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Really Knowing Someone

December 2, 2013

“The first day of December every year, my mother posts four folded sheets of lined notebook paper on the refrigerator door, with our names written on top. MOM. DAD. SUSAN. ELEANOR. We’re supposed to list the things we really really want for Christmas so the gift giving will be correct and efficient. I always found that odd. In my view, the point of choosing presents is to get to know the other person so well that you don’t have to be told what she really really wants for Christmas. You just know it. If somebody gives you something you don’t like, like a puce sweater or a Nehru jacket with gold trim…well, that just tells you something, doesn’t it?”

Excerpted from My Mother’s Wish by Jerry Camery-Hoggatt

Daily Reflection: Do you know those around you well enough that you [ … ]

You are no ordinary child

November 29, 2013

As David prayed in Psalm 139:13, 16,

You created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.…
Your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Bottom line? Your life is also a spiritual phenomenon. You are one of God’s crowning achievements. You are the full expression of His creative genius—and no troubled marriage or disastrous employment record or sin-dogged season on your part can possibly change this fact.
God was at His very best when He made you.

Excerpted from How God Makes Men by Patrick Morley

Daily Reflection: When times are tough, how can you remind yourself of God’s love for you as His unique child?

Daily Devotional – A Day of Gratefulness

November 28, 2013

“Certain dates evoke emotion in each of us. A personal favorite is the fourth Thursday of November, a day of gratefulness. Family members come from all over the Midwest to indulge in the gluttony. They bring dozens of dishes, including pies, cakes, casseroles, and turkey. We laugh and play games until the inevitable comatose nap at 2:30…

God gave us gifts and opportunities to produce so we can leverage our productivity in celebration and gratefulness to Him.
By God’s grace and power, I want to make a profit. I want to save. I want to give to others as He has given to me. I want to invest in others like He invested in me. When we begin to understand these things, our embittered hearts begin to soften.”

Excerpted from Godonomics by Chad Hovind

Daily Reflection: This Thanksgiving, [ … ]

SNEAK PEEK: The Holy Land Key by Ray Bentley

November 27, 2013

Don’t Just Read Prophecy. Step into Its Fulfillment.

Click here to download chapter one of The Holy Land Key.

The study of prophecy inspires elaborate timelines and speculation about which world leader might rise to power in the last days. But meanwhile, it’s far too easy to miss the significant prophetic signs contained in stories of biblical characters, in God’s creation, and in the lives and actions of today’s Israelis and Palestinians.

Click here to download chapter one of The Holy Land Key.

Grow Your Gratitude

November 27, 2013

“If you want to grow your faith, grow your gratitude. To grow your gratitude, take time to count your blessings.
When you take time to stop and look around you—to look at the people who invest in you and those from the past who helped build your character and your life—you remember things that you can never take credit for. They were given to you, like Grandma’s prayers that accompanied you on your salvation journey, like the providence of God that led you to meet your spouse, like the miracle birth of your child, circumstances that allowed you to go to college, the friend of a friend who paved the path for your first job. Once you start counting blessings—many of them ones you have never before acknowledged—you will be overwhelmed. Once you start the list, you’ll find it’s [ … ]

He Knows You Personally

November 26, 2013

“Psalm 139:13–16:

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed…

It’s one thing to believe that God loves you as one among many. It’s another thing altogether to trust that God knows what you’re going through, that He cares, and that He has the power and desire to watch over you personally.”

Excerpted from Man [ … ]

SNEAK PEEK: The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages by Shaunti Feldhahn

November 25, 2013

“Where does ‘highly happy’ come from—and can we have some too?!”

Click here to download chapter one of The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages.

Have you ever looked at a blissfully married couple and thought, I wish I could know their secret? Now you can. After years of investigative research, Shaunti reveals twelve powerful habits that the happiest marriages have in common.

 

A Prayer to the Giver of Good Gifts

November 25, 2013

“Father, I confess that I often fail to recognize the truth that every good gift comes from Your hand. I pray Your Holy Spirit would give me a fresh awareness and a thankful heart for the very life You freely give me each day and for the gift of eternal life You so freely offer. Help me to see Your hand in the smallest details of my world and teach me to celebrate life each and every day. Thank You for Your faithfulness to me and for Your unfailing love that sustains every step I take. I want to live a life that truly celebrates You! In Jesus’s name, amen.”

Excerpted from Knowing God by Name by Sharon Jaynes, Gwen Smith, and Mary Southerland

Daily Reflection: How can you show your thankfulness for God’s gifts this week?

SNEAK PEEK: AND LIFE COMES BACK by Tricia Lott Williford

November 22, 2013

Read the first chapter of And Life Comes Back.

When your life falls apart—through a death, a lost relationship, a diagnosis—you want more than anything to know that your pain has a purpose. And that beyond your pain, a new day awaits.

Tricia Lott Williford discovered this in a few tragic hours when her thirty-five-year-old husband died unexpectedly. In And Life Comes Back, she writes with soaring prose about her tender, brave journey as a widow with two young boys in the agonizing days and months that followed his death.

And Life Comes Back documents the tenacity of love, the exquisite transience of each moment, and the laughter that comes even in loss. This traveler’s guide to finding new life after setbacks offers no easy answers or glib spiritual maxims but instead draws you into your own story and the hope [ … ]

The Gift of an Apology

November 22, 2013

What are you running from, Miss Campbell? Gordon knew he had no business posing such a question. Not when he was on the run himself.
Then stop running. Gordon looked down at the toes of his boots. Could he do so? Stop fleeing from his past and simply face it? Confess who he was and what he’d done?

Be strong and of a good courage. A gentler voice this time, stirring deep inside him.

Gordon could ignore his conscience, but he could not disregard the Almighty. He lifted his head. You’ll help me, Lord? Show me what to do, tell me what to say? Gordon was not afraid of words; they were his livelihood. But an apology for so great an error would not be easily spoken.

***

It’s hard to say, “I was wrong” or “I’m sorry.” Yet [ … ]