Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

Because of Jesus, we have every reason to be known as people of deep hope and joy. But does that mean we are going to be running around singing and dancing and smiling every moment of our lives? Are you able to? Am I? Is that what it means to “rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice”? (Phil. 4:4 esv). I hope by now that you know I don’t think so. If we were only doing that, skipping around with glee, we would be a people whose character is an inch deep, refusing to live with honesty and integrity. Remember, hard times come, and you must be willing to be present in them and feel the sorrow they bring in order to have joy. Your capacity to feel the one affects your capacity to experience the other. The two are connected. A soul deadened to the pain of the world and to your own life is numb to the joy available to you as well. As George MacDonald wrote, “Beauty and sadness always go together.” (Within and Without)These days, I am experiencing joy increasingly. It sometimes feels like a fire in my chest. I have known my sorrows, just as you have. My temptation is to run from them, fearing that allowing myself to fully experience them will overwhelm me. They are a tidal wave, and I don’t know how to swim. But then the sorrow refuses to be ignored or stuffed or numbed or run from any longer. I must stop and give it space, allow the sorrow and sadness a voice. To feel it. Here’s a secret: our feelings have a life span. When we allow ourselves to fully feel our grief—to embrace it rather than shun it—the feeling of relief and release comes more quickly than we could imagine. The wave shrinks. We are buoyed by it. The sea calms. And we realize we did not drown. It won’t destroy us. We were created for Eden, yet we live in the valley of the shadow of death. Of course we ache. That’s normal. There is a sadness that tinges even the best of moments. It is a sadness that is real and not to be ignored. It is a sadness that can point us home. Yes, there will be sorrow in the living. But even there, we will have many choices to make: either to let our lives be defined by sorrow or to dig into joy. It is as Ann Voskamp said, “The secret to joy is to keep seeking God where we doubt He is.” (One Thousand Gifts) How do we cultivate a heart of joy even amid shades of sadness? How do our hearts develop their rhythm, becoming increasingly synced with the heartbeat of heaven? By cultivating a heart that is thankful. Want more? Order your copy of Defiant Joy today

But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. (1 Corinthians 3:10–14) We know our every sin is forgiven; we know we live under mercy. We know there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ (Romans 8:1). No condemnation, ever. We will be cloaked in righteousness, and it will emanate from our very being. So if we can remove all fear of exposure from our hearts, if we can set this safely within the context of our Father’s love, it helps us toward a great, great moment in the kingdom: the time for every story to be told rightly. How wonderful it will be to see Jesus Christ vindicated, after so many eons of mockery, dismissal, and vilification. Our Beloved has endured such slander, mistrust, and, worst of all, such grotesque distortion by the caricatures and religious counterfeits paraded in his name. All the world will see him as he is, see him crowned King. Every tongue will be silenced, and his vindication will bring tremendous joy to those who love him! But, friends — that vindication is also yours. You probably have a number of stories you would love to have told rightly — to have your actions explained and defended by Jesus. I know I do. I think we will be surprised by what Jesus noticed. The “sheep” certainly are when their story is told: “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?” (Matthew 25:37). What a lovely surprise — all our choices great and small have been seen, and each act will be rewarded. All those decisions your family misinterpreted and the accusations you bore, the many ways you paid for it. The thousands of unseen choices to overlook a cutting remark, a failure, to be kind to that friend who failed you again. The things that you wish you had personally done better, but at the time no one knew what you were laboring under—the warfare, the depression, the chronic fatigue. The millions of ways you have been missed and terribly misunderstood. Your Defender will make it all perfectly clear; you will be vindicated.Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

The meadowlark has long been my favorite songbird. I love its song because it evokes so many summer days out in the fields and streams of the West. Its song means summer, hay meadows, long lazy days, fly-fishing. More than anything else, it has become for me a symbol of hope. The meadowlark returns to Colorado in the early spring, and as I’ve mentioned, that typically means it arrives about the same time our major snowstorms hit. What courage; if it were me, I’d wait until June when the weather warms up. But they come in spite of the snow, and take their place on fence posts and the tops of small trees, and begin singing. Hearing a midsummer song almost seems out of place when the flurries are whipping about your face. But that is exactly when we need it.I heard two meadowlarks again this spring, calling and responding to each other on a cold and windy day. God began to speak through them. I heard him urging me to keep my own summer song, even though life’s winter tries to throw into my spring cold wind and snow. Do not throw away your confidence, he said. Do not budge from your perch, but sing your song, summer confident, sure of my great goodness toward you. You did not bring this spring, dear child; you do not have to arrange for the summer to follow. They come from thy Father’s will, and they will come.Brent was buried on a Thursday afternoon. As we gathered by the graveside, Craig read these words: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25–26). He closed his Bible and we all stood in silence, not really knowing what to say or do; no one wanted to leave; no one really wanted to stay. It seemed so final. At that moment, a meadowlark sang.This is my song in return. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about – He is looking for us. —Simon TugwellCan it possibly get any more uncertain than this? We so long for life to be better than it is. We wish the beauty and love and adventure would stay and that someone strong and kind would show us how to make the Arrows go away. We hope that God will be our hero. Of all the people in the universe, he could stop the Arrows and arrange for just a little more blessing in our lives. He can spin the earth, change the weather, topple governments, obliterate armies, and resurrect the dead. Is it too much to ask that he intervene in our story? But he often seems aloof, almost indifferent to our plight, so entirely out of our control. Would it be any worse if there were no God? If he didn't exist, at least we wouldn't get our hopes up. We could settle once and for all that we really are alone in the universe and get on with surviving as best we may.This is, in fact, how many professing Christians end up living: as practical agnostics. Perhaps God will come through, perhaps he won't, so I'll be hanged if I'll live as though he had to come through. I'll hedge my bets and if he does show up, so much the better. The simple word for this is godlessness. Like a lover who's been wronged, we guard our heart against future disappointment. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

The shriveled figure lay in the sun like a pile of rags dumped there by accident. It hardly appeared to be human. But those who used the gate to go in and out of Jerusalem recognized him. He was disabled, dropped off there every morning by someone in his family, and picked up again at the end of the day. A rumor was going around that sometimes (no one really knew when) an angel would stir the waters, and the first one in would be healed. Sort of a lottery, if you will. And as with every lottery, the desperate gathered round, hoping for a miracle.It had been so long since anyone had actually spoken to him, he thought the question was meant for someone else. Squinting upward into the sun, he didn't recognize the figure standing above him. The misshapen man asked the fellow to repeat himself; perhaps he had misheard. Although the voice was kind, the question felt harsh, even cruel."Do you want to get well?"He sat speechless, blinking into the sun. Slowly, the words seeped into his consciousness, like a voice calling him out of a dream. Do I want to get well? Slowly, like a wheel long rusted, his mind began to turn over. What kind of question is that? Why else would I be lying here? Why else would I have spent every day for the past thirty-eight seasons lying here? He is mocking me. But now that his vision had adjusted to the glare, he could see the inquisitor's face, his eyes. The face was as kind as the voice he heard. Apparently, the man meant what he said, and he was waiting for an answer. "Do you want to get well? What is it that you want?"It was Jesus who posed the question, so there must be something we're missing here. He is love incarnate. Why did he ask the paraplegic such an embarrassing question? Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

When the going gets rough, we're going nowhere without desire. And the going will get rough. The world, the minions of darkness, and your own double-mindedness are all set against you. Just try coming alive, try living from your heart for the Sacred Romance and watch how the world responds. They will hate you for it and will do everything in their power to get you to fall back into the comfort of the way things were. Your passion will disrupt them, because it sides with their own heart which they've tried so hard to put away. If they can't convince you to live from the safer places they have chosen, they will try intimidation. If that fails, they'll try to kill you — if not literally, then at the level of your soul.Jeremiah lived the struggle of desire. He knew the deep ambivalence of living for the Sacred Romance. His decision to trust in the love of God and join the battle for the hearts of his people made him an outcast, a pariah. Like the Master he served, he was "despised and rejected by men." After years of opposition, getting tossed naked into the bottom of wells, plots against his life, the shame of false accusations and the loneliness of isolation, Jeremiah has had it. He is ready to throw in the towel. He lets the passion of his soul forth, directly at God:O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me... So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. (20:7-9)He says, in effect, "You put this Romance in my heart, you drew me out on this wild adventure — how could I keep from following? But now that I have, it has only brought me the fury of my community. And what's worse, I cannot walk away. I'm trapped by my desire for you." Jeremiah may have become a prophet initially out of a sense of duty, but now he is caught up in the Sacred Romance because he can't help it. When the going gets rough, ought is not enough to keep you going. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

“May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).The Greek word here for “the world” we are crucified to is kosmos. It is quite an encompassing term, including all the inhabitants of the earth; mankind; the human race. It also refers to the ungodly; the mass of mankind alienated from God. You are crucified to that controlling mother, or angry boss; you are crucified to that church holding to arrogant sin or false humility.You will therefore find it very helpful to bring the cross of Christ between you and others, especially when you feel their warfare is trying to jump on you, or, in cases of unhealthy emotional and spiritual ties:I bring the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ between me and ____. I have been crucified to ___ and they have been crucified to me. By the cross I break all unhealthy ties and every unholy bond with ___. I command their sin, warfare, and corruption back to the throne of Christ over their life, and I forbid it to transfer to me, in Jesus’ name. I allow only the love of God, the Spirit of God, and the kingdom of God between us. In Jesus’ mighty name, and by his authority.The beauty is, the cross never prevents love from passing between us, never prevents the Spirit of God from coming between us. The cross only cuts off unhealthy things, so there is never any fear in bringing it between you and the kosmos. Want more? Order your copy of Moving Mountains today

It's undeniable: the new covenant, accomplished through the work of Christ, means that we have new hearts. Our hearts are good. Or God's a liar. Until we embrace that stunning truth, we will find it really hard to make decisions, because we can't trust what our hearts are saying. We'll have to be motivated by external pressure since we can't be motivated by our hearts. In fact, we won't find our calling, our place in God's kingdom, because that is written on our hearts' desires. We'll have a really hard time hearing God's voice in a deeply intimate way, because God speaks to us in our hearts. We'll live under guilt and shame for all sorts of evil thoughts and desires that the Enemy has convinced us were ours. God will seem aloof. Worship and prayer will feel like chores.Of course, I just described the life most Christians feel doomed to live.Now listen to Jesus:Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. (Luke 6:44-45, emphasis added)Later, explaining the parable of the sower and the seed, Jesus says,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, emphasis added)Jesus himself teaches that the heart can be good and even noble. That somebody is you, if you are his. God kept his promise. Our hearts have been circumcised to God. We have new hearts. Do you know what this means? Your heart is good. Let that sink in for a moment. Your heart is good.What would happen if you believed it, if you came to the place where you knew it was true? Your life would never be the same. My friend Lynn got it, and that's when she exclaimed, "If we believed that ... we could do anything. We would follow him anywhere!" Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

Where has Jesus come through for you? Really. Take a moment and remember. And then write it down. Remembering fertilizes our hope. It makes our faith burgeon and bloom. It strengthens our belief in the promises of God that He is good and He is for us. Remembering fuels our joy even when surrounded by thieves who want to steal it. Sometimes being a joyful person amid this crazy world seems impossible. Well then, let the impossible commence. Because one of the secrets to being defiantly joyful is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the circumstances going on in your life or your world. Defiant joy does not depend on feeling happy. Defiant joy is solely based on the victory of Jesus Christ and all that He has won for you. It rests on the fact that you are completely and utterly loved and cared for. In Christ your life is inextinguishable. Undefeatable. Victorious. Worry, fear, panic, and dread do not get to hold your heart hostage in their viselike grip. Your heart is safely held in the hands of your faithful God who promises that a life of unending joy is your inheritance. It is coming. Jesus led the way. And though the way often includes disappointment, pain, betrayal, and sorrow, none of them get to have the final say. Only God has the final say over your life. Your future is secure. Your Father is faithful. His promises are true. The unseen world is a far more reliable anchor than the seen one. Your trustworthy God holds you and all you love. You can choose to be immensely and deeply grateful for that, always. And gratitude is the breeding ground of joy. Want more? Order your copy of Defiant Joy today

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam] When we moved into our first place, Susie started having some intense nightmares, something that isn’t common for her. After a couple of nights of this, we figured praying against it couldn’t hurt, so we tried it. I felt like an idiot at first, speaking out loud and commanding things to leave. I imagined myself as the blindfolded kid swinging at a piñata. But then the craziest thing happened: she stopped having nightmares. [John] Exactly. You gave that thing a good, solid whack and the result was wonderful — no more nightmares. This is enormously practical. We aren’t speculating on theological nuances; we are trying to protect those we love, find the guidance we need, fight for our dreams, bring some genuine relief to the suffering in this world. Not only does Christianity provide the clearest and truest explanation for evil, it also provides us with weapons to fight it and see genuine results. This was absolutely central to Jesus’ worldview. He neither obsessed over the presence of an enemy nor did he ignore it; he directly dealt with it when he needed to and then moved on. Want more? Order your copy of Killing Lions today

We cannot know the plans of God for us beyond His promises that He is working for our good at all times. And often we are far from comfortable as we wait. But, just as David wrote in the psalm, we, too, can remember God’s great love and faithfulness and trust that our King is forging something beautiful in us even as we wait. He is making us into a people who will be able to fully partake of the feast He is preparing. He is making us into a people who will worship Him in the waiting, saying, “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth!”In our waiting God often deepens our hunger as well. A fabulous hors d’oeuvre is meant to awaken the appetite, not to quench it. It cultivates hunger by offering a hint of what is coming. There’s a taste, a promise of being satisfied. Jesus awakens our longing for Him by using all kinds of things. He offers aromas of His goodness through His Word. He awakens our hunger through laughter, through beauty, joy, and connection. He quickens our longing in silence and solitude. He even increases our hunger through pain. Through sorrow and suffering, our longing for Jesus grows. He enlarges our hearts’ capacity to wait with expectant hope through encounters with His loving presence as well as through times of loneliness and ache. We come to know Jesus in the waiting, not as one who is teasing out our time for some unknown sadistic reason but as the One who is sharing the experience of waiting with us, creating a union between His heart and our own. Want more? Order your copy of Defiant Joy today

You might think that keeping Jesus all mysterious and heavenly is the proper thing to do, but consider this: When he came, he came as presented in the Gospels — very much human, a person, a man, with a very distinct personality. This is the primary witness we have of him, recorded for all who would know him. This is how he chooses to make himself known. This is the “self” he presents to us. Be careful you don’t push him away with your religious delicacies.“Jesus was so obviously human,” notes Eugene Peterson, “but this has never been an easy truth for people to swallow. There are always plenty of people walking around who will have none of this particularity: human ordinariness, bodily fluids, raw emotions of anger and disgust, fatigue and loneliness.” Did you think Gethsemane was the only time he sweat? Or maybe we assume his sweat smelled like lilies? And what is with the snowy white robe? Every movie I’ve seen costumes Jesus in an immaculate white robe. He never got dirty? Those were not paved roads he walked for miles. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

Most of you have heard of the famous Cross, the assurance of forgiveness (and Lord knows we’ll need buckets of that as we go along). In the Cross God undergoes utter forsakenness so that we will never be forsaken. He understands sorrow, pain, rejection, misunderstanding, and abandonment. But what follows is for some reason, less well-known or at least less understood — the Resurrection, the triumph of the life of God. This is as central to Christianity as the Cross, perhaps even more so. Because it is that life he offers to us.George MacDonald explains that “the whole history is a divine agony to give divine life to creatures. The outcome of that agony ... will be radiant life, whereof joy unspeakable is the flower.” Want more? Order your copy of Love & War today

I never assume I know what the new prayer need before me requires. If someone asks me, “Pray that my mother and my father reconcile,” I don’t simply start praying that. For one thing, I do not know with any sort of certainty that reconciliation is what God is doing in this moment. It may well be the will of God that her parents reconcile, but it may also be that first he wants to address something in their character. God doesn’t just put Band-Aids on things; it would be far more like him to first deal with the sin that was poisoning the marriage, and then bring about reconciliation.I want to live and pray like God’s intimate ally, so I turn my gaze toward God and ask, What do you want me to pray for her mother and father? Show me what to pray. Those prayers are far more effective because they are aligned with his will. They are aligned with what he is doing in the situation at this particular moment.Want more? Order your copy of Moving Mountains today

Satan has an ace up his sleeve — even if his captives want out of the POW camp, he has a legal claim to them. A claim that can be broken only by blood. These prisoners can be ransomed, but only at a terrible price.It appears the evil one doesn’t understand Jesus’ next move. He sees an opportunity to finish what he started back in the massacre of the innocents. The authorities grab Jesus at night, bring him in under false charges, bribe witnesses, then get a weary, cynical Roman puppet to execute him because the mob is about to riot. Jesus seems to have run out of options, lost his ability to maneuver. Yet this plays right into his plan — his secret plot to overthrow the rule of the evil one on earth. Apparently, Satan did not know that by sacrificing Jesus he would pull the one pin that would crumble his entire kingdom, fall into the very scheme God the Father had carefully, ever so carefully arranged for the undoing of evil:“We speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:7–8). Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

You will be tested. Like Jesus’ desert trial, the enemy comes, probing the perimeter. He knows your story, knows where the weak spots are. But this is our training. This is the spiritual equivalent of, “Take a high guard, like this. Strike from high. Like this. Do it. Blade straighter. Leg back. Bend your knees. Sword straighter. Defend yourself.” This is how we develop a resolute heart. We make no agreements with whatever the temptation or accusation is. We repent the moment we do stumble, repent quickly, so that we don’t get hammered. We pray for strength from the Spirit of God in us. We directly — and this is the one thing so many fail to do — we directly resist the enemy, out loud, as Jesus did in the desert. We quote Scripture against him. We command him to flee.By the time it’s over, you’ll wish a few angels would drop in and minister to you as well. I pray they do. Want more? Order your copy of Fathered by God today

At one point in the long, arduous campaign of delivering to Judah the bad news of coming judgment and futile calls for repentance, Jeremiah explodes with thoughts that have apparently been building in him for a while with regard to God's use of him:O Lord, you deceived me, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:7-9 NIV)Jeremiah complains that not only has God written a play that casts him in a devastating role, but that he has also placed a fire in his heart that will not let him leave the play even if he wants to.…Faced with the Message of the Arrows and a part too big that God the Cosmic Playwright insists is ours, with little clarity on the meaning and relationship of our scenes and character to the larger play, it appears more than sensible to opt out and go off-Broadway. Even though the smaller plays we write are often just pieces of stories, becoming our own directors and playwrights at least promises a level of control over the script. We hope we can eliminate most of the relational unknowns along with the villain and live in our smaller stories with some modicum of peace and quiet.What is this drama God has dropped us into the middle of? What act of the play are we in and what do our scenes have to do with the larger story being told? Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

Today’s Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book “Becoming a King”Whatever else we observe about the life of Jesus, we know this to be true: at every moment, Jesus modeled what it looks like to live as God’s Son. It was the bedrock of his life that allowed him to become the cornerstone of restoration for all of mankind. It’s amazing to think that even Jesus needed to receive the validation of his Father before he launched into his life’s mission. I wonder what it was like for him to hear those words from his Father: “Son, you are the real deal. You have what it takes. I delight in you” (Matt. 3:17, my paraphrase). His Father’s constant validation was a holy reservoir from which Jesus drew strength for the rest of his days.What might it be like, deep in our masculine soul, to live in an atmosphere of abundance? To live with an abiding expectation of goodness now and goodness around the corner? To know a profound sense of robust well-being, a sense of being provided for, protected, and fed? To experience a union with God that nothing could dissolve? What would it be like to be so restored as a son that we could become our true self? To become the kind of king, like Paul, who over time was able to live energetically rooted in God, even in the midst of hunger, shipwreck, and torture?Now that I have been so immersed in the true nature of God and his kingdom,now that I have thoroughly put to death the self-sufficiency and self- preservation of the false self,now that I have been resurrected and restored to my true self,now that I have become in my essence what God meant when he meant man,now that I have become uniquely who God meant, when he meant me,now that I have trained and become practiced in living a life in experiential union with God himself,now that it is no longer the separate-I who lives but the very breath, strength,and life of God-with-me who lives in me, I am ready for anything, anywhere.Imagine what it would be like to receive that validation from the Father, to have that reservoir from which to drink daily. To be integrated in our masculine soul. To live in ever-increasing union with the Father.We would become unstoppable. Want more? Order your copy of Becoming a King today

The crisis of hope that afflicts the church today is a crisis of imagination. Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft writes: Medieval imagery (which is almost totally biblical imagery) of light, jewels, stars, candles, trumpets, and angels no longer fits our ranch-style, supermarket world. Pathetic modern substitutes of fluffy clouds, sexless cherubs, harps and metal halos (not halos of light) presided over by a stuffy divine Chairman of the Bored are a joke, not a glory. Even more modern, more up-to-date substitutes — Heaven as a comfortable feeling of peace and kindness, sweetness and light, and God as a vague grandfatherly benevolence, a senile philanthropist — are even more insipid. Our pictures of Heaven simply do not move us; they are not moving pictures. It is this aesthetic failure rather than intellectual or moral failures in our pictures of Heaven and of God that threatens faith most potently today. Our pictures of Heaven are dull, platitudinous and syrupy; therefore, so is our faith, our hope, and our love of Heaven. (Everything You Wanted to Know About Heaven)If our pictures of heaven are to move us, they must be moving pictures. So go ahead — dream a little. Use your imagination. Picture the best possible ending to your story you can. If that isn't heaven, something better is. When Paul says, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" (1 Cor. 2:9), he simply means we cannot out-dream God. What is at the end of our personal journeys? Something beyond our wildest imagination. But if we explore the secrets of our heart in the light of the promises of Scripture, we can discover clues. As we have said, there is in the heart of every man, woman, and child an inconsolable longing for intimacy, for beauty, and for adventure. What will heaven offer to our heart of hearts? Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

What exactly are you perfectly clear on these days? How about your life — why have things gone the way they have? Where was God in all that? And do you know what you ought to do next, with a deep, settled confidence that it will work out? Neither do I. Oh, I'd love to wake each morning knowing exactly who I am and where God is taking me. Zeroed in on all my relationships, undaunted in my calling. It's awesome when I do see. But for most of us, life seems more like driving along with a dirty windshield and then turning into the sun. I can sort of make out the shapes ahead, and I think the light is green.Wouldn't a little bit of clarity go a long way right now?Let's start with why life is so dang hard. You try to lose a little weight, but it never seems to happen. You think of making a shift in your career, maybe even serving God, but you never actually get to it. Perhaps a few of you do make the jump, but it rarely pans out the way you thought. You try to recover something in your marriage, and your spouse looks at you with a glance that says, "Nice try," or "Isn't it a little late for that?" and the thing actually blows up into an argument in front of the kids. Yes, we have our faith. But even there — maybe especially there — it all seems to fall rather short of the promise. There's talk of freedom and abundant life, of peace like a river and joy unspeakable, but we see precious little of it, to be honest. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Rescue me from my enemies, Lord, for I hide myself in you. (Psalm 143:8–9)David wrote this—the man who could often be found hiding in the desert, in the forest, on the mountain. He was no coward. He was no fool. Nor was Jesus, who practically begs you to hide yourself in him. Six times in the opening lines of John 15 he urges us to “remain in me,” then caps it off a seventh time with “Remain in my love” (v. 9).As men and women warriors we must not always live at war. Your enemy will first try to prevent you from embracing the warrior within. If he fails at that, he will then try to bait you into battles that you should not take on or bury you in battle after battle. There is a time to take refuge.It’s a choice, a posture of heart, a prayer, and a practice. We pray to receive him as our refuge. We bring reality into being. God is ever present to be our refuge, but he never forces it upon anyone. As soon as our hearts turn his direction for refuge, he is there to become so to us.———————————I give myself to you, Father. I consecrate my life to you again, body, soul, and spirit. I take refuge in you. I take refuge in your love. Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

