Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

John Eldredge

Daily Readings are a daily excerpt from books and teachings from John and Stasi Eldredge and Morgan Snyder.

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21 episodes
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Yesterday · 1 min
By Their Fruit
You shall know them, Jesus said, by their fruit. The principle holds true for anything in life. It is especially helpful in diagnosing what the enemy might be up to. What is the fruit of what you’re experiencing? What is its effect? If it continues, what will the results of that be? What will be lost? Jesus said he came that we might have life and have it abundantly. He also warned that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Is something being stolen? That’s not from God. He called Satan the accuser of the brethren. Are you under accusation, that feeling of “I’m such an idiot”? (I’m using polite language here.) Look at the fruit — it will give you a good idea of the tree it came from. Paul says that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). I’m not feeling real joyful at the moment. In fact, the longer whatever this oppression is hangs around, the more discouraged I get. There’s not a lot of peace here either. Not like a river. Not even a rivulet. Whatever this cloud is I’m under, it isn’t bringing with it the fruit of the Spirit. I can’t get back to the clear air I normally have when I’m writing. Something is in the way. It’s vague, I can’t quite name it yet, but I sure can see the fruit of it. I can't write. Want more? Order your copy of Walking With God today
Thursday · 3 min
Soul Care
We’re going to want our souls strong and ready for the days ahead, filled with God, not fried and empty. So we must practice soul care. I’m not suggesting you go on a witch hunt for every neglected place in your soul. There’s way too much loss in there to take on all at once. Many people are afraid to feel any of it, fearing that if they start crying, they’ll never stop. It isn’t true, but let’s be kind; let’s approach this realistically. Pick one thing you would call a loss or disappointment that you feel you’ve had to put aside because there wasn’t time or space to deal with it when it happened. Has a movie or song brought you to tears recently (perhaps there’s a song that always brings a few tears?). Play it again, and pay attention — why? What is this awakening in you? Put some words to it. The neglected losses are in there; give them a voice. Then what? Allow your soul to feel. Don’t tell it what to feel; it knows what to do. Just give it permission. It might be anger at first, or it might be sadness, loneliness, why bother? You might find yourself shouting some profanities — that’s okay. Your losses matter. Don’t edit yourself into silence. Anger is a pretty common first reaction to unattended loss. Let it out. Grab a kitchen spatula and start whacking the pillows on your couch, all the while naming why you are so angry over this loss. What you’re doing through this practice is becoming present to your own soul, to places that were left behind. The next step is to invite Jesus in. Invite his love, his comfort, his presence into this specific loss, for his presence brings mercy and healing. I find it important to ask, “What do you have to say about this, God? What are you saying to me about my losses?” His comforting words of interpretation, or promise, are part of the healing. Sometimes what I need is a walk to my little stream. I just need to sit, and sitting by water really helps. Beauty heals; beauty contains within it the promise of restoration. In the past, when I became aware of something in my soul needing his touch, mercy, or deep healing, I would bring it to Jesus in prayer and ask him to do so. The results were mixed. Sometimes it seemed to work, sometimes not. During my road trip to Montana, Jesus began to show me something quite helpful — we can’t stand at a distance from our own soul and ask Christ to “go in there and deal with it.” This isn’t hostage negotiation; we don’t hide a block away and hope God takes care of business. This is your own soul we’re talking about; the door opens from the inside. “I stand at the door and knock,” Jesus explained. “If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in” (Revelation 3:20). We open the door to our soul from the inside. This is the purpose of naming the loss, feeling it, allowing ourselves to return to the place in our own being that we walked away from. We must enter these places ourselves — the memory, the emotion, whatever it is we are aware of. We inhabit our own soul again. Jesus insists on it. Once there, we open the door from the inside, inviting Christ in, which he is always so eager to do. Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today
Wednesday · 1 min
Sideshows
