Daily Devotionals

After a lengthy bout with despair, severe depression, and suicide attempts, writer and poet William Cowper (1731-1800) discovered comfort in God's providence, which led him to write "Shining out of Darkness":

Genesis 50

I've been giving a lot of thought these days to the subject of God's will. While engaged in a study of that issue recently, I came across a term we rarely use or read these days: providence.

The root meaning of providence is "foresight...to see in advance" or "to provide for." But those definitions could leave us with too shallow an understanding. Providence contains far more than a passive reference to God's foreknowledge.

Matthew 25:34-36

As one understanding soul expressed it: "Compassion is not a snob gone slumming. It's a real trip down inside the broken heart of a friend. It's feeling the sob of the soul. It's sitting down and silently weeping with your soul-crushed neighbour."

Jeremiah 6:14, 8:11, Matthew 24:6-7, 11

2 Corinthians 6:1-10

Remember me? I'm the guy who promotes waiting. Allowing the Lord to open the doors, clear the way, smooth the path, shove you through. You know, all the stuff you expect a preacher to say.

Proverbs 16:31

I like the question once asked by Satchel Paige, that venerable alumnus of baseball: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" An honest answer to that question depends on an honest admission of one's attitude. It has nothing to do with one's age. As someone young at heart has written:

I have become a little older since I saw you last, and a few changes have come into my life since then. Frankly, I have become quite a frivolous old gal. I am seeing five gentlemen every day.

1 Corinthians 10:31 

While cleaning out my study at home last Monday, I came across a book I had read several years ago. It’s one of those volumes that stays with you—resourceful, insightful, and timeless. One particular line about halfway through the book jumped off the page: “A time to be careful is when one reaches his goals.... It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.”

Nahum 1

Storm clouds gather. Problem is, they’re the wrong kind. We need rain desperately, but these clouds hold no rain. These clouds are depressing, not unlike the kind Winston Churchill described in his first volume on World War II, which he titled The Gathering Storm. I cannot forget his terse, apt description of those months prior to the Nazi blitzkrieg that ultimately levelled much of London: "the future was heavy with foreboding.”

Isaiah 53:10–12

No need to prolong the story. Or complicate it. Or embellish it. Or try to explain it. Or defend it. Just declare it. The facts speak for themselves.

Jesus of Nazareth said He would be "in the heart of the earth" three days and nights (Matthew 12:40). Later, He said that He would "suffer...be killed, and be raised up on the third day" (Matthew 16:21).

Betrayed by Judas, He was seized, placed under arrest, pushed hurriedly through several trials (all of them illegal), and declared guilty...first of blasphemy, next of treason (Luke 22:70–23:24).

John 20:1–10

On the day Jesus was crucified, a sinister darkness blotted out the sun and smothered Jerusalem under a blanket of evil. It would have appeared to anyone seeing through eyes of flesh that the darkness, the Devil, and death had defeated the Son of God once and for all. But what no one could see was that the Messiah’s death would strike at the very heart of evil.