatherless, I think you’ll find it very close indeed to the center of Jesus’ mission. “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” (Matt. 7:9–10 NIV). Well? We rush ahead to the rest of the passage, but I think Jesus is asking us a real question and he wants a real answer. I expect he paused here, his penetrating, compassionate eyes scanning the listeners before him. Well? I hesitate. I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t, and apart from the exceptionally wicked man, I can’t think of any decent father — even if he is self-absorbed — who would do such a thing. Jesus continues, “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (v. 11 NIV). He is trying to speak to our deepest doubt about the universe. Look at the birds of the air. Consider the lilies in the field. Are you not much more valuable to your true Father than they? (Matt. 6:26, 28). Hmmm. I’m not sure how to answer. I mean, of course, there’s the “right” answer. And then there is the wound in our hearts toward fatherhood, and there is also the way our lives have gone. “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?” (Matt. 18:12 NIV). Yet another question, pressing into the submerged fears in our hearts, another question wanting another answer. Well? Wouldn’t he? “And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost” (vv. 13–14 NIV). Wherever you are in your ability to believe it at this moment in your life, at least you can see what Jesus is driving at. You have a good Father. He is better than you thought. He cares. He really does. He’s kind and generous. He’s out for your best. Want more? Order your copy of Fathered By God today

And here's where we run into a problem.For most of us, life feels like a movie we've arrived at forty-five minutes late.Something important seems to be going on ... maybe. I mean, good things do happen, sometimes beautiful things. You meet someone, fall in love. You find that work that is yours alone to fulfill. But tragic things happen too. You fall out of love, or perhaps the other person falls out of love with you. Work begins to feel like a punishment. Everything starts to feel like an endless routine.If there is meaning to this life, then why do our days seem so random? What is this drama we've been dropped into the middle of ? If there is a God, what sort of story is he telling here? At some point we begin to wonder if Macbeth wasn't right after all: Is life a tale "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"?No wonder we keep losing heart.We find ourselves in the middle of a story that is sometimes wonderful, sometimes awful, often a confusing mixture of both, and we haven't a clue how to make sense of it all. It's like we're holding in our hands some pages torn out of a book. These pages are the days of our lives. Fragments of a story. They seem important, or at least we long to know they are, but what does it all mean? If only we could find the book that contains the rest of the story.Chesterton had it right when he said, "With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand." Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered — to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. (Revelation 5:12 NLT)Pilate dares to ask Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus doesn’t even bother answering. You know how the Story goes — though Jesus could call down more than sixty thousand angels to prevent it, he lets the people kill him, and pardons them beforehand for doing it. Because of his extraordinary humility, no one seems to fully grasp just who this is. But nature knows, and cannot bear it — the earth convulses; the sun hides his face. It is only after the resurrection that the full reality begins to dawn on mankind. If it has even dawned on us yet. And then there comes the touching humility of keeping the scars of those wounds — forever. You’ll see them, soon, get to touch them for yourself. Jesus wears them proudly now.I think three years of this kind of humble generosity and patience is pretty dang impressive. But Jesus has kept right on at it — for two thousand years. Teaching you, including you in the mission, sharing in the glory, being playful, being honest, helping you along. No wonder when he steps into the heavens to accept the throne the cry goes up, “Worthy! Worthy! Worthy! Make him king!” ———————————Worship is so important for the soul. Find some songs you love, and just tell Jesus he is worthy! Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

Well, he created laughter. And think of the crowd he dined with. These rabble-rousers quickly earned Jesus a reputation as a drunkard and a glutton, and it wasn’t because they served water and crackers. This was a wild group, and surely such a crowd got rolling in laughter from time to time, if only from the joy they were experiencing being with Jesus. Now, surely the creator of these colorful characters didn’t sit there frowning, looking pious, Mr. Killjoy, Mr. I’m-Above-All-This. Imagine his own happiness at having these very lost sheep back at his side.Laughter is from God. This one quality alone might save us from the religious veil that forever tries to come in and cloud our perception of Jesus.After all—it was God who gave us a sense of humor. Do you really think Jesus came to take it away? Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

We hold on to hope, and belief, by remembering what is true and setting our hopes on a Person — on the utter goodness and reliability of our God who intervened in Bethlehem, when all was hopeless. And who has promised to intervene again, in an even more dramatic way!To help you win the fight for hope and belief, we offer a few podcasts we think you'll find very helpful in this hour...The Fight for Hope series (Part 1, Part 2)Expecting the Wonderful series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)The Kingdom of Your HeartDon't Let Hate InConstant UncertaintyGreater Union with GodWhether you've yet to discover our weekly podcasts, missed a few, or could benefit from a second pass, we encourage you to savor these conversations. Because we could all use a little more hope and belief right now. Want more? Click here to sign up for the Wild at Heart Weekly Podcast

We need what Beauty speaks. What it says is hard to put into words. But part of its message is, all is well. All will be well. Beauty invites. Recall what it is like to hear a truly beautiful piece of music. It captures you; you want to sit down and just drink it in. We buy the CD and play it many times over. (This is not visual, showing us that beauty is deeper than looks.). Music like this commands your attention, invites you to come more deeply into it. The same is true of a beautiful garden, or a scene in nature. You want to enter in, explore, partake of it. Feast upon it. We describe a great book as "captivating" also. It draws you in, holds your attention. You can't wait to get back to it, spend time with it. All of the things that God wants of us. All of the things a woman wants, too. Beauty invites. Beauty nourishes. It is a kind of food our souls crave. A woman's breast is among the loveliest of all God's works, and it is with her breast she nourishes a baby - a stunning picture of the way in which Beauty itself nourishes us. In fact, a woman's body is one of the most beautiful of all God's creations. "Too much of eternity," as Blake said, "for the eye of man." It nourishes, offers life. That is such a profound metaphor for Beauty itself. As Lewis said, We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. (The Weight of Glory) Beauty comforts. There is something profoundly healing about it. Have you ever wondered why we send flowers to the bereaved? In the midst of their suffering and loss, only a gift of beauty says enough, or says it right. After I lost my dearest friend Brent, there were months where only beauty helped. I could not hear words of counsel. I could not read or even pray. Only beauty helped. It soothes the soul. There's a touching story told from the hospitals of WWII, where a young and badly wounded soldier was brought in from a hellish week of fighting. After doing what she can for him, the nurse asks if there is anything else she can do. "Yes," he said. "Could you just put on some lipstick while I watch?" Beauty comforts. Beauty inspires. After beholding all the marvelous wonders of the creation of Narnia (as told in The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis), the cabbie says, "Glory be!" "I'd have been a better man all my life if I'd known there were things like this!" Or as Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt at the end of As Good as it Gets, "You make me want to be a better man." Isn't it true? Think of what it might have been like to have been in the presence of a woman like Mother Teresa. Her life was so beautiful, and it called us to something higher.Want more? Order your copy of Captivating today

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] I hate money. But I like to eat. I want a cell phone so people can get in touch with me. I want to take Susie out on a date. I’d really prefer to sleep indoors. And to do all that I need money. My friends are selling out for money, or denying money and living like they’re back in the 60s. I hate the way it messes everything up. Maybe money really is the root of all evil. [John] I hear you. Money is messy, and down the road when you start adding a wife and kids into the equation, money gets messy and urgent. But it’s also very clarifying — I mean, nothing can sort out your priorities more quickly than money. That’s what the scripture was trying to address when it said that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil” (1 Tim. 6:10, emphasis added). Money itself is not evil — greed is. Men leveled the rain forests out of greed, with no thought for the future or the ethics of what they were doing; they raped the oceans for the same reasons. Sweatshops, child labor — all those injustices that make your generation so righteously pissed — those are the result of greed. The issue is lust, gluttony, excess — that is the root of all evil. Not money. Greed. Want more? Order your copy of Killing Lions today

Caring for your heart is how you protect your relationship with God.Now there’s a new thought. But isn’t our heart the new dwelling place of God? It is where we commune with him. It is where we hear his voice. Most of the folks I know who have never heard God speak to them are the same folks who live far from their hearts; they practice the Christianity of principles. Then they wonder why God seems distant. I guess all that intimacy with God stuff is for others, not me. It’s like a friend who hates the telephone. He neglects to pay the bills, could care less when the phone company disconnects the service. Then he wonders why “nobody ever calls.” You cannot cut off your heart and expect to hear from God.Clairvaux describes Christian maturity as the stage where “we love ourselves for God’s sake,” meaning that because he considers our hearts the treasures of the kingdom, we do too. We care for ourselves in the same way a woman who knows she is deeply loved cares for herself, while a woman who has been tossed aside tends to “let herself go,” as the saying goes. God’s friends care for their hearts because they matter to him. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

I’ve always wondered why Jesus, having healed someone, would immediately tell them to keep quiet about it. After giving two blind men perfect vision, “Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this’” (Matt. 9:30). Warned them sternly — now why is that? He does the same after healing a man of leprosy: “Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: ‘See that you don’t tell this to anyone’” (Mark 1:44). A strong warning? But ... isn’t the point to get the word out? And wouldn’t miracles be just the thing? These guys are the poster children now, living proof of Jesus’ claims.Maybe he’s using reverse psychology, knowing that the more you insist people don’t talk about what happened, the more they will. Is this merely his technique to get the press going? It certainly has that effect. The two blind men “went out and spread the news about him all over that region” (Matt. 9:31). The healed leper “went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news” (Luke 1:45).But wait—Mark goes on to explain why Jesus did this: “‘See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.’ Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere” (Mark 1:44–45). It is a sad editorial footnote. Jesus can’t even get a moment’s rest now. The paparazzi are everywhere. He doesn’t mind a night of prayer on the mountain, but never to be able to get a bed and a hot meal? Jesus’ strong warnings reveal his strong desires, very human desires. “Please don’t tell anybody about this.” He doesn’t want to be forced to sleep in the woods. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today