Once we come to accept that we can never find or hang on to the life we have been seeking, what then? As Dallas Willard writes, it matters for all the world to know that life is ahead of us.I meet many faithful Christians who, in spite of their faith, are deeply disappointed in how their lives have turned out. Sometimes it is simply a matter of how they experience aging, which they take to mean they no longer have a future. But often, due to circumstances or wrongful decisions and actions by others, what they had hoped to accomplish in life they did not ... Much of the distress of these good people comes from a failure to realize that their life lies before them...the life that lies endlessly before us in the kingdom of God. (The Divine Conspiracy)Blaise Pascal also observed, "We are never living, but hoping to live; and whilst we are always preparing to be happy, it is certain, we never shall be so, if we aspire to no other happiness than what can be enjoyed in this life."Desire cannot live without hope. Yet, we can only hope for what we desire. There simply must be something more, something out there on the road ahead of us, that offers the life we prize. To sustain the life of the heart, the life of deep desire, we desperately need to possess a clearer picture of the life that lies before us. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

If you want to turn your children off to Jesus, ignore holiness (or choose the technical rule-keeping impostor). Be a jerk and then insist the family pray at mealtimes; let them see you lie to your boss or your aging parents and then insist you all go to church. Want to turn your neighbors off to Christianity? Let them see you yell something nasty at your dog, then head off all dressed up for Sunday morning service. It is the lack of holiness that has clouded our “witness” in this world. Thank God the opposite holds true as well: the beauty of the lives of God’s true friends is the sweetest and most winsome argument for Jesus there could ever be.I love the people I get to work with at Wild at Heart. They are some of the finest people I have ever had the honor of knowing. What joy it brings me to hear from the folks who attend our events that it was the lives of my friends that brought them to Jesus Christ. “I saw the beauty of their marriage.” “I saw the beauty of their walk with God.” “They were so kind to me.” “They are so filled with integrity and strength.” “It was their generosity.” Wow. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that just how it should be? I feel like David, who wrote, “As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight” (Psalm 16:3). We are meant to be the glorious ones, friends. Want more? Order your copy of Free to Live today

The Evil One lied to us about where true life was found ... and we believed him.God gave us the wondrous world as our playground, and he told us to enjoy it fully and freely. Yet despite his extravagant generosity, we had to reach for the one forbidden thing.And at that moment something in our hearts shifted. We reached, and in our reaching we fell from grace.So Helen betrayed Menelaus and her native Greece, and ran off to Troy with her lover. So Edmund betrayed his brothers and sisters, and all Narnia, and joined sides with the White Witch. So Cypher betrayed Neo and Morpheus and the last of the free world. So Cora fell into the hands of Magua. So Boromir betrayed the fellowship. So the Titanic struck an iceberg.Our glory faded, as Milton said, "faded so soon."Something has gone wrong with the human race, and we know it. Better said, something has gone wrong within the human race. It doesn't take a theologian or a psychologist to tell you that. Read a newspaper. Spend a weekend with your relatives. Pay attention to the movements of your own heart in a single day. Most of the misery we suffer on this planet is the fruit of the human heart gone bad. This glorious treasure has been stained, marred, infected. Sin enters the story and spreads like a computer virus.By the sixth chapter of Genesis, our downward spiral had reached the point where God himself couldn't bear it any longer.The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. (Genesis 6:5-6)Any honest person knows this. We know we are not what we were meant to be. Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

I continue to be stunned by the level of deadness that most people consider normal and seem to be content to live with. It had been more than a year since Diane and Ted first came to see me for counseling. As with most marriages, the real issues lay buried under years of just getting by, hidden beneath the way we’ve learned to live with each other so as not to rock the boat. Sadly, this way involves killing large regions of our hearts. And so their struggle toward intimacy required a lot of pain and hard work. But they stuck with it until they began to taste the true life of a real marriage. At this point Diane asked Ted about his deepest desires: “If I could be more of what you wanted in a woman, what do you secretly wish I would offer you?” It’s a question that most men are dying to be asked. His response? Clean socks. That’s all he could come up with. Life would be better, his marriage would be richer, if Diane would keep his drawer filled with clean socks. I wanted to throw him out the window.I wasn’t angry with Ted because his answer was unbelievably shallow, or because it mocked all that his wife was seeking to offer him. I was angry because it’s just not true. We are made in the image of God; we carry within us the desire for our true life of intimacy and adventure. To say we want less than that is to lie. Ted may believe that clean socks would satisfy him, but he is deceived. His satisfaction comes at the price of his soul.When I brought up this very issue with a colleague, he sort of dismissed it all with the comment, “Not everyone longs like you do.” I had to admit that much. But we were meant to. I thought of The Weight of Glory, where Lewis says that “when 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.” Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

Where would we be today if Abraham had carefully weighed the pros and cons of God’s invitation and decided that he’d rather hang on to his medical benefits, three weeks paid vacation, and retirement plan in Ur? What would have happened if Moses had listened to his mother’s advice to “never play with matches” and lived a careful, cautious life steering clear of all burning bushes? You wouldn’t have the gospel if Paul had concluded that the life of a Pharisee, while not everything a man dreams for, was at least predictable and certainly more stable than following a voice he heard on the Damascus road. After all, people hear voices all the time, and who really knows whether it’s God or just one’s imagination. Where would we be if Jesus was not fierce and wild and romantic to the core? Come to think of it, we wouldn’t be at all if God hadn’t taken that enormous risk of us in the first place.Most men spend the energy of their lives trying to eliminate risk, or squeezing it down to a more manageable size. Their children hear “no” far more than they hear “yes”; their employees feel chained up and their wives are equally bound. If it works, if a man succeeds in securing his life against all risk, he’ll wind up in a cocoon of self-protection and wonder all the while why he’s suffocating. If it doesn’t work, he curses God, redoubles his efforts and his blood pressure. When you look at the structure of the false self men tend to create, it always revolves around two themes: seizing upon some sort of competence and rejecting anything that cannot be controlled. As David Whyte says, “The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears.” Want more? Order your copy of Wild at Heart today

Even Jesus endured assault — not the open accusation that he had a wicked heart, but the more subtle kind, the seemingly "innocent" Arrows that come through "misunderstanding."After this, Jesus went around in Galilee, purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews there were waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles was near, Jesus' brothers said to him, "You ought to leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples may see the miracles you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." For even his own brothers did not believe in him. (John 7:1-5)I think we can relate to that. Did your family believe in you? Or did they believe in the person they wanted you to be? Did they even notice your heart at all? Have they been thrilled in your choices, or has their disappointment made it clear that you just aren't what you're supposed to be? At another point in his ministry, Jesus' family shows up to collect him. "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you" (Luke 8:19). They think he's lost it, and they've come to bring him home, poor man. Misunderstanding is damaging, more insidious because we don't identify it as an attack on the heart. How subtly it comes, sowing doubt and discouragement where there should have been validation and support. There must be something wrong with us. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

