Daily Devotionals

Proverbs 4:1-19; Job 12:10-13; Proverbs 16:31

I'm writing these words soon after my birthday.

No big deal...just another stabbing realization that I'm not getting any younger. I know that because the cake won't hold all the candles. Even if it could the frosting would melt before I'd be able to blow all of them out. My kind and thoughtful secretary reminded me of another approach I could take. She gave me a birthday card showing an old guy standing beside a cake covered with candles. On the front it reads:

Proverbs 16:31; Psalm 92:14; Isaiah 46:4; Titus 2:2-3

Growing old, like taxes, is a fact we all must face. Now, you're not going to get me to declare when growing up stops and growing old starts—not on your life! But there are some signs we can read along life's journey that suggest we are entering the transition (how's that for diplomacy?).

2 Timothy 2:24; Hebrews 12:14, 15; James 3:14-16; 1 John 2:9-11

Leonard Holt was a paragon of respectability. He was a middle-aged, hard-working lab technician who had worked at the same Pennsylvania paper mill for 19 years. Having been a Boy Scout leader, an affectionate father, a member of the local fire brigade, and a regular church-goer, he was admired as a model in his community. Until...

Matthew 15:1-9; Mark 7:1-13; Colossians 2:8-23

The longer I live the less I know for sure.

That sounds like 50 per cent heresy...but it's 100 per cent honesty. In my younger years I had a lot more answers than I do now. Things were absolutely black and white, right or wrong, yes or no, in or out, but a lot of that is beginning to change. The more I travel and read and wrestle and think the less simplistic things seem.

I now find myself uncomfortable with sweeping generalities...with neat little categories and well-defined classifications.

Proverbs 21:4; Luke 18:9-14; John 12:42-43; Galatians 6:12-14

Matthew 12:33-37; John 17:20-26; 1 John 4:7-21

Somebody copied the following paraphrase from a well-worn carbon in the billfold of a 30-year veteran missionary. With her husband, she was on her way to another tour of duty at Khartoum, Sudan. No one seems to know who authored it, but whoever it was captured the essence of the greatest essay on love ever written.

Ecclesiastes 2:11; 4:4; 1 Thessalonians 5:16

My high school graduating class had its 30th anniversary reunion a number of summers ago. I'm sure they had a ball. A blast would better describe it, knowing that crowd. You gotta understand the east side of Houston back in the 1950s to have some idea of that explosive student body...a couple of thousand strong and a lot of 'em mean as a junkyard dog with a nail in his paw.

John 2:1-12; 7:1-9; 10:40-11:23

Genesis 12:1-8; Joshua 14:1-15; Psalm 33:3

I cannot imagine anything more boring and less desirable than being poured into the mould of predictability as I grow older. Few things interest me less than the routine, the norm, the expected, the status quo. Call it the rebel in me, but I simply cannot bear plain vanilla when life offers so many other colourful and stimulating flavours. A fresh run at life by an untried route will get my vote every time—in spite of the risk. Stay open-minded for a moment and I'll try to show you why.

1 Kings 4:29-34; Proverbs 2:1-10; 4:5-7; Isaiah 26:3; Romans 8:5-11; 12:2

Your mind is a muscle. It needs to be stretched to stay sharp. It needs to be prodded and pushed to perform. Let it get idle and lazy on you, and that muscle will become a pitiful mass of flab in an incredibly brief period of time.

How can you stretch your mind? What are some good mental exercises that will keep the cobwebs away? I offer three suggestions: