Daily Devotions Episodes

A parent died or the kids moved away, and the holidays look nothing like they used to. Learn what Psalm 30:5 promises and what it leaves open, plus how to sort the traditions you keep from the ones you set down. The holidays you grew up with are not the holidays you have now. A parent died, or a marriage ended. Your grown children moved across the country and they rotate years with the in-laws now. The table you used to gather around doesn't exist anymore, and the one you sit at now can feel li...

Someone less qualified got the promotion, or your idea showed up with another name on it. Learn what Psalm 37 says to stop doing, and the active command that keeps resentment from shrinking your work. There are stretches when your workplace is fair, and there are stretches when it isn't. You watched somebody less qualified get the promotion. Your idea showed up in a meeting with another person's name attached to it. It is one thing to be treated unfairly. It is another thing to keep showing up ...

After a stretch of difficult months, some Christians notice that complaint is nearly all their prayer has been. Learn what Colossians 4:2 attaches to prayer, and the one sentence that changes where your praying starts. Prayer is one of the places God welcomes your complaint. He wants to hear about what's wrong, and Scripture is full of people who told Him at length and got no rebuke for it. But some Christians get to a point, usually after a stretch of difficult months, where they notice that c...

Somebody gets short with you, and a group goes flat when you walk up. Learn what Romans 14:19 asks of you once you suspect you've been the friction at your own church, and where the pursuit starts. This one is for the person who has finally noticed. Maybe somebody said something to you kindly, and it stayed with you longer than they meant it to. Maybe you started seeing a pattern in how conversations at church go when you're part of them. Somebody gets short with you. A group goes a little flat...

Every so often God puts His finger on something in your life and asks you to open your hand. A possession you've grown attached to. A relationship you've been trying to control. You probably know what yours is already, because it came to mind the moment you heard the title of this episode. And the first thing you feel is loss. You start counting what it would cost you, and the number gets bigger the longer you stare at it. This episode opens with Jeff and Kari Patterson, who had finally built t...

Somebody tells you they're praying for you, and you don't quite know what to do with it. You mumble a thank you. It feels awkward, and you couldn't tell anybody why. Maybe part of you wonders whether they mean it, or whether it's the church version of saying take care. And underneath the awkwardness there's usually a thought you would never say out loud. You aren't sure it does anything. This episode opens with Kent Brantly, a young doctor who had gone to Liberia to care for people nobody else ...

A lot of Christians have picked up a message from the culture without meaning to. A meaningful life has to be big. A platform, and a story people would want to hear. And then there's the week in front of you. You got up and went to work, and at some point you made supper and helped somebody with homework. Most people's lives are made of small things. Raising children, and staying married for a few decades. Somewhere in there a thought shows up. Is this all there is. You would never say it out lo...

You went into the appointment with ordinary worries and came out with something that changes everything. Learn what Isaiah 43:2 promises about God's presence in the days after a diagnosis, and how a church is meant to show up. A diagnosis changes the shape of your life in a moment. You went into the appointment with the ordinary worries about parking and getting back to work in the afternoon. You came out with something that reorders everything. The drive home is a strange thing all by itself. ...

The kids are grown and gone, and the house feels different in a way it hasn't in twenty years. Learn why grieving an empty nest is normal for a Christian parent, and what the arrows of Psalm 127 say about the work you already finished. The empty nest is one of the more disorienting transitions in adult life. The house feels different in a way it hasn't in twenty years. You walk past a bedroom that's made up and stays made up all week. The rhythm you built your whole life around, the practices a...

You went to the person. You told them you were sorry. And they didn't accept it. Maybe they told you it was too late. Maybe they got up and left the conversation without saying anything at all. Most of us grew up with a simple picture of how this is supposed to work. You apologize and they forgive you. Things go back to normal. When the second half never comes, you're left holding something you already paid for with nowhere to put it. So you start second-guessing the apology itself. Maybe you s...

Some nights the day ends and you have nothing left, and the prayer you meant to pray never comes. Learn why a short, plain prayer counts with God, and what Jesus said about willing spirits in worn-out bodies. There are stretches when the day finally winds down and you know you should pray, and you have no energy left for it. The words won't come. The moment you close your eyes, your mind wanders off to the grocery list or something your boss said that afternoon. You start to wonder if there's s...

Familiar Christian music can hold you when nothing else quite does. Discover why the songs you've sung for years reach places words can't, and how God meets you in a melody when your faith feels dry. There's a comfort that comes the moment you hear the first few notes of a song you've known forever. Maybe it's a hymn you sang as a kid, standing next to your mother in the pew. Maybe it's the one they play at every funeral you've been to. Before you've thought about a single word, something in yo...

Watching your congregation shrink is a grief few people talk about. Discover why declining numbers don't get the final word, and how Jesus keeps building His church even when yours feels small. If you love a local church, a shrinking congregation can be depressing. You stand at the back and count, and there are fewer heads than a year ago, far fewer than five years back. You know the empty seats by name: the family that moved for a job, the couple that slowly stopped coming. Every absence is a ...

Always being available may look like generosity, but it slowly drains you dry. Discover why Jesus withdrew from people who needed Him, and how his example frees you to be unreachable sometimes. Some of us take pride in being reachable. The text gets answered the second it comes in. You never turn down the request for coffee, and you never let a call go unanswered. From the outside it looks like generosity, and part of it is love. But some of it is something else, a person who has never learned ...

Watching a parent lose their memory is a grief that starts long before anyone dies. Discover why that grief counts, and how numbering your days helps you love the parent who's here today. There's a grief that comes long before the funeral. It shows up when your father asks the same question three times in an hour, or when your mother calls you by your brother's name. The person who raised you is losing pieces of themselves right in front of you, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. You go...

Every praying Christian goes through stretches where the words feel automatic. You bow your head, and the same phrases come out that always come out, the ones you learned years ago and reach for at meals and at bedtime. Somewhere along the way you stopped hearing them, and you can't remember the last time one of those prayers meant something as you said it. It can start to feel fake, like you're reciting lines to an audience of one. This episode opens with a small experiment you can try. Pick a...

Some Christians are the only person in their extended family who prays for the rest of them. There's the spouse who doesn't believe, and the grown kids who walked away from the faith they were raised in. Somehow the job of bringing that whole family before the Lord has fallen to one person, and that person is you. Nobody assigned it. You just love them, and you seem to be the only one on your knees. It can feel lonely and pointless, like your prayers go up and nothing comes down. This episode o...

You took the job. You said yes to the person. You made the move and signed the papers. And now you're a few months or a few years in, and you catch yourself wondering if you got it right. Second-guessing is common, and it isn't always a red flag. Sometimes it's grief, a mourning for the roads you didn't take and the life that might have been down the one you passed up. This episode opens with Grace, who left a secure job after 2 years, sure God was calling her to become a teacher, and enrolled ...

Every long-term Bible reader hits verses they struggle with. A command that sounds harsh. A line that seems to contradict something you were taught to believe about God. The pull is to slide past it and stick with the parts that comfort you. Most of us have a private list of verses we've been avoiding for years. Bart hears it often. People bring him the verse that bothers them, half expecting him to be shocked, and he tells them: don't skip it, stay with it. This episode opens with Martin Luthe...

A close relationship with an adult child doesn't come standard, and it's easy to stop noticing it. Discover why John called this the greatest joy, and how to receive it with gratitude. This episode is for the parents whose grown kids call. Whose kids text just to check in, or make room for you at the table when they didn't have to. That kind of relationship does not come standard. A grown child who wants you around is choosing you, over and over, with a life full of other options, and some part...

A lot of Christians hit stretches where nothing is exactly wrong. The bills are paid. The family is functioning. You have plenty to be thankful for, and you are, and still you wake up with a dryness you can't explain. You're moving through good days without tasting them. There's no crisis to point to and no obvious hole to fill, which can be more confusing than an outright problem, because you can't even say what's the matter. This episode opens with Ann Voskamp, who ran a family farm, was rais...

We size people up in a second, then miss the story we can't see. Discover why Romans 14:4 says the person you're judging was never yours to judge, and how to catch yourself in the moment. You're standing in a checkout line, or scrolling a feed, and you catch yourself passing judgment on someone you've never met. The way they're handling their kids. The opinion they posted. In a second flat, you've tried them and moved on, and half the time you don't notice you did it until it's already done. Th...

There are stretches of the Christian life when you pray and it feels like nothing is happening. The words come out of your mouth and vanish into the room, with no sense that anyone is on the other end. You start to wonder if you're doing it wrong, or whether God is listening at all. That kind of stretch can make you want to quit praying, because talking to the ceiling starts to feel pointless. This episode opens with Amy Carmichael, who spent 35 years rescuing children in southern India and was...

We can all name a moment we wish we could take back. Discover why James compares the tongue to a spark, and how to go repair the damage even long after the words were said. Most of us can name the moment. The sentence you fired off in an email before you cooled down. The remark about somebody that got repeated and spread further than you ever meant it to. You would give a lot to reach back and pull those words out of the air, but you cannot. That is the trouble with words. Once they are out, th...