It seems that much of what Christians believe they are called to these days is a cluster of activities that include regular church attendance, Bible study, prayer, giving, concern for justice, and attending the annual men or women’s retreat. Now — what is all that activity for? What are those things supposed to do to us, or in us? If it’s not restoring the whole man, it may not be in line with what God is doing. Because that’s clearly what he’s up to. Back to Jesus’ argument with the Pharisees. He says, “These peoples’ heart has become callused. They hardly hear with their ears. They have closed their eyes. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” Do you hear the offer? Do you see what he is so upset about? They have completely missed the point of what God is up to, what he is after in a person’s life: to heal him as a human being. This is so essential to your view of the Gospel and your own approach to Christianity. Really — it will shape your convictions about everything else. Want more? Order your copy of Free to Live today
Tuesday · 2 min
Our Lives Are Stories
If you want to get to know someone, you need to know their story. Their life is a story. It, too, has a past and a future. It, too, unfolds in a series of scenes over the course of time. Why is Grandfather so silent? Why does he drink too much? Well, let me tell you. There was a terrible battle in World War II, in the South Pacific, on an island called Okinawa. Tens of thousands of American men died or were wounded there; some of them were your grandfather's best friends. He was there, too, and saw things he has never been able to forget. "But in order to make you understand," explained novelist Virginia Woolf, "to give you my life, I must tell you a story." I expect all of us, at one time or another, in an attempt to understand our lives or discover what we ought to do, have gone to someone else with our stories. This is not merely the province of psychotherapists and priests, but of any good friend. "Tell me what happened. Tell me your story, and I'll try to help you make some sense of it." We humans share these lingering questions: "Who am I really? Why am I here? Where will I find life? What does God want of me?" The answers to these questions seem to come only when we know the rest of the story. As Neo said in The Matrix Reloaded, "I just wish I knew what I am supposed to do." If life is a story, what is the plot? What is your role to play? It would be good to know that, wouldn't it? What is this all about? Want more? Order your copy of Epic today
Monday · 2 min
On the Side of Good
We are now in the late stages of the long and vicious war against the human heart. I know — it sounds overly dramatic. I almost didn't use the term "war" at all, for fear of being dismissed at this point as one more in the group of "Chicken Littles," Christians who run around trying to get everybody worked up over some imaginary fear in order to advance their political or economic or theological cause. But I am not hawking fear at all; I am speaking honestly about the nature of what is unfolding around us ... against us. And until we call the situation what it is, we will not know what to do about it. In fact, this is where many people feel abandoned or betrayed by God. They thought that becoming a Christian would somehow end their troubles, or at least reduce them considerably. No one ever told them they were being moved to the front lines, and they seem genuinely shocked at the fact that they've been shot at. Hello? That's what happens in war — you get shot at. Have you forgotten? We were born into a world at war. This scene we're living in is no sitcom; it's bloody battle. Haven't you noticed with what deadly accuracy the wound was given? Those blows you've taken — they were not random accidents at all. They hit dead center. On and on it goes. The wound is too well aimed and far too consistent to be accidental. It was an attempt to take you out; to cripple or destroy your strength and get you out of the action. Do you know why there's been such an assault? The Enemy fears you. You are dangerous big-time. If you ever really got your heart back, lived from it with courage, you would be a huge problem to him. You would do a lot of damage ... on the side of good. Remember how valiant and effective God has been in the history of the world? You are a stem of that victorious stalk. Want more? Order your copy of Wild at Heart today
Sunday · 1 min
If Deadness Is Next to Godliness
If the way to avoid the murderous rage and deceptive allures of desire is to kill it, if deadness is next to godliness, then Jesus had to be the deadest person ever. But he is called the living God. "It is a dreadful thing," the writer of Hebrews says, "to fall into the hands of the living God ... For our 'God is a consuming fire'" (10:31; 12:29). And what is this consuming fire? His jealous love (Deut. 4:24). God is a deeply, profoundly passionate person. Zeal consumes him. It is the secret of his life, the writer of Hebrews says. The "joy set before him" enabled Jesus to endure the agony of the Cross (Heb. 12:2). In other words, his profound desire for something greater sustained him at the moment of his deepest trial. We cannot hope to live like him without a similar depth of passion. Many people find that the dilemma of desire is too much to live with, and so they abandon, they disown their desire. This is certainly true of a majority of Christians at present. Somehow we believe that we can get on without it. We are mistaken. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today
August 1 · 1 min
What Role Are You Playing?
We come into the world with a longing to be known and a deep-seated fear that we aren't what we should be. We are set up for a crisis of identity. And then, says Frederick Buechner, the world goes to work: Starting with the rather too pretty young woman and the charming but rather unstable young man, who together know no more about being parents than they do the far side of the moon, the world sets in to making us what the world would like us to be, and because we have to survive after all, we try to make ourselves into something that we hope the world will like better than it apparently did the selves we originally were. That is the story of all our lives, needless to say, and in the process of living out that story, the original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us hardly end up living out of it at all. Instead, we live out all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather. (Telling Secrets) Think about the part you find yourself playing, the self you put on like a costume. Who cast you in this role? Most of us are living out a script that someone else has written for us. We've not been invited to live from our heart, to be who we truly are, so we put on these false selves hoping to offer something more acceptable to the world, something functional. We learn our roles starting very young and we learn them well. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today
August 1 · 2 min
Grace
The human soul is a place of profound mysteries. God is a person of infinite creativity. He can do this any way he wants. Sometimes he goes straight for the wound or the brokenness. Having had that healed, we find it far easier to resist the enemy and renounce our sins. Sometimes it requires binding the enemy first, simply so we can think clearly enough to do the repenting and find the healing we need. This is an outline to the process whereby we become holy in his name. Jesus will guide you. Ask him to guide you. Do not be surprised or discouraged if you find that it takes more than one round of prayer. It didn’t take you a day to get into this mess. Sometimes you’ll have to pray again in a month, and then again in six months. Listen carefully: This doesn’t mean that “it didn’t work.” Quite often Christ comes back in our lives for a deeper work of healing. Even if you’re only eighteen, the sun has gone down a lot of times in your life; there’s a lot of past there. But if you’re fifty-eight, there’s a whole lot more past to your story. So be gracious, be patient; it doesn’t mean you’re blowing it if Christ brings it up again. It simply means it’s time for another round, and so you go back again through this exact process of repentance and deliverance and healing. The beauty is that as you become more whole, you can become holier. And as you become holier, you can become more whole. Trying to choose one without the other I think has really brought people a great deal of distress, brought them to the conviction that no real change takes place in this life. It’s not true. It’s just that discipline is not enough. As my wife Stasi was saying just the other day, “You can’t repent your way out of brokenness.” It simply doesn’t work. We repent our sins; the brokenness must be healed. Furthermore, this isn’t simply about the sweet love of Jesus. You have an enemy, strongholds are real, and you must break those agreements and banish the enemy. Want more? Order your copy of Free to Live today.
