Delightsome Land

When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? — Isaiah 28:24 One day in early summer I walked past a lovely meadow. The grass was as soft, thick, and beautiful as an immense green rug. At one end of the meadow stood a fine old tree that served as a sanctuary for countless wild birds, whose happy songs seemed to fill the crisp, sweet air. I saw two cows who lay in the shade as the very picture of contentment. And down by the road, eye-catching dandelions mingled their gold with the royal purple of the wild violets. I leaned against the fence for a long time, feasting my hungry eyes and thinking in my soul that God never made a more beautiful place than this lovely meadow. The next day I passed that way again, and to my great dismay, the hand of the destroyer had been there. A farmer with a large tractor, which was now sitting idle in the meadow, had in one day inflicted terrible devastation. Instead of seeing the soft, green grass, I now saw the ugly, bare, a...

Love never fails. — 1 Corinthians 13:8 NIV God loves you simply because He has chosen to do so. He loves you when you don’t feel lovely. He loves you when no one else loves you. Others may abandon you, divorce you, and ignore you, but God will love you. Always. No matter what. My friend Mike tells how his three-year-old daughter, Rachel, lost her balance and hit her head against the corner of an electric space heater. After a short cry, she blacked out. Her parents rushed her to the hospital, where the tests revealed a skull fracture. Pretty traumatic for a child. Pretty traumatic for Mom and Dad. Rachel was kept overnight for observation and then sent home. She spent a couple of days understandably quiet. But Mike knew she was okay the morning he heard her talking to herself. He was still in bed, and she was down the hall in her room. “Bear? Doggie? Sheep? Baby? Ruff-ruff?” Mike smiled. She was calling roll in her crib, making sure her frien...

I recall a story of a young teen girl we will call Sari. She sat perched quietly on a chair. The sun was setting outside the brothel in a small town on Thailand’s border with Malaysia. Sari’s long hair hung forward, shielding her face from view. The eldest of four children, with two disabled parents, she was from a small, poor hill-tribe area in Laos. The conversation progressed slowly, interrupted with long pauses as our team gently found a way to communicate in a culture where women and children are seen but not heard. The gulf between our team and Sari was bridged by our desire to understand the unimaginable and Sari’s desire to give voice to the unspeakable: a young girl of probably no more than fourteen years old, whose mother had sold her to a brothel. We had been steeped in our antislavery work in Eastern Europe, where girls were promised work as waitresses but tricked and forced into brothels, but the answers Sari bravely gave stopped us in our tracks. We came to ...

Desperate for Initiation A man needs to know his name. He needs to know he’s got what it takes. And I don’t mean “know” in the modernistic, rationalistic sense. I don’t mean that the thought has passed through your cerebral cortex and you’ve given it intellectual assent, the way you know about the Battle of Waterloo or the ozone layer — the way most men “know” God or the truths of Christianity. I mean a deep knowing, the kind of knowing that comes when you have been there, entered in, experienced firsthand in an unforgettable way. The way “Adam knew his wife” and she gave birth to a child. Adam didn’t know about Eve; he knew her intimately, through flesh-and-blood experience at a very deep level. There’s knowledge about and knowledge of. When it comes to our question, we need the latter. In the movie  Gladiator , set in the second century A.D., the hero is a warrior from Spain called Maximus. He is...

On Sunday nights, dad and the house church men would sometimes take me trot-lining with them. We’d take a couple of boats out and string out the long trotlines, weighted at both ends with plastic milk-jug floaters in the middle and multiple baited hooks. M y dad knew just where to go. We’d catch all kinds of fish, but the best were the big Opelousa cats. We’d bring whatever we caught back, and Dad would clean the fish and cook them. He’s a great cook, and the men loved it. But Dad did more in the river than just fish. He also baptized people. Men and women who were in trouble somehow found their way down to our house, where my dad and mom would stop what they were doing and talk to them. In our living room is where I first started to realize that there was something to this God stuff my dad was always talking about. These people would come in looking like they’d been down a long road and were worried, unhappy, unhealthy, and just plain scraggly. Dad would talk to ...

Editor's Note: Today's devotion is from Jesus Calling ,  written to help people connect not only with Jesus, the living Word, but also with the Bible - the only infallible, inerrant Word of God. Author Sarah Young endeavors to keep her devotional writing consistent with that unchanging standard. This #1 bestselling 365-day devotional is written as if Jesus Himself is speaking directly to you—words of encouragement, comfort, and reassurance of His unending love.  Many readers have shared that Sarah’s books have helped them grow to love God’s Word. As Sarah states in the introduction to  Jesus Calling , “The devