Daily Readings by Wild at Heart

In heaven, things are not stained or broken; everything is as it was meant to be. Think for a moment of the wonder of this. Isn't every one of our sorrows on earth the result of things not being as they were meant to be? And so when the kingdom of God comes to earth, wonderful things begin to unfold. Look at the evidence; watch what happens to people as they are touched by the kingdom of God through Jesus. As he went about "preaching the good news of the kingdom," Jesus was also "healing every disease and sickness among the people" (Matt. 4:23). When he "spoke to them about the kingdom of God," he "healed those who needed healing" (Luke 9:11). What happens when we find ourselves in the kingdom of God? The disabled jump to their feet and start doing a jig. The deaf go out and buy themselves stereo equipment. The blind are headed to the movies. The dead are not at all dead anymore, but very much alive. They show up for dinner. In other words, human brokenness in all its forms is healed. The kingdom of God brings restoration. Life is restored to what it was meant to be. "In the beginning," back in Eden, all of creation was pronounced good because all of creation was exactly as God meant for it to be. For it to be good again is not for it to be destroyed, but healed, renewed, brought back to its goodness. Those glimpses we see in the miracles of Jesus were the first-fruits. When he announces the full coming of the kingdom, Jesus says, "Look, I am making all things new!" (Rev. 21:5 NLT, emphasis added). He does not say, "I am making all new things." He means that the things that have been so badly broken will be restored and then some. "You mean I'll get a new pair of glasses?" my son Sam asked. "Or do you mean I'll get a new pair of eyes, so I won't need glasses?" What do you think? Jesus didn't hand out crutches to help the disabled. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

We are each created to accomplish a work worthy of God; it is one of our deepest yearnings. And we will, in the kingdom; not just once, but many, many times over. Are we employed in the actual restoration itself? I don’t know for certain. “They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated” certainly hints at it. And we know our God is a God of process — look at how long your sanctification is taking. You might think I am merely daydreaming about what we actually do in the kingdom. But, friends — God creates us to be creators like he is. We are promised we will reign; we are given estates; we are told we will have vital roles in the coming kingdom. “After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: ‘Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.’” (Matthew 25:19–21 The Message) Come and “be my partner” — that’s the perfect way to put it. The idea behind the parable is promotion. And notice that the servants are promoted in the very things they are good at! God puts his renewed sons and daughters — creators like he is — in a re-created world and tells us to do exactly what he told Adam and Eve to do in the beginning. N. T. Wright therefore says, In Revelation and Paul’s letters we are told that God’s people will actually be running the new world on God’s behalf. The idea of our participation in the new creation goes back to Genesis, when humans are supposed to be running the Garden and looking after the animals. If you transpose that all the way through, it’s a picture like the one that you get at the end of Revelation. Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today

Imagine what it would be like if you were never, ever able to wake from your nightmares. Like being tumbled under the waves and never able to find the surface again. That there is a reality for us to wake to is a gift beyond words. Whether or not we choose to face that reality is quite up to us. Truth or reality is avoided when it is painful. We can revise our maps only when we have the discipline to overcome that pain. To have such discipline, we must be totally dedicated to truth. That is to say we must always hold truth, as best we can determine it, to be more important, more vital to our self-interest, than our comfort. Conversely, we must always consider our personal discomfort relatively unimportant and, indeed, even welcome it in the service of the search for truth. Mental health is an ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled) Thus the startling, disruptive, sometimes brutal honesty of Jesus. The world is stone drunk, and raging at Jesus because he’s trying to keep us from taking the car. Who is being unreasonable? The spirit of our day is a soft acceptance of everything — except deep conviction in anything. This is where Jesus will suddenly confront the world as a great rock confronts the river flowing ever downhill. He is immovable. The cry used to be for “tolerance,” by which we meant, “We have very strong differences, but we will not let those be the cause of hatred or violence between us.” Now it is something else, where all convictions are softened to second or third place while we all agree to enjoy the world as much as we can. But truth is not like conviction. Conviction might be a matter of personal opinion, but truth is like a great mountain, solid and immovable whether we like it or even acknowledge it. Christianity is not a set of convictions — it is a truth. The most offensive thing imaginable. Want more? Order your copy of Beautiful Outlaw today

