Daily Devotionals

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.

Job 19:25–26

Easter and hope are synonymous. That special day never arrives without its refreshing reminder that there is life beyond this one. True life. Eternal life. Glorious life. Those who live on what we might call "the outskirts of hope" need a transfusion. Easter gives it. 

Proverbs 15:13, 15; 17:22

Rules, regulations, and statutes aren't meant to be amusing, but at times they are. Maybe it's because they are supposed to be so all-fired serious that I find some of them downright hilarious. Some examples?

Psalm 31

Years ago my older son, then a teenager, and I dropped by the local Hallmark shop to find Cynthia a card for Mother's Day. Somewhat bored with the process, Curt wandered back to the posters and soon called me to come look at one he liked. It was a picture of a boat on a very still lake at dawn. A father was sitting at one end, his son at the other, fishing. Both were smiling, obviously enjoying those leisure hours together. Two words were neatly printed at the bottom of that exquisite scene of solitude: TAKE TIME.

Romans 6:14

2 Corinthians 9:7