Many people think the theme of war ends with the Old Testament. Not at all. Jesus says, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34). In fact, his birth involved another battle in heaven (Rev. 12:1-5, 7-8, 17). The birth of Christ was an act of war, an invasion. The Enemy knew it and tried to kill him as a babe (Matt. 2:13). The whole life of Christ is marked by battle and confrontation. He kicks out demons with a stern command. He rebukes a fever and it leaves Peter's mother-in-law. He rebukes a storm and it subsides. He confronts the Pharisees time and again to set God's people free from legalism. In a loud voice he wakes Lazarus from the dead. He descends to hell, wrestles the keys of hell and death from Satan, and leads a train of captives free (Eph. 4:8-9; Rev. 1:18). And when he returns, I might point out, Jesus will come mounted on a steed of war, with his robe dipped in blood, armed for battle (Rev. 19:11-15).War is not just one among many themes in the Bible. It is the backdrop for the whole Story, the context for everything else. God is at war. He is trampling out the vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored. And what is he fighting for? Our freedom and restoration. The glory of God is man fully alive. In the meantime, Paul says, arm yourselves, and the first piece of equipment he urges us to don is the belt of truth (Eph. 6:10-18). We arm ourselves by getting a good, solid grip on our situation, by getting some clarity on the battle over our lives. God's intentions toward us are life; those intentions are opposed. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

Suffering will try to separate you from Jesus. You must not let it.The worst part of suffering is the damage it can do to your view of God, your relationship with him. Feelings of abandonment creep in: Why did he let this happen? Anger. A loss of hope. Mistrust. Forsakenness. At the very time you need him most, you will feel most compelled to pull away from Jesus, or feel that he has pulled away from you. This is what Hebrews was trying to prevent.There is a popular theology out there that says a Christian can avoid suffering. (You can understand why it’s popular. Most of us have embraced it without even knowing — simply notice your reaction when life turns on you.) It is a devastating heresy because suffering will come, and then what will you do? The ground heaves beneath you, shaking your faith in God because you thought it wouldn’t come, shouldn’t come. It gets you scrambling; it can level you for a long time if you thought you’d escape it.Be very, very careful and pay attention to how you interpret your suffering. Don’t jump to conclusions. Interpretation is critical. Beware the agreements that you make. This is where the enemy can destroy you. Agreements such as God has abandoned me; it’s my fault; I’ve done something wrong, and a host of others. If you’ve been making these agreements, you will want to break them. They allow a chasm to form between you and your Jesus.By all means, seek a breakthrough. Too many Christians simply fold under hardship and give way to the feelings of abandonment. Pray against it; pray hard. If it is an attack from the enemy, much of that can be shut down through prayer. Much healing is available, too, through the life of Jesus in us. Do not simply surrender. But when breakthrough does not seem to come, when the pain lingers on, remember this:Just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. (2 Corinthians 1:5)Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

Indeed, part of God's victory over the enemy of our souls, which we will be invited to take part in, will be an open mocking of Satan and his forces in view of all the peoples of the earth along with the angelic hosts. We are given a picture of the enemy's defeat, which is the culmination of Act III of the Sacred Romance, by Isaiah:Those who see you stare at you [Satan], they ponder your fate: "Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble, the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?" (14:16-17)"You're the one we've been scared of all this time? You're the one we've been believing?" we will ask incredulously. And we will turn and walk away into the embrace of the Prince, never to speak Satan's name again. But in the meantime, our adversary will continue to use our Message of the Arrows, along with doubts about the goodness of the Prince, to lure us to spend our lives with less-wild lovers than God. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

We need to look into what has damaged our union with God.I realize this is a very poignant thing I’m raising, and I want to proceed tenderly. Do you know what’s damaged your soul’s union with God?Suffering in all its forms will slowly erode union, if we’re not careful. As will chronic disappointment. Satan will use your suffering, or the suffering of those you love, to introduce mistrust between you and the God you love. You see, he whispers, you are on your own. God’s not here for you. He didn’t do a thing to help. The suffering or disappointment alone is enough to make us pull back, like a sea anemone does when you touch it. But these insidious words poison the relationship, and our union withers. We still might hang onto belief, but as we’ve seen, belief is not the same as saturated union. Has your suffering caused you to pull away? If we name it, we are able to come back towards God. We can choose to open up again, and ask him to heal our hearts, heal our union. We must be intentional to seek the restoration of our union.So I’ve found it very important to ask God to heal my union with him on a fairly regular basis, certainly after I’ve gone through something that felt traumatizing. Knowing I have a role to play (the door opens from the inside), I will pray something like this:Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit — I need you to heal our union. Heal our union, God. I give myself to you, to be one with you in everything. I pray for union and I pray for oneness. I present my entire being to you, to be one life with you. I invite your healing love and presence into the things that have hurt our union. [Be specific if you can: The loss of my daughter. The betrayal at work. My chronic back pain.] I invite your Spirit into the places where our union has been assaulted. Come and heal me here. Cleanse these places with your blood, dear Jesus. Let your blood wash all wounding, wash away evil, cleanse every form of trauma in me. Bring your love here. I invite the light of your presence to bring healing here. I pray your glory would heal our union. May the glory of God come into the harm and damage, and restore our union. I pray to be one heart and mind again, one life, one complete union. [I will linger a moment to see if the Holy Spirit wants to show me anything specific I need to pray.] Heal our union, God; restore and renew our union. I pray for a deeper union with you, a deeper and more complete oneness. Restore our union, in Jesus’s name.(By offering this prayer I don’t mean to imply that our souls are healed of trauma in one simple pass. I have seen God do this a number of times, but we need to be gracious and allow that we might need to see a counselor or seek some healing prayer ministry. This prayer is offered as a beginning. In the day-to-day wearing down of our union with God, this will restore it. In cases of more severe harm, more help is recommended.)Remember, God works gently. He doesn’t answer trauma with a forceful response; he heals through gentleness. Sometimes it can feel dramatic, but maybe only 5 percent of the time. Most of the time the union of our soul with God is something that is very gentle and life-giving. And therefore you have to be gentle and tuned-in to be aware of it. Cultivating the pause, and the other practices in this book, will certainly allow you to be in places that deepen union. Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today

An old saint who first taught me to pray — may he be blessed forever — would often say, “When you think you are finished praying, you are probably just getting warmed up.”Often when we first turn to prayer we are coming in out of the Matrix — that whirling, suffocating Mardi Gras of this world — and it takes us some time to calm down and turn our gaze to Jesus, fix our gaze on him. We begin to tune in and align ourselves with God as his partners. That itself takes some time. Much of the early stages of our praying involves not so much interceding but getting ourselves back into alignment with God and his kingdom. Once in that place we can begin to be aware of what the Spirit is leading us to pray.Furthermore, as we “press into” prayer, we are not simply begging God to move, but partnering with him in bringing his kingdom to bear on the need at hand. Enforcing that kingdom often requires much “staying with it,” and repetition.This is so important, and hopeful, because many dear folks have given up on prayer, having concluded it doesn’t really work, when in fact quick prayers often don’t work; simple little prayers aren’t sufficient to the needs of this world. There is a way things work. Want more? Order your copy of Moving Mountains today

The Greek of Revelation 21:1 speaks of one world “passing away” so that a remade world may take its place. Therefore Eugene Peterson in The Message translates the passage, “I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea.” Gone only in the sense of the old passing, so the renewed can take its place.The eagles carried Sam and Frodo to safety; Gandalf rode them several times. What if? A large golden eagle in our world can lift a sheep and carry it away. What load can a renewed eagle bear? I would love to ride a golden eagle, with their permission of course. And, friends — I have not even mentioned the angels. Heaven comes to earth, and the angels shall walk in fellowship with man. What do the angels have to teach us? What sort of games do they play? The entire earth will be our playground. I see massive games like lacrosse being played by angels and men across vast landscapes.This is why you don’t need a bucket list. It’s all yours, and you can never lose it. Oh, how I long to wander the beautiful places, without a curfew, without the end of vacation always looming. You’ve longed to see the fjords of Norway? Done. You’ve secretly hoped to wander the jungles of Africa? Yours too. What next? The Amazon? Antarctica? And I am only touching on the earth. What of the microscopic world? It is as vast as the world we call our own, and we shall explore its mysteries. What of the heavens? They, too, shall be ours. Good thing we have all the time in the world that has no time to explore and come home and tell the tales. To take up new adventures with those who want to sail the seven seas or climb the peaks of the Andes or range the universe itself.You think I am being fanciful. I am being utterly serious. I am being as serious as Jesus when he warned that only the child-heart can receive the kingdom. Do you really want to suggest sinful man can create stories and worlds that outshine the worlds God will remake? Careful there. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9 NLT). It was our creative Father who gave us our imaginations; the “visions” we tell in story are often prophetic glimpses into his wondrous realms, and his creative majesty will certainly do ours one better in the world to come.Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

In the mythic story of The Lion King, the lion cub Simba is separated in his youth from his father through a murder engineered by his uncle, Scar, the character symbolizing the evil one in our story. Scar arranges for the cub to be caught in a stampede of wildebeests, knowing that his father, Mufasa, will risk his life to save his son. He does, and Simba is saved, but Mufasa is killed. Scar then turns on Simba and accuses him, at such a vulnerable and desperate moment, of causing his father's death. Brokenhearted, frightened, racked with guilt, Simba runs away from home.This is the enemy's one central purpose — to separate us from the Father. He uses neglect to whisper, You see — no one cares. You're not worth caring about. He uses a sudden loss of innocence to whisper, This is a dangerous world, and you are alone. You've been abandoned. He uses assaults and abuses to scream at a boy, This is all you are good for. And in this way he makes it nearly impossible for us to know what Jesus knew, makes it so very, very hard to come home to the Father's heart toward us. The details of each story are unique to the boy, but the effect is always a wound in the soul, and with it separation from and suspicion of the Father.It's been very effective.But God is not willing to simply let that be the end of the story. Not in any man's life. Remember what Jesus taught us about the Father's heart in the parable of the lost son: "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20 NIV). Filled with compassion, our Father God will come like a loving Father, and take us close to his heart. He will also take us back to heal the wounds, finish things that didn't get finished. He will come for the boy, no matter how old he might now be, and make him his Beloved Son. Want more? Order your copy of Fathered By God today

What have we come to accept as "discipleship"? A friend of mine recently handed me a program from a large and successful church somewhere in the Midwest. It's a rather exemplary model of what the idea has fallen to. Their plan for discipleship involves, first, becoming a member of this particular church. Then they encourage you to take a course on doctrine. Be "faithful" in attending the Sunday morning service and a small group fellowship. Complete a special course on Christian growth. Live a life that demonstrates clear evidence of spiritual growth. Complete a class on evangelism. Consistently look for opportunities to evangelize. Complete a course on finances, one on marriage, and another on parenting (provided that you are married or a parent). Complete a leadership training course, a hermeneutics course, a course on spiritual gifts, and another on biblical counseling. Participate in missions. Carry a significant local church ministry "load."You're probably surprised that I would question this sort of program; most churches are trying to get their folks to complete something like this, one way or another. No doubt a great deal of helpful information is passed on. My goodness, you could earn an MBA with less effort. But let me ask you: A program like this—does it teach a person how to apply principles, or how to walk with God? They are not the same thing. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today

It is possible to recover the lost life of our heart and with it the intimacy, beauty, and adventure of life with God. To do so we must leave what is familiar and comfortable — perhaps even parts of the religion in which we have come to trust — and take a journey. This journey first takes us on a search for the lost life of our heart, and for the voice that once called us in those secret places; those places and times when our heart was still with us. The pilgrimage of the heart leads us to remember together what it was that first engaged us in deep ways as children: "... anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it," said Jesus (Mark 10:15).Our journey will take us to explore the hidden questions of our heart, born out of the stories of our lives. It is only by leaving home and taking a pilgrimage that we will begin to see how our own stories are interwoven with the great Romance God has been telling since before the dawn of time. It is on this pilgrimage that we begin to see that each of us has a part in the cosmic love affair that was created specifically with us in mind. Last, this pilgrimage brings us to the destination, set within all of our hearts, which in some way we have known, longed for, and been haunted by since we were children....Our journey begins by asking questions, putting words to the movements of the heart. "What is this restlessness and emptiness I feel, sometimes long years into my Christian journey? What does the spiritual life have to do with the rest of my life? What is it that is set so deeply in my heart, experienced as a longing for adventure and romance, that simply will not leave me alone? Does it have anything to do with God? What is it that he wants from me? Has he been speaking to me through my heart all along? When did I stop listening? When did his voice first call to me?" Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

I ran across a news release so shocking I had to read it twice. It didn’t make the front page but it should have: the average person now spends 93 percent of their life indoors (this includes your transportation time in car, bus, or metro). Ninety-three percent — such a staggering piece of information. We should pause for a moment and let the tragedy sink in.That means if you live to be 100, you will have spent 93 of those years in a little compartment and only 7 outside in the dazzling, living world. If we live to the more usual 75, we will spend 69 and three-fourths of our years indoors, and only five and one-fourth outside. This includes our childhood; how does a child be a child when they only venture outside a few months of their entire childhood?This is a catastrophe, the final nail in the coffin for the human soul. You live nearly all your life in a fake world: artificial lighting instead of the warmth of sunlight or the cool of moonlight or the darkness of night itself. Artificial climate rather than the wild beauty of real weather; your world is always 68 degrees. All the surfaces you touch are things like plastic, nylon, and faux leather instead of meadow, wood, and stream. Fake fireplaces; wax fruit. The atmosphere you inhabit is now asphyxiating with artificial smells — mostly chemicals and “air fresheners” — instead of cut grass, wood smoke, and salt air (is anyone weeping yet?). This is a life for people in a science fiction novel. You live a bodily existence. The physical life, with all the glories of senses, appetites, and passions — this is the life God meant for us. It’s through our senses we learn most every important lesson. Even in spiritual acts of worship and prayer we are standing or kneeling, engaging bodily. God put your soul in this amazing body and then put you in a world perfectly designed for that experience.Which is why the rescue of the soul takes place through our engagement with the real world. Thus the quote — variously attributed to Churchill, Will Rogers, and Reagan — that “The best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.” Because when we encounter an actual horse — not online, not through Instagram, not the little horse emoji on your phone, but a living, breathing, thousand-pound animal, we are thrust into a dynamic encounter with the real. It calls things out of us, not only fears, anger, and impatience to be overcome, but intuition and presence and a sort of firm kindness that no video game can ever replicate. There’s no switch you can flip; you must engage. Reality shapes us. Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come. Then he sent some more servants and said, "Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner...Come to the wedding banquet." But they paid no attention and went off — one to his field, another to his business. (Matthew 22:2-5)Now for a sobering truth, more sobering than any other we have considered.To be honest, we must understand that not everyone lives happily ever after, not in any tale. This promise of the happy ending — or the new beginning — is only for the friends of God. Many people do not want the life that God offers them.Remember — he gave us free will.He gave us a choice.We seem to forget — perhaps more truthfully, we refuse to remember — that we are the ones who betrayed him, not vice versa. We are the ones who listened to the lies of the Evil One in the Garden; we chose to mistrust the heart of God. In breaking the one command he gave us, we set in motion a life of breaking his commands. (You have loved God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? You have loved your neighbor as yourself?)The final act of self-centeredness is seen in those who refuse to come to the wedding banquet of God (Matthew 22:2-3). They do not want God. They reject his offer of forgiveness and reconciliation through Jesus. What is he to do? The universe has only two options. If they insist, God will grant to them what they have wanted — to be left to themselves.To be rescued from an eternity apart from God — this is why the rescued ones fall before him at the Great Feast in songs of gratitude and worship. Yes, we will worship God. It won't be like a church service, but we will worship him. We will adore him.But that day has not yet come.Until then, the invitation of life stands.I have set before you life and death...Now choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19) Want more? Order your copy of Epic today