I thought of the last story we have from the life of the prophet Elisha. Jehoash was king of Israel at the time, and he went to visit Elisha on his sickbed. He knew that without the help of this great prophet, the future of Israel was looking dim. Enemies were closing in on every side, waiting for the kill. Elisha told the king to take in hand some arrows. And the king took them. Elisha told him, "Strike the ground." He struck it three times and stopped. The man of God was angry with him and said, "You should have struck the ground five or six times; then you would have defeated [your enemies] completely ... But now you will defeat [them] only three times." Elisha died and was buried. (2 Kings 13:18-20) That's it? What a strange story! Why was the old prophet so angry? Because the king was nonchalant; he was passionless, indifferent. He gave the ground a whack or two. His heart wasn't in it. God says, in effect, "If that is how little you care about the future of your people, that is all the help you will get." In other words, if your heart's not in it, well then, neither is mine. You can't lead a country, let alone flourish in a marriage, with an attitude like that. To abandon desire is to say, "I don't really need you; I don't really want you. But I will live with you because, well, I'm supposed to." It is a grotesque corruption of what was meant to be a beautiful dance between desire and devotion. Want more? Order your copy of The Journey of Desire today

“He is like the light of morning at sunrise on a cloudless morning, like the brightness after rain that brings grass from the earth.” (2 Samuel 23:4) What makes your heart awaken? For what awakens your heart is worth paying attention to. Think about sunshine — what daily radiance is showered upon you through it, what immense golden goodness. Every single day, over so much of the planet. It saturates the world, warming the earth, raising the crops in the fields by silent resurrection, causing birds to break out in song with the dawning of each day. It bathes everything in light, which then enables us to behold and enjoy, to live and work and explore. What a gift sunlight is — coming and going. I love getting up in the darkness of early morning and praying through the dawn. As I find myself drawing nearer to God, the room begins to grow lighter while the spiritual air clears around me. With a final amen, the golden glowing light of sunrise fills the room like the presence of God. ——————————— Pause, and simply be still for a moment. Let the presence of God surround you, for he is always here with us. Let his love come to you again, as you simply quiet yourself in his presence. His love is like sunshine in our hearts. Want more? Order your copy of Restoration Year today

Can you imagine if on your honeymoon one of you sneaked off for a rendezvous with a perfect stranger? Adam and Eve kicked off the honeymoon by sleeping with the Enemy. Then comes one of the most poignant verses in all Scripture: "What is this you have done?" (Gen. 3:13). You can almost hear the shock, the pain of betrayal in God's voice. The fall of Adam and Eve mustn't be pictured as a crime like theft, but as a betrayal of love. In love God creates us for love, and we give him the back of our hand. Why? Satan gets us to side with him by sowing the seed of doubt in our first parents' minds: "God's heart really isn't good. He's holding out on you. You've got to take things into your own hands." And Paradise was lost. Yet there was something about the heart of God that the angels and our first parents had not yet seen. Here, at the lowest point in our relationship, God announces his intention never to abandon us but to seek us out and win us back. "I will come for you." Grace introduces a new element of God's heart. Up till this point we knew he was rich, famous, influential, even generous. Behind all that can still hide a heart that is less than good. Grace removes all doubt. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

The book “Killing Lions” is a conversation between John and Sam Eldredge about the trials young men face. [John] You simply cannot neglect the heart and get away with it. The mind is a beautiful instrument, one we certainly want to develop all our lives and not only in the college years. But God gave us the mind to protect the heart, not usurp it. As Walker Percy said, “You can get all A’s and still flunk life.” So let’s think about identity and the heart for a moment. All men, young or old, have within them a famished craving for validation. It will not be denied. We will chase validation wherever we can and we learn pretty quickly what our world rewards, what it shames, what it cares nothing about. So the athletes seek validation by being fast, strong, and winning, while the valedictorians throw themselves into papers, exams, and maintaining their GPAs. The “spiritual leader” latches on to the praise coming from their giftings, and they give their hearts and souls over to that dance, while the “cool” kids go barefoot and wear dreadlocks. We are all looking for the same thing. When a young man doesn’t know who he is and what he’s made of, resisting those “scripts” that are being handed out is about the same as defying gravity. “Let’s see — I gotta do my laundry, move my car, and oh yeah, I think I’ll fly today.” Want more? Order your copy of Killing Lions today