July 31 · 6 min
A Prayer for Mental Resilience
Mental resilience begins when we decide to take hold of our thought life. Navy SEAL training includes teaching the recruits positive self-talk. Apparently we say something like three hundred to one thousand words to ourselves every minute. You know from experience that a whole bunch of it is negative. Mental resilience is built by intentionally, consciously saying positive things — which for the believer would be all the beautiful truths of Scripture. God is with me. I am secure. Christ lives within me. I have the strength that prevails. Positive self-talk helps calm fears aroused by the amygdala, that part of the brain that governs anxiety. In recent days I’ve found myself driving along reciting out loud the opening lines from the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus ...” So simple, but so very helpful. This is what I believe; this is what I believe. Reading and memorizing scripture builds mental resilience because it is a living, breathing text in which you encounter God, and through which you get perspective on the world. How good would it be for your mental health to be reminded each day that Jesus is Lord of all, “running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule” (Ephesians 1:20–21 The message). Try reading Isaiah 40 for five days in a row and watch what it does for your soul. Join me in this prayer: Begin with three deep breaths. Search me, God, and know my heart ... know my anxious thoughts (Psalm 139:23). I come to you, Jesus, for peace of mind. I give my mind to you. I set my mind on you. Capture my every thought. I surrender all the news. All worry and speculation. I surrender everything grabbing my attention. I give you my thoughts, Jesus. All of my mental life: my focus and attention, my memory and recall, my understanding and imagination. I dedicate the life of my mind to you, Lord Jesus, and you alone. The mind governed by God’s Spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:6). Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, come and fill my mind. Come and fill my thoughts. Fill my mind with life and peace. Repeat that ... Holy Spirit, Spirit of God, come and fill my mind. Come and fill my thoughts. Fill my mind with life and peace. For we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). I pray to be one mind with you, Jesus. One thought, one imagination, one mental life. I receive the mind of Christ. I receive the mind of Christ. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, right and pure, lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise (Philippians 4:8). Think about something beautiful, some thing that reminds you of the goodness of God. A place you love. A sweet memory. Something in nature. Something that makes you smile. Now stay with that today. Want more? Order your copy of Resilient today
July 30 · 1 min
To Harden Our Hearts
What makes the Day of Judgment so unnerving is that all our posing and all our charades will be pulled back, all secrets will be made known, and our Lord will "expose the motives of men's hearts" (1 Cor. 4:5, emphasis added). This is the point of the famous Sermon on the Mount. Jesus first says we haven't a hope of heaven unless our righteousness "surpasses that of the Pharisees" (Matt. 5:20). How can that be? They were fastidious rule keepers, pillars of the church, model citizens. Yes, Jesus says, and most of it was hypocrisy. The Pharisees prayed to impress men with their spirituality. They gave to impress men with their generosity. Their actions looked good, but their motives were not. Their hearts, as the saying goes, weren't in the right place. A person's character is determined by his motives, and motive is always a matter of the heart. This is what Scripture means when it says that man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. God doesn't judge us by our looks or our intelligence; he judges us by our hearts. It makes sense, then, that Scripture also locates our conscience in our hearts. Paul says that even those who do not know God's law "show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness" (Rom. 2:15), such as when your child looks guilty for having told a lie. This is why it is so dangerous to harden our hearts by silencing our consciences, and why the offer of forgiveness is such good news, to have our "hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience" (Heb.10:22 NRSV). Oh, the joy of living from right motives, from a clean heart. I doubt that those who want to dismiss the heart want to dismiss our consciences, set aside the importance of character. Want more? Order your copy of Waking the Dead today
July 29 · 2 min
Neglecting Our Soul
It’s human nature to want our problems to simply go away. Be honest now — how many of us have heard a troubling tick, tick, tick or thump, thump, thump coming from the general direction of our car’s engine or transmission and not done a thing about it, hoping it would just go away? We do this with our health all the time — that painful little hitch, the lump, the troubling indigestion, those few extra pounds cry for our attention, but we let it pass for months or even years, hoping it will magically sort itself out. How much more our souls. In this busy, mad, distracted world, it’s just too easy (and far more efficient) to send your soul to the back of the bus. Low priority. Maybe later. But you, my reader, have read this far, and I'm so proud of you! You’re making the hard choices that will bear fruit for years and years to come. So ... next step. Let’s talk about neglected places in your soul. I’m beginning the conversation with