Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

The biblical canon ends with Jesus making this final statement: Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. (Revelation 22:12) Reward, reward, reward — it fills the pages of both Testaments. Saint Paul expected to be rewarded for his service to Christ, as have the saints down through the ages. Patrick, that mighty missionary to the...

Warfare prayer is not a “back-up” category when all else fails. It is not a specialty form of prayer for the uniquely called or gifted. Yes — there are some who become “experts” in this field, just as there are some who become especially trained to heal or to preach the gospel. But we are all called to preach the gospel; we are all called to resist the enemy. You are living out your daily life in...

In this desperate hour we have a crucial role to play . Of all the Eternal Truths we don't believe, this is the one we doubt most of all. Our days are not extraordinary. They are filled with the mundane, with hassles mostly. And we? We are...a dime a dozen. Nothing special really. Probably a disappointment to God. But as C. S. Lewis wrote, "The value of...myth is that it takes all the things we kn...

What Jesus primarily models for us is how to draw our life from the Father. This passage from Philippians — one of the earliest hymns of the faith — says that Jesus more than humbled himself when he came to earth. He emptied himself: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made i...

I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far – I will find you. —Nathaniel to Cora in The Last of the Mohicans One of my favorite games growing up was "kidnapped and rescued." I know many little girls who played this — or wished they had. To be the beauty, abducted by the bad guys, fought for and rescued by a hero — some version of this had a place in all our dreams. Like Sleepi...

Mary broke the neck of the jar open and slowly poured some of the perfume on Jesus’s head and then poured the rest on his feet. Then she did something extremely intimate and scandalous. She unbound her hair and wiped his feet with it, even though a respectable woman did not let down her hair in public… The Gospels tell us that the disciples were indignant and rebuked her harshly. What a waste of m...

That strength so essential to men is also what makes them heroes. If a neighborhood is safe, it's because of the strength of men. Slavery was stopped by the strength of men, at a terrible price to them and their families. The Nazis were stopped by men. Apartheid wasn't defeated by women. Who gave their seats up on the lifeboats leaving the Titanic, so that women and children would be saved? And ha...

Everything in you may be saying, “But you don’t understand. I want to eat that whole box of chocolates (or sleep with my boyfriend, or let my anger really fly). That’s what really seems like life to me right now.” God says, “I know you do, but it’ll kill you in the end. What you think is life is not. That’s not the comfort (or the love, or the significance) you are seeking. You’ll wind up destroyi...

“I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep foll...

The Road goes ever on and on  Down from the door where it began.  Now far ahead the Road has gone,  And I must follow, if I can,  Pursuing it with eager feet,  Until it joins some larger way. (J. R. R. Tolkien) The Sacred Romance calls to us every moment of our lives. It whispers to us on the wind, invites us through the laughter of good friends, reaches out to us through the touch of someone we l...

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [Sam]  One of the best feelings I had as a young man was cutting the ties I had to you and Mom financially. I mean, I was grateful for your help in college, but I couldn’t stand being dependent afterward. There is something innate in me that knows I am meant to handle things on my own. Maybe i...

Look at the life of Jesus. Notice what he did. When Jesus touched the blind, they could see ; all the beauty of the world opened before them. When he touched the deaf, they were able to hear ; for the first time in their lives they heard laughter and music and their children's voices. He touched the lame, and they jumped to their feet and began to dance. And he called the dead back to life and gav...

Flames are licking all around us, aren’t they? All the time. Saint Peter describes our life here on this earth as a “fiery ordeal” (1 Peter 4:12). Tragedies and heartache and pressures and illnesses and irritations grand and small show up indiscriminately, and they do not limit themselves to one season. I know that in comparison to most, my own life has not been so bad. I am not a refugee. I am no...

The secret of happiness is this: God is the love you are longing for.    We live in a love story. We are created for romance and we have an insatiable capacity for it. Now, God gave us such a heart; it was one of his first gifts to us. (You have to have a heart to live in a love story). Then he gives to us this world that is so breathtakingly beautiful. The earth is filled with the love of the Lor...

Jesus kept coming back to this central issue, over and over, driving at it in his teachings, his parables, his penetrating questions. If you look again, through the lens that most of us feel fundamentally fatherless, I think you’ll find it very close indeed to the center of Jesus’ mission. “Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a sn...

And here's where we run into a problem. For most of us, life feels like a movie we've arrived at forty-five minutes late. Something important seems to be going on ... maybe. I mean, good things do happen, sometimes beautiful things. You meet someone, fall in love. You find that work that is yours alone to fulfill. But tragic things happen too. You fall out of love, or perhaps the other person fall...

Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered — to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. ( Revelation 5:12 NLT) Pilate dares to ask Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus doesn’t even bother answering. You know how the Story goes — though Jesus could call down more than sixty thousand angels to prevent it, he lets the people kill him, and pardons them beforehand for do...

Well, he created laughter. And think of the crowd he dined with. These rabble-rousers quickly earned Jesus a reputation as a drunkard and a glutton, and it wasn’t because they served water and crackers. This was a wild group, and surely such a crowd got rolling in laughter from time to time, if only from the joy they were experiencing being with Jesus. Now, surely the creator of these colorful cha...

We hold on to hope, and belief, by remembering what is true and setting our hopes on a Person — on the utter goodness and reliability of our God who intervened in Bethlehem, when all was hopeless. And who has promised to intervene again, in an even more dramatic way! To help you win the fight for hope and belief, we offer a few podcasts we think you'll find very helpful in this hour... The Fight f...

We need what Beauty speaks. What it says is hard to put into words. But part of its message is, all is well. All will be well. Beauty invites . Recall what it is like to hear a truly beautiful piece of music. It captures you; you want to sit down and just drink it in. We buy the CD and play it many times over. (This is not visual, showing us that beauty is deeper than looks.). Music like this comm...

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.   [Sam]  I hate money. But I like to eat. I want a cell phone so people can get in touch with me. I want to take Susie out on a date. I’d really prefer to sleep indoors. And to do all that I need money. My friends are selling out for money, or denying money and living like they’re back in the...

Caring for your heart is how you protect your relationship with God. Now there’s a new thought. But isn’t our heart the new dwelling place of God? It is where we commune with him. It is where we hear his voice. Most of the folks I know who have never heard God speak to them are the same folks who live far from their hearts; they practice the Christianity of principles. Then they wonder why God see...

I’ve always wondered why Jesus, having healed someone, would immediately tell them to keep quiet about it. After giving two blind men perfect vision, “Jesus warned them sternly, ‘See that no one knows about this’” (Matt. 9:30). Warned them sternly — now why is that? He does the same after healing a man of leprosy: “Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: ‘See that you don’t tell this to...

We need Jesus like we need oxygen. Like we need water. Like the branch needs the vine. Jesus is not merely a figure for devotions. He is the missing essence of your existence. Whether we know it or not, we are desperate for Jesus.   To have his life, joy, love, and presence cannot be compared. To know him as he is, is to come home. A true knowledge of Jesus is our greatest need and our greatest ha...

Our search for the Golden Moment is not a search in vain; not at all. We've only had the timing wrong. We do not know exactly how God will do it, but we do know this: the kingdom of God brings restoration. The only things destroyed are the things that are outside God's realm—sin, disease, death. But we who are God's children, the heavens and the earth he has made, will go on. "The wolf will live w...