The Religious Man or Woman is a popular story option in which we try to reduce the wildness of life by constructing a system of promises and rewards, a contract that will obligate God to grant us exemption from the Arrows. It really doesn't matter what the particular group bargain is — doctrinal adherence, moral living, or some sort of spiritual experience—the desire is the same: taming God in order to tame life. Never mind those deep yearnings of the soul; never mind the nagging awareness that God is not cooperating. If the system isn't working, it's because we're not doing it right. There's always something to work on, with the promise of abundant life just around the corner. Plenty of churches and leaders are ready to show you how to cut a deal. These stories comprise what James McClendon calls the "tournament of narratives" in our culture, a clash of many small dramas competing for our heart. Through baseball and politics and music and sex and even church, we are searching desperately for a Larger Story in which to live and find our role. All of these smaller stories offer a taste of meaning, adventure, or connectedness. But none of them offer the real thing; they aren't large enough. Our loss of confidence in a Larger Story is the reason we demand immediate gratification. We need a sense of being alive now, for now is all we have. Without a past that was planned for us and a future that waits for us, we are trapped in the present. There's not enough room for our souls in the present. Want more? Order your copy of The Sacred Romance today

We now are going to war. This is the beginning of the end. The hour is late, and you are needed. We need your heart. If there were something more I could do to help you see, I wish to God I could have done it. Tears fill my eyes for fear I have not done enough. You must turn, then, back to myth — tomorrow and the next day and the next. Read the battle of Helm’s Deep; it’s chapter seven of The Two Towers. Watch any of the trilogy of those films. And the opening of Gladiator. That is where we are now. Or, if you can bear it, watch the battle of the Ia Drang Valley in We Were Soldiers. It is so deeply true to what we must face, will face. Linger over the climax of The Prince of Egypt, where God goes to war against Egypt to set his people free. If the images of the Exodus do not move you, I don’t know what will. We are now far into this epic story that every great myth points to. We have reached the moment where we, too, must find our courage and rise up to recover our hearts and fight for the hearts of others. The hour is late, and much time has been wasted. Aslan is on the move; we must rally to him at the stone table. We must find Gepetto lost at sea. We must ride hard, ride to Helm’s Deep and join the last great battle for Middle Earth. Grab everything God sends you. You’ll need everything that helps you see with the eyes of your heart, including those myths, and the way they illumine for us the words God has given in Scripture, to which “you will do well to pay attention ... as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). Want more? Order your copy of Waking The Dead today

Imagine, friends, a world without evil. Every demon has been swept away. Simply imagine a world without evil people, where everyone loves God and overflows with his holy love. You look to your right and left, and you only see people you can trust completely. Lot’s torment will no longer be ours; holiness will permeate all things. No wonder joy is the constant mood of the kingdom! Not to mention massive relief and vindication too. Our age cries out for justice, especially the younger generations. I believe in those justice movements; I support them. But I fear a great heartbreak is coming unless we understand the timing of things. Until the evil one is bound and cast into the lake of fire, our efforts here will be only partially successful. “The poor you will always have with you” (Matthew 26:11). A dear, dear man just e-mailed me; he and his wife run an orphanage for abused and trafficked girls in Guatemala. He aches because he has to turn away girls every week. They simply have no room to take them all in. This is a terrible reality: our best efforts must be carried on, but they will not achieve justice on the earth until our Lord’s return. I can hardly bear it; how do we carry on? Only with the anchor of the soul; only with the sure and firm hope that this Day is coming. Justice is coming. Want more? Order your copy of All Things New today