neglected loss, disappointment, and grief not because these are the main issues in any person’s life, but because these are the things we tend to run from. Of course we do. We run from pain, run back to our normal lives, try to pretend we aren’t bereaved, bereft, whatever the loss may be. Problem is, we are running from huge tracts of our own soul, leaving them behind, and then we can’t find more of God because we are looking with so little of our own soul. It takes more of you to find more of God. We often can’t find the more of God we long for, because we are looking with so little of ourselves. Too much of us has been left behind. Just as the assault on our attention keeps pushing us into the shallows, so that we no longer hear deep calling unto deep, the pace of life rushes us past significant moments of disappointment and loss, and in doing so continues the “shallowfication” of our souls. We are like eroded stream banks, a little more shaved off every year. Or like the lonesome hero in “Desperado,” who was losing all his “highs and lows” as his feelings simply went away. So this is a good place to push back. We may have neglected our soul’s need for beauty. We may have neglected our soul’s need for play. But I have reason to believe that unattended loss is a good place to start if you would recover and heal the vessel God wants to fill, if you would open up room in your life for him to meet you there. Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today
July 28 · 1 min
God is with Us
Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous ... Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:6-7, 9) Joshua knew what it was to be afraid. For years he had been second in command, Moses' right-hand man. But now it was his turn to lead. The children of Israel weren't just going to waltz in and pick up the Promised Land like a quart of milk; they were going to have to fight for it. And Moses was not going with them. If Joshua was completely confident about the situation, why would God have had to tell him over and over and over again not to be afraid? In fact, God gives him a special word of encouragement: "As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Joshua 1:5). How was God "with Moses"? As a mighty warrior. Remember the plagues? Remember all those Egyptian soldiers drowned with their horses and chariots out there in the Red Sea? It was after that display of God's strength that the people of Israel sang, "The LORD is a warrior; the LORD is his name" (Ex. 15:3). God fought for Moses and for Israel; then he covenanted to Joshua to do the same, and they took down Jericho and every other enemy. Want more? Order your copy of Wild at Heart today
July 27 · 1 min
Upside Down and Inside Out
Jesus’ movement will disrupt the Jewish system very, very profoundly. He is going to turn things upside down and inside out. The world will never be the same. Literally. But there is a precision to his every move. He will not be baited into their traps; he will not be sidelined as a member of “this group” or “that position.” Guilt by association is an easy trump card in public life. If you can label your opponent as Right Wing or Liberal, Fundamentalist or Charismatic, you don’t even have to argue your case. Your fellow partisans will dismiss the culprit with righteous indignation. Branding someone prevents them from ever being able to prove they are innocent, state their case. It’s a cheap and effective ploy that’s been around a long time, a particular favorite of the religious. Tar and feather ’em. Jesus won’t be tricked into it. He circumvents the Roman loyalists and anyone looking for a reason to report him to Caesar by saying, “Give him what is his.” He keeps himself firmly established as a good Jew by adding, “And give God what is his.” Brilliant. Have you taken notice of how smart Jesus is? And cunning as a snake. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today
July 26 · 2 min
Salvation is a Process, Not an Event
The longing for things to be good again is making us vulnerable to all sorts of compromises. I can help you with this. First, let’s remove the shock and shame of those moments when hard-pressed you suddenly rages, binges, goes faithless, or simply shows up as a very unappealing version of you. Salvation is a process, not an event. Oh yes — salvation is a homecoming to be sure. That is the event. Our salvation begins when we first turn toward Jesus with an open heart. We come to him for mercy. We ask him to forgive us for living so much of our life utterly ignoring him. We invite him in as our rescuer. We also surrender; we yield the throne of our lives to him. That’s the homecoming, and our Father is so absolutely giddy over it he wants to throw you a party. (In fact, the angels did party over your homecoming — see Luke 15.) Our homecoming is utterly life-changing. But what surprises us, what can really dishearten us, is that it’s not instantaneously life-changing. Not thoroughly, that is. This is because salvation is also the re-creation of our fallen humanity, a restoration of our life through union with Christ. And that happens over time. The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day. (Proverbs 4:18) For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:14) Note the process clearly laid out in these verses—dawn today, cleansed and now being made holy. But you already know this to be true; you’re living out the process every day. Parts of you seem well-inhabited by Christ. The rest of you seems practically pagan (revealed in your driving, bingeing, media choices, fantasy life, or the desire for life to be good again overwhelming all other faculties). How can these parts exist in the same human being? Because we are like stained glass — beautiful even in our brokenness, but made up of many fragments. Everyone is fragmented. Want more? Order your copy of Resilient today
