Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

It is simply diabolical, despicable, downright evil that the heart should be so misunderstood, maligned, feared, and dismissed. But there is our clue again. The war we are in would explain so great a loss. This is the last thing the Enemy wants you to know. His plan from the beginning was to assault the heart, just as the Wicked Witch did to the Tin Woodman. Make them so busy, they ignore the hear...

Back to the drama in the Garden of Eden. Remember now, God gave us this story of the first marriage to help us get our bearings. It provides some very essential categories for navigating our marriages — like how gender is so fundamental to our identity, and how we were made for Paradise. How mankind fell and what that Fall did to our lives as men and women. And it also makes something else absolut...

The madness about grief is you think you’ll feel better in a few days. Certainly in a few weeks. The average bereavement leave in corporate America is four days for a spouse or child and three days for a parent. Three days. That’s complete insanity. It communicates an illusion that’s totally detached from reality. At three days you haven’t even begun to breathe. At four days you are still in total...

When my boys were teenagers, we badgered them into cleaning the windows one day. Come dinnertime, our family seated round the table, the brothers began — as all brothers do — to give each other grief about the day’s work. Sam and Luke had each taken halves of a divided window in the dining room; Sam was now bragging about how much cleaner his side was, appealing to the evidence like a trial attorn...

Theodore Roosevelt is thought to have said, “Comparison is the thief of joy,” and boy, was he right. We tend to compare our worst to another person’s best, and we come out poorly. We compare another person’s smile with our inward sadness, and we hide in shame. We compare our body to another person’s fitter one, and our joy shrinks. We compare what we imagine another person’s life to be like with o...

The Arrows strike at the most vital places in our hearts, the things we care most about. The deepest questions we ever ask are directly related to our hearts' greatest needs and the answers life gives us shape our images of ourselves, of life, and of God. Who am I? The Romance whispers that we are someone special, that our heart is good because it is made for someone good; the Arrows tell us we ar...

Why does every story have a villain? It's hard to think of a tale without one. As children, we learned to fear the Big Bad Wolf and the Troll under the bridge. As we grew older, we discovered more serious villains in the Star Wars series — Darth Vader and Darth Maul and Darth Sidious. The Wicked Witch of the West hunted Dorothy. Wallace fought against Longshanks, and Maximus went hand to hand agai...

We must forgive those who hurt us. The reason is simple: Bitterness and unforgiveness set their hooks deep in our hearts; they are chains that hold us captive to the wounds and the messages of those wounds. Until you forgive, you remain their prisoner. Paul warns us that unforgiveness and bitterness can wreck our lives and the lives of others (Eph. 4:31; Heb. 12:15). We have to let it all go.   Fo...

Endurance is what you need now. ... Then you will receive all that he has promised. “For in just a little while,  the Coming One will come and not delay.  And my righteous ones will live by faith.  But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”   But we are not like those who turn away from God to their own destruction. We are the faithful ones, whose souls will be saved. (Hebrews 10:36–39...

"In this world you will have trouble." No kidding. Jesus, the master of understatement, captures in one sentence the story of our lives. He adds, "But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). Why aren't we more encouraged? (Sometimes we'll try to feel encouraged when we hear a "religious" passage like this, but it never really lasts.) The reason is that we are still committed to arrang...

The next chapter of our story is precisely that — the chapter that follows all the chapters before and fits them perfectly. God is still telling a story; the next chapter is not disconnected from the rest. (I know it feels totally disconnected, but it is not.) If we will look at our future in light of the story God has been telling, it will banish the fog like a strong summer sun.    In the next c...

You will not think clearly about your life until you think mythically. Until you see with the eyes of your heart. About halfway through their journey — following a great deal of hardship and facing a good deal more — Frodo's devoted friend and servant, Sam Gamgee, wonders out loud: "I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?" Sam is at that moment thinking mythically. He is wondering in the rig...

Jesus points to a field of wheat. Imagine trying to count the number of kernels in one acre. Immeasurable abundance. Turning our gaze to those luxuriant fields, he says, “Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over” (John 12:24, The Message )....

The book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.     [Sam]  What we want right off the bat is a map of some kind, a plan, a clear path to begin walking down. Something that makes it clear what is important for us to do, and how to start doing it right now.    [John]   Right, and God doesn’t give one. Nobody gets the master plan, not even a f...

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.     [John]    I believe you young men are the warrior generation this world needs. I believe you will see very trying times, perhaps even the end of the age. The timing of Halo , the film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings , the resurgence of superheroes in film, and all the games and movies...

Personally, I find one of the most startling things Jesus says tucked away at the end of the fourteenth chapter of John. He is preparing his closest friends (and soon-to-be-successors) for his departure. They still don’t believe or don’t want to believe he’s leaving. Here is what Jesus says to them (and to us): "Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:27) Wait — do not l...

After his resurrection, Jesus sends us all out to do what he did: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you" (John 20:21 NRSV). And he gives us his authority to do it: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go" (Matt. 28:18-19). Why else would he have given us his authority if we weren't supposed to use it? The attitude of so many Christians today is anything but fie...

Consider the natural human longing to be loved and admired, how deep it runs in you. It is practically an aching abyss. Remember how rare it is for love and admiration to come to any soul in this jealous world. Now, add to this poverty the insight that very gifted people actually have a greater need for affirmation than most (it’s true). You begin to feel how intoxicating it is to have thousands o...

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.     [John]  A man faces many forks in the road as he journeys through his life — each choice determining what kind of life he is going to live. Will he sell out for money? Will he pursue the girl — and having won her, will he continue to fight for their relationship? Will he risk for his dream...

Francis of Assisi was called “the second Christ” because his life was so totally given over to expressing the life of Jesus. What can we learn from this man devoted like no other? “As Saint Francis did not love humanity but men, so he did not love Christianity but Christ,” wrote Chesterton. Wow. Just let that sink in. Francis didn’t fall in love with church; he fell in love with Jesus. “His religi...

The book "Killing Lions" is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face.   [Sam]   I feel like I blunder into success as much as I blunder into downfalls. That Susie really values connection. That I think the world of her, and she receives love in a completely different way than me, through words both written and spoken. And that she has a really hard time believin...

This is a love story, dear friends. God is love, the apostle John tells us, and then he says it again so that we don’t forget, “God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God” (1 John 4:16). Love is the single most defining quality of his character and his life. God is a passionate, and jealous, lover. (Is there really any other kind?) Out of his love he creates us for love. “We love, b...

For above all else, the Christian life is a love affair of the heart. It cannot be lived primarily as a set of principles or ethics. It cannot be managed with steps and programs. It cannot be lived exclusively as a moral code leading to righteousness. In response to a religious expert who asked him what he must do to obtain real life, Jesus asked a question in return: "What is written in the Law?...

What is it that God wants from you?   He wants the same thing that you want. He wants to be loved. He wants to be known as only lovers can know each other. He wants intimacy with you. Yes, yes, he wants your obedience, but only when it flows out of a heart filled with love for him. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me” (John 14:21). Following hard after Jesus is the...

You must understand an important distinction — there is Christianity, and then there is church culture. They are not the same. Often they are far from the same. The personality conveyed through much of Christian culture is not the personality of Jesus but of the people in charge of that particular franchise. Tragically, the world looks at funny hats or big hair, gold thrones and purple curtains, s...