Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

Eve is given to Adam as his ezer kenegdo — or as many translations have it, his "help meet" or "helper." Doesn't sound like much, does it? It makes me think of Hamburger Helper. But Robert Alter says this is "a notoriously difficult word to translate." It means something far more powerful than just "helper"; it means "lifesaver." The phrase is only used elsewhere of God, when you need him to come...

We’ve lived in Colorado now for more than twenty years, but I’ve never really learned to snowboard. I mean, I’ve tried. But it was always a messy, hazardous, hesitant affair. Like a dog on roller skates. There wasn’t a lot of joy in it for me. I was tense, apprehensive. My basic problem was this: I couldn’t get myself to commit, to lean into it. You have to lean forward; you have to lean down slop...

John the Beloved, also called John the Seer because of his authorship of the book of Revelation, was taken into the Kingdom of God by the Spirit. He visited the city of God, and there he saw the River: Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the rive...

The story of Cinderella turns upon an invitation.   Up until the moment that the courier from the palace arrives at her door, Cinderella’s life seems set in stone. She will always be a washerwoman, a cellar girl. Her enemies will forever have the upper hand. She will live a life of enduring disappointments, though she will suffer them nobly. No other life seems possible. This is her fate. Then, wo...

I will go before you  and will level the mountains;  I will break down gates of bronze  and cut through bars of iron.  I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name. (Isa. 45:2-3) God's imagery of going before us lets us know that he desires us to go on a journey. This is not so frighte...

Of course we are nearing the end of the age. Jesus seemed pretty frustrated at his contemporaries’ refusal to understand their times. “Fools,” he called them. Because knowing your moment matters . Knowing where you are in the story is critical for your survival. Every moment is not like another. Living at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings is different from living at the end of the story. In t...

We must open our hearts to all the other ways God is bringing beauty into our lives. The beauty of a flower garden or moonlight on water, the beauty of music or a written word. Our souls crave Beauty, and if we do not find it we will be famished. We must take in Beauty, often, or we will be taken out by beauty. Learning to be loved, and learning to love, learning to be romanced, and learning to ro...

Every great story involves a quest. In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit , Bilbo Baggins ran from the door at a quarter till eleven without even so much as a pocket handkerchief and launched on an adventure that would change his life forever. Alice stepped through the looking glass into Wonderland; Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter stumbled through the wardrobe into Narnia. Abraham left his country, his...

Giving up has always been a struggle for frail humanity. But when Jesus urges us to ask for strength to escape , he has something particular in mind, something he sees coming: “At that time many will turn away from the faith” (Matthew 24:10). Saint Paul was deeply troubled by this as he wrote his friends living in Thessalonica: “Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day [the day Christ ret...

As we explore the many beautiful and intimate ways Jesus comes to heal our inner being, keep in mind that whatever the damage may be, in any realm of your inner being, the essence of healing prayer is always to facilitate the presence of Jesus into the specific places of damage. Whatever else might be involved, it always begins with, “Jesus, come into this and heal.” Oswald Chambers, a man who wro...

Your sin has been dealt with. Your Father has removed it from you "as far as the east is from the west" (Ps. 103:12). Your sins have been washed away (1 Cor. 6:11). When God looks at you he does not see your sin. He has not one condemning thought toward you (Rom. 8:1). But that's not all. You have a new heart. That's the promise of the new covenant: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spiri...

The Ephesians passage warns about spiritual strongholds created in our lives when we let “the sun go down” on something. Note that in this case that something isn’t necessarily sin. Paul says, “in your anger do not sin,” so anger does not equal sin. Anger can be a very appropriate reaction to life’s injustices. Nonetheless, failure to deal with that anger (letting the sun go down on it) clearly gi...

Doing things for God is not the same thing as loving God. Jesus loves the poor — so, movements have arisen that make service to the poor the main thing. Even though Jesus never said that being poor was more noble or even spiritual. The latest craze is justice — so we rush off to the corners of the globe to fight for justice and leave Jesus behind. We actually come to think that service for Jesus i...

Down through the ages, followers of Christ have believed that to be able to give God our attention as a regular practice was a very important thing. After vividly recounting the many challenges of faith and character before us, the author of Hebrews says, Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping [fixing] our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfe...

Any parent or lover knows this: love is chosen. You cannot, in the end, force anyone to love you. So if you are writing a story where love is the meaning, where love is the highest and best of all, where love is the point , then you have to allow each person a choice. You have to allow freedom. You cannot force love. God gives us the dignity of freedom, to choose for or against him (and friends, t...

I know I’m not alone in having a hard time believing in the love of God for me (we think he loves everyone else), or receiving the love of God, or letting it catch my heart up into life and joy, or, maybe especially, staying there for any reasonable period of time. An hour or two would be amazing. A day would be a triumph. And I’m thinking that maybe part of the reason we have a hard time believin...

What we call “Christianity” is an invasion . The Kingdom of God is advancing into the kingdom of darkness, a campaign to ransom people and the earth God intended us to rule. For the Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost. All that was lost. If Christianity seems to you to be having rather less than a remarkable impact on the earth, it is because too many Christians have this idea that we a...

You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. (Hebr...

Our hope is meant to be the anchor of our souls, to keep us steady in the middle of the storms of life. It is set firmly within the truth that Jesus is trustworthy. He has promised us that He is returning and that, when He does, He will make all things right, all things well, and all things new. He will bring us home, to the true home our hearts long for. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You b...

God heals the earth, and he heals us. We are restored to one another. The earth waits for our healing, and we wait for the earth’s healing. I believe our healing brings about something of the healing of the earth, and I’m certain the healed earth helps to usher in our healing. Our Enemy is the Great Divider. His most poisonous work takes place at the level of fragmentation, dividing families, chur...

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.     [John]   Paralysis (masquerading as “confusion”) haunts every man when a looming decision will require a lot of us. Make note of that; don’t let it keep you from seeing the light in front of you. God is here to help us with our fears, but only once we name it as fear and do not hide behind...

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick … So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere. (Luke 9:1, 6) Now this is just extraordinary — Jesus has absolutely no need to be the center of the act...

Either (a) we’re blowing it, or (b) God is holding out on us. Or some combination of both, which is where most people land. Think about it. Isn’t this where you land, with all the things that haven’t gone the way you’d hoped and wanted? Isn’t it some version of “I’m blowing it,” in that it’s your fault, you could have done better, you could have been braver or wiser or more beautiful or something?...

As it was for many parents before, teaching our sons to drive was a hair-raising endeavor — merging into traffic that felt like Han Solo pushing the Millennium Falcon into light speed; sudden braking that seemed equally certain to send me through the windshield. They were giving it a go; it was terrifying and I was so proud of them. I was delighted with their efforts. But of course, I would be mor...

This is a very dangerous moment, when God seems set against everything that has meant life to us. Satan spies his opportunity, and leaps to accuse God in our hearts. You see , he says, God is angry with you. He’s disappointed in you. If he loved you he would make things smoother. He’s not out for your best, you know . The Enemy always tempts us back toward control, to recover and rebuild the false...