July 25 · 1 min
The Artist
Sunlight on water. Songbirds in a forest. Desert sands under moonlight. Vineyards just before harvest. These all share something in common — they reflect the heart of a particular artist. They are his masterpieces, his expression and his gift to us. The artist’s name is Jesus. Something else lies in common between these treasures and Jesus as well — words on a page cannot compare to a personal experience. Sailing the ocean on a bright morning with the wind in your face, wandering under a forest canopy while sunlight filters down, lying on warm dunes beneath a full moon watching shooting stars, drinking in the lush beauty of vineyards on a hillside in early autumn — these experiences are far closer to what it is actually like to experience Jesus than mere talk of him could ever be. More words about Jesus are helpful only if they bring us to an experience of him. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today
July 24 · 1 min
You Will be Vindicated
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 3:13–14) You know your every sin is forgiven. So if you can remove all fear of exposure from your heart, and set it safely within the context of your Father’s love, it helps you toward a great moment in the kingdom when your story will be told rightly. How wonderful it will be to see Jesus Christ vindicated. He has endured such slander, mistrust, and grotesque distortion by the religious counterfeits paraded in his name. All the world will see Jesus as he is. Every tongue will be silenced, and his vindication will bring tremendous joy to those who love him! Friend—that vindication is also yours. You probably have many stories you’d love to have told rightly—to have your actions explained and defended by Jesus. I think you’ll be surprised by what Jesus noticed. The thousands of unseen choices to overlook a failure, to be kind to that friend who failed you, again. The things you wish you had 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’ve been missed, and misunderstood. Your Defender will make it all perfectly clear; you will be vindicated. ——————————— What do you most look forward to seeing vindicated? If you are wrestling with this thought, take your concerns to God, and ask him to replace them with joy. Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today
July 23 · 1 min
A "Propositional" Christianity
We have lived for so long with a "propositional" approach to Christianity, we have nearly lost its true meaning. As Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen says, "Much of it hinges on your view of scripture. Are you playing proof-text poker with Genesis plus the Gospels and Paul's epistles, with everything else just sort of a big mystery in between — except maybe Psalms and Proverbs, which you use devotionally? Or do you see scripture as being a cosmic drama — creation, fall, redemption, future hope — dramatic narratives that you can apply to all areas of life?" (Prism interview) For centuries prior to our Modern Era, the church viewed the gospel as a Romance, a cosmic drama whose themes permeated our own stories and drew together all the random scenes in a redemptive wholeness. But our rationalistic approach to life, which has dominated Western culture for hundreds of years, has stripped us of that, leaving a faith that is barely more than mere fact-telling. Modern evangelicalism reads like an IRS 1040 form: It's true, all the data is there, but it doesn't take your breath away. As British theologian Alister McGrath warns, the Bible is not primarily a doctrinal sourcebook: "To reduce revelation to principles or concepts is to suppress the element of mystery, holiness and wonder to God's self-disclosure. 'First principles' may enlighten and inform; they do not force us to our knees in reverence and awe, as with Moses at the burning bush, or the disciples in the presence of the risen Christ" (A Passion for Truth). Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today
July 22 · 1 min
The Longing to Belong
Whatever else it means to be human, we know beyond doubt that it means to be relational. Aren’t the greatest joys and memories of your life associated with family, friendship, or falling in love? Aren’t your deepest wounds somehow connected to someone also, to a failure of relationship? That you were loved but are no longer, or that you never have been chosen? One of the deepest of all human longings is the longing to belong, to be a part of things, to be invited in. We want to be part of the fellowship. Where did that come from? So, too, our greatest sorrows stem from losing the ones we love. Byron lamented, What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life’s page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. Loneliness might be the hardest cross we bear. Why else would we have come up with solitary confinement as a form of punishment? We are relational to the core. We are made, as it says in Genesis, in the image of God or, better, in the image of the Trinity: “Let us make man in our image” (1:26, emphasis added). Meister Eckhart had it right when he said that we are born out of the laughter of the Trinity. From the Heart of the universe come our beating hearts. From this Fellowship spring all of our longings for a friend, a family, a fellowship — for someplace to belong. Want more? Order your copy of Epic today
July 21 · 2 min
A Fear of Passion?