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (T. S. Eliot) Look, I am making all things new! (Jesus of Nazareth) See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come. (Song 2:11-12) I was walking in the woods and fields behind our house one evening four months after Brent's death. My heart was so aware of the loss — not only of Brent, but in some ways, of everything that mattered. I knew that one by one, I would lose everyone I cared about and the life I am still seeking. In the east, a full moon was rising, bright and beautiful and enormous as it seems when it is just above the horizon. Toward the west, the clouds were turning peach and pink against a topaz sky. Telling myself to long for eternity feels like telling myself to let go of all I love — forever. It feels like accepting the teaching of Eastern religions, a denial of life and all God created. We lose it all too soon, before we can even begin to live and love. But what if ? What if nature is speaking to us? What if sunrise and sunset tell the tale every day, remembering Eden's glory, prophesying Eden's return? What if it shall all be restored? Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

If for all practical purposes we believe that this life is our best shot at happiness, if this is as good as it gets, we will live as desperate, demanding, and eventually despairing men and women. We will place on this world a burden it was never intended to bear. We will try to find a way to sneak back into the Garden and when that fails, as it always does, our heart fails as well. If truth be told, most of us live as though this life is our only hope.In his wonderful book The Eclipse of Heaven, A. J. Conyers put it quite simply: "We live in a world no longer under heaven." All the crises of the human soul flow from there. All our addictions and depressions, the rage that simmers just beneath the surface of our Christian facade, and the deadness that characterizes so much of our lives has a common root: We think this is as good as it gets. Take away the hope of arrival and our journey becomes the Bataan death march. The best human life is unspeakably sad. Even if we manage to escape some of the bigger tragedies (and few of us do), life rarely matches our expectations. When we do get a taste of what we really long for, it never lasts. Every vacation eventually comes to an end. Friends move away. Our careers don't quite pan out. Sadly, we feel guilty about our disappointment, as though we ought to be more grateful.Of course we're disappointed — we're made for so much more. "He has also set eternity in the hearts" (Eccl. 3:11). Our longing for heaven whispers to us in our disappointments and screams through our agony. "If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy," C. S. Lewis wrote, "the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world." Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

Because Jesus drank from the cup of suffering and wrath, that cup became the cup of salvation. The cup of suffering became the cup of joy. Turns out, it’s the same cup. Hebrews 12 says that it was for the joy that was set before Him that Jesus endured His tortuous death on the cross. But to get to the joy, He first had to be willing to drink the cup of suffering. In the midst of His excruciating pain, Jesus fixed His gaze on His Dad and held on to the joy that He knew was coming to Him on the other side of the cross. He showed us that we, too, can have joy in the midst of our suffering because of the joy that is set before us — and no one can take it away from us. “So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice, and no one can rob you of that joy.” (John 16:22 NLT) No one and nothing can take away our future joy at the grand reunion that is going to take place when Christ returns and all things are made new (Rev. 21:5). Endless life, eternally satisfying and delightful, is headed our way. Jesus led the way with His death and resurrection, and that joyful new life is promised to us as well. But remember, friends, to get to the resurrection, we have to pass through the crucifixion. We will suffer, but we will never suffer as Jesus did — ever — because Jesus drank the cup of wrath for all the sins of all mankind. Though we will suffer, it will always be under a canopy of grace and love, never wrath and judgment. This is the cup that Jesus invites us to partake of as He did. It is no mythic holy grail that we must search for in order to find eternal youth and infinite joy. This cup is real. We drink of it to remember Him when we celebrate the Last Supper, proclaiming His death and resurrection until we see Him again. We drink of it to proclaim as they do in the Episcopal mass, “The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.” We take up the cup to join in the fellowship of Jesus and all the saints who precede us with a hope that is untouchable. We take up the cup of blessing, and as we do, we sing as David did, “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the lord” (Ps. 116:13). And, finally, we drink of the cup because we would not shun any of that which Christ deems necessary to shape us into His image. We can rejoice over that. Want more? Order your copy of Defiant Joy today

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 ours. 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. A daughter of God is a goddess; a son of God is a god. “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High’” (Psalm 82:6). 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: To waste his whole Creation, or possessAll as our own, and drive as we were driven, The punie habitants, or if not drive,Seduce them to our Party, that thir GodMay prove thir foe, and with repenting hand Abolish his own works. This would surpass Common revenge, and interrupt his joy... when his darling SonsHurl’d headlong to partake with us, shall curse Thir frail Originals, and faded bliss,Faded so soon. (John Milton, Paradise Lost) If the coming Restoration is to be fulfilled on the earth and in our lives, Satan and his armies must be destroyed. He must never be allowed in again.Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

Peter was one of Jesus' closest friends, one of only three that were invited into his innermost circle. In Gethsemane, at his hour of greatest need, Jesus again took Peter aside, poured his heart out to him; he looked to Peter for strength. Three years of this, and who knows how many other stories. Peter must have known, I have a special place in Jesus' heart. So, how do you suppose Peter felt after he denied Christ — not just once, but three times? It must have been devastating.After the resurrection, Jesus is on the beach with Peter and the others. It's a touching reunion. Following a night of lousy fishing, Christ yells out to the guys to let their nets down for a catch — just as he did that morning he first called them three years earlier. Again, their nets are bursting with the load. Just like the good old days. Peter leaps from the boat and swims to Christ. They have breakfast together. Reunited, laughing about the catch, relaxed, warmed by the fire and stuffed from breakfast, Jesus then turns to Peter.When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my sheep." (John 21:15-17)What a beautiful story. Notice first that Christ does not let Peter sweep the whole matter under the rug. If this issue doesn't get addressed, it will haunt the old fisherman for the rest of his life. No, this must be spoken to. Most of us simply try and "put things behind us," get past it, forget the pain as quickly as we can. Really — denial is a favorite method of coping. But not with Jesus. He wants truth in the inmost being, and to get it there he's got to take us into our inmost being. One way he'll do this is by bringing up an old memory. You'll be driving down the road and suddenly remember something from your childhood. Or maybe you'll have a dream about a long-forgotten person, or event, or place. However he brings it up, go with him there. He has something to say to you. Want more? Order your copy of Waking The Dead today

Faith looks back and draws courage; hope looks ahead and keeps desire alive. And meantime? In the meantime we need one more item for our journey. To appreciate what it may be, we have to step back and ask, what is all this for? The resurrection of our heart, the discovery of our role in the Larger Story, entering into the Sacred Romance — why do we pursue these things? If we say we seek all of this for our own sake, we're right back where we started: lost in our own story. Jesus said that when a person lives merely to preserve his life, he eventually loses it altogether. Rather, he said, give your life away and discover life as it was always meant to be. "Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self " (Matt. 16:25, The Message).Self-preservation, the theme of every small story, is so deeply wrong because it violates the Trinity, whose members live to bring glory to the others. The road we travel will take us into the battle to restore beauty in all things, chief among them the hearts of those we know. We grow in glory so that we might assist others in doing so; we give our glory to increase theirs. In order to fulfill the purpose of our journey, we will need a passion to increase glory; we will need love.Memory, imagination, and a passion for glory — these we must keep close at hand if we are to see the journey to its end. But the road is not entirely rough. There are oases along the way. It would be a dreadful mistake to assume that our Beloved is only waiting for us at the end of the road. Our communion with him sustains us along our path. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

Before we go any farther in our search, I need to make the offer of Christianity clear: There is a way to be good again. The hope of Christianity is that we get to live life like Jesus. That beautiful goodness can be ours. He can heal what has gone wrong deep inside each of us. The way he does this is to give us his goodness; impart it to us, almost like a blood transfusion or mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. We get to live his life — that is, live each day by the power of his life within us. That’s the hope: you get to live that life. “But there is a reality of being in which all things are easy and plain,” wrote George MacDonald, “oneness, that is, with the Lord of life.” He makes us whole by making us holy. He makes us holy by making us whole.Think of how you feel when you commit some offense — yell at your kids, lie to someone or hide the full truth, harbor resentment or bitterness toward a friend, indulge sexual or romantic fantasies over someone at work or their spouse; maybe you’ve been acting on those fantasies for three years now and it is tearing you apart. Whatever your regrets may be, think of how you feel when you commit these acts repeatedly, when you vow never to do it again and find yourself doing it moments later. And think of what an utter relief it would be to be free from the whole entangled nightmare. I mean to be so free that you’re not even disciplining yourself not to do these things anymore; you just don’t do them. You simply don’t struggle with whatever it is that haunts you; it’s not an issue.That’s the utter relief of holiness. That’s what happens when the life of Jesus invades your life. Want more? Order your copy of Free to Live today

I'm simply sitting on my back porch. Warm summer evening, cool breeze, beautiful sky now turning that deep navy blue just before dark.That's when the carnival started.Some agitated place in me started clamoring for relief. Even though the evening was washing over my soul, or maybe because it was allowing my soul to untangle, the carnival of desire started jockeying for my attention. I think there's still some ice cream in the freezer. It felt like two kingdoms were vying for my soul. the carnival was offering relief. Nature was offering restoration. They are leagues apart, my friends. Leagues apart.Relief is momentary; it’s checking out, numbing, sedating yourself. Television is relief. Eating a bag of cookies is relief. Tequila is relief. And let’s be honest — relief is what we reach for because it’s immediate and usually within our grasp. Most of us turn there, when what we really need is restoration.Nature heals; nature restores. Think of sitting on the beach watching the waves roll in at sunset and compare it to turning on the tube and vegging in front of Narcos or Fear the Walking Dead. The experiences could not be farther apart. Remember how you feel sitting by a small brook, listening to its little musical songs, and contrast that to an hour of HALO. Video games offer relief; nature offers restoration.This is what David was trying to put words to when he reported finding God in green meadows and beside quiet waters, emerging with a refreshed soul. Or as another translation has it, “He renews my strength” (Psalm 23:3 NLT). The world we live in fries the soul on a daily basis, fries it with a vengeance (it feels vengeful). We need the immersion David spoke of.So I stayed on the porch, choosing to ignore the chorus of vendors trying to get me to leave in search of some relief (Your favorite show is on; maybe what you want is wine ... ). I knew if I left all I would find was sugar or alcohol, and my soul would be no better for it. So I chose to let the evening continue to have its healing ministry. Remember — God doesn’t like to shout. His invitations are much more gentle.Sunset was over; night was falling, and still I sat there. The evening itself was cool now, and an owl was hooting somewhere off in the distance. I could feel my soul settling down even more; the feeling was like unwrinkling or disentangling on a soul level, as your body does in a hot tub. Thank you for this gift of beauty, I said. I receive it into my soul. Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today

Today's Daily Reading is an excerpt from Morgan Snyder's book Becoming a KingSince the beginning of time, every age has faced unprecedented battles. Today’s Western world lives and breathes a gospel of now. Instant gratification is the way of our culture; it is the norm, the expectation. This gospel has deeply infiltrated authentic Christianity, and the desire to have it our way and to have it now is toxic to becoming restored as a man.When we turn to the gospel, the story of God and his kingdom, we find a very different reality. Doesn’t God seem profoundly comfortable avoiding shortcuts? We find Jacob required to labor seven years for the hand of his bride, only to be deceived by Laban and his own immaturity into a trap requiring him to labor an additional seven years (Genesis 29–30).How about Joseph? Thrown into a well, sold into slavery, falsely accused, imprisoned. And when he finally saw a path out of the dungeon—if only fellow prisoners who were being released would remember him when they were free—we read these heart-wrenching words: “Two years passed” (Genesis 41:1 MSG).How about in the book of Daniel, where we see a man prayerfully pleading for an intervention in his battle against evil? The text says that Michael, the great warrior of the heavens, was sent as an answer to Daniel’s prayer but was delayed in a three-week battle against the prince of Persia (Daniel 10).And we can’t fail to mention Abram and Sarai, who were unable to have children. At the ripe age of seventy-five, Abram was told he’d be the father of many nations. Still, it wasn’t until he was one hundred years old that the promise was fulfilled through the birth of his son Isaac (Genesis 15–17).Jesus said it plainly: “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easygoing formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do” (Matthew 7:13–14 MSG).God, help me see where I’m looking for a shortcut.Want more? Order your copy of Becoming a King today.

Oh that I once past changing wereFast in thy paradise, where no flower can wither.(George Herbert)I think of the woman I helped in the grocery store last week. She was only in her thirties, I’m guessing, but she was bent over in her wheelchair, tiny and frail. A veil of shame and disappointment had permanently shaped her countenance; you have seen that tragic mask, I’m sure. I helped her reach the egg salad on the shelf above, but my heart broke for her. This is her life? What do you say to the soldier horribly maimed by stepping on an IED? What restoration awaits the woman who, due to a series of complications after surgery, lost three of her limbs and must be turned in bed many times a day?Thank God we have more than empathy to offer; we have the restoration of Jesus to point to as a solid, vivid demonstration of our coming renewal.The broken body of Jesus was horribly torn apart by his torture and execution; I wince even to write of it. “He didn’t even look human — a ruined face, disfigured past recognition” (Isaiah 52:13 The Message). But then, wonder of wonders, two mornings later he was completely renewed at his resurrection. Our Forerunner was physically restored and then some. Gone the thorn in his brow, gone the spear in his side, gone the nails in his hands. His body was beautiful and whole again. So great was his happiness he spent Easter in some very playful encounters with his friends. Praise the LORD, my soul;all my inmost being, praise his holy name.Praise the LORD, my soul,and forget not all his benefits ...who redeems your life from the pitand crowns you with love and compassion,who satisfies your desires with good thingsso that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1–5) Again — these promises are so beautiful our parched souls can hardly take them in, as the sunbaked earth can barely receive the thundershowers it so desperately needs. Just linger on this one promise for a moment — your loving Father will renew your youth. No one is old in his kingdom.Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?” “Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes — from their own sons or from others?” “From others,” Peter answered. “Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.” (Matthew 17:24–27)Peter has taken an enormous risk hitching his wagon to Jesus. The little band of minstrels have passed the raised-eyebrows stage and are about to enter the period of opposition to Christ—the pitchforks-and-torches stage. Peter is confronted by the elders of his own village with a troubling question. He comes into the house visibly shaken, and sees his master standing at the counter chopping vegetables. There is a moment of silence, while the pang of doubt shoots through his mind: Perhaps the Master is not as righteous as we thought; he does not seem to keep the Law. Jesus does not look up; he simply says, “What do you think, Simon ... ?”“Peter, I’ll tell you what I need you to do. ...” He sends the fisherman fishing. He gives him time to sort things out. He shows him there are higher laws to live by. Jesus has a sense of humor. Without a deep confidence in that, the story is simply bizarre. But with that understanding, it is a beautiful and very human and also immensely funny story. The fruit of which is only to make us love him more. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT)We haven’t yet seen anyone in their true glory. Including you. Yes, Mozart wrote symphonies as a child, and Picasso could draw before he could talk. But most human beings are profoundly thwarted in their “calling” because of circumstances that would never let them fly. This is not what God intended. How many Mozarts are there right now, hidden across the globe?Imagine, all your creativity and gifting will be restored and then some when you are restored. All of that latent potency inside of you—never given the opportunity to grow and develop and express itself—completely restored, including your personality. From there you are able to act in the new world in ways far greater than Adam and Eve were able to. You will have absolute intimacy with Jesus Christ, and his life will flow through your gifts unhindered. Imagine what you will be capable of, how vast your powers in the new earth! You know you can walk on water, for Peter did on this earth at Jesus’ bidding. How far do your creative and artistic capacities reach?What will you do in the life to come? Everything you were born to do. Everything you’ve always wanted to do. Everything the kingdom needs you to do.———————————What dreams have gone unfulfilled in your life? What part of your calling has not had a chance to soar? Name it. It’s important to name it. And then tell yourself, But it will! Very soon! Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today