Daily Devotionals

  • Forward Day By Day - December 21, 2024
    Where was Thomas? Where was he when Jesus showed up and showed himself to the disciples? When he heard the miraculous, he doubted the story: the news was too good to be true. I often feel that Thomas wasn’t full of doubt but rather full of truth. T [...]
  • Forward Day By Day - December 20, 2024
    As a child, I could tell how much trouble I was in by what I was called. If my mother used my first and last name, I was in some trouble. But, if she called me by my first, middle, and last name, it was time to make my last will and testament. Thankf [...]
  • Forward Day By Day - December 19, 2024
    Thank God John the Baptizer was not the chair of the Evangelism Committee! He does not mince words or spare anyone’s sensibilities. John has a job to do, and he is going to do it his way, like it or not. His words of rebuke are hard to hear but tru [...]
  • Forward Day By Day - December 18, 2024
    For a period of time, I worked as a chaplain in a hospital. I met people at the most joyous and most distressing times in their lives—from the birth of babies and the expansion of families to the last rites for someone moving to the next life. Hosp [...]

  • Window to the Wonderful - December 21, 2024
    Photographer Ronn Murray likes cold weather. Very cold weather. “Cold means clear skies,” notes journalist Lee Cowan in a TV interview with Murray. “And that can open a window to the wonderful!” Ronn and his wife, Marketa, provide Alaskan pho [...]
  • The Truth Never Changes - December 20, 2024
    When he was younger, my son Xavier and I read a fictional children’s story about a boy who rebelled against his teacher by referring to a pen by a made-up name. The student convinced his fellow fifth graders to use the new name he created for pens. [...]
  • God’s View of Us - December 19, 2024
    It was 1968, and America was mired in a war with Vietnam, racial violence was exploding in cities, and two public figures had been assassinated. A year before, fire had taken the lives of three astronauts on the launchpad, and the idea of going to th [...]
  • Who We Listen To - December 18, 2024
    “I’ve got to declare an emergency. My pilot’s deceased.” Doug White nervously uttered those words to the control tower monitoring his flight. Minutes after takeoff, the pilot of the private plane Doug’s family had chartered suddenly passed [...]