Dare we forget King David? Yes, his passions got him in a heap of trouble—and gave us our book of worship, the Psalms. Sure, Peter was a hotheaded disciple always quick with a reply. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane—he's the one who lopped off the ear of the high priest's servant. But he was also the first to acknowledge that Jesus was the Messiah, and despite his Good Friday betrayals he became a key apostle, contributed important pieces to the Scripture, and followed Jesus all the way to his own crucifixion, asking to be nailed to the cross upside down because he was not worthy to die in the manner of his Lord. Surely we remember that Paul was once Saul, the fiery young Pharisee "advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and ... extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers" (Gal. 1:14). His zeal made him the foremost persecutor of the church. When Christ knocked him off his donkey on the Damascus road, Paul was hunting down the church, "uttering threats with every breath" (Acts 9:1 NLT). Christ captured his zeal, and after Damascus it led him to "work harder than all the other apostles" (1 Cor. 15:10 NLT). Augustine was also a passionate young man, sexually licentious, enamored with the pleasures of Rome, "scratching the sore of lust," as he would call it after Christ got hold of him. He went on to become one of the great pillars of the church, laying the foundation for the rise of Christendom after the fall of Rome. Desire, a burning passion for more, is at the heart of both saints and sinners. Those who would kill the passion altogether would murder the very essence that makes heroes of the faith. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today
July 20 · 2 min
Carrying Others
Worry is only one of a hundred things that burden our souls. Genuine concern is just as dangerous, maybe more so because it’s grounded in something noble — your concerns for your aging parents, a sick friend, a people group, a cause crying out for justice. Those kinds of things can fill a backpack, and make it mighty heavy. Jesus began teaching me about benevolent detachment almost two years ago. Every time I would turn to him with a question, he would say, Give everyone and everything to me. The invitation rang so true; I knew I needed to learn this. So I began to practice it as best I could. But then Jesus kept on repeating the invitation. I’d be asking about something entirely unrelated to the people in my life — car repairs, scheduling a trip, my tax returns — and Jesus would reply, Give everyone and everything to me. It was irritating. I finally realized that the reason he kept repeating it was because I wasn’t practicing it very well. I was carrying people. Worrying about things. We are far more entangled with the world than we know. And the thing is, people and causes have a way of entangling themselves with you too. Some of this has to do with the moment we live in and the obliteration of social boundaries. Thanks to social media, everyone’s life is open and accessible through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram — all of it. We’ve created an assumption that you can enter and observe, or engage, with anyone, anywhere, anytime. There are no boundaries. We’ve created an assumption that we’re entitled to enter anyone else’s private space at any time. It’s very harmful. Cell phones have been a major contributor to this loss of personal space. A friend who is a successful businessman explained to me how the rules of corporate loyalty have changed: “They expect you to be available anytime, day or night, because of this,” he said, holding up his phone. “They can text you, call you 24/7. You are now considered to be available anytime, all the time. Those are the new rules.” People have this unspoken assumption they can enter your world anytime. It's suffocating to the soul; there's no breathing room. No wonder books like Boundaries and The Subtle Art of Not Giving an F are selling millions. People are looking for some way to push this stuff back just a few feet. Gimme some space for heaven's sake. Exactly. Benevolent detachment is your way out. Want more? Order your copy of Get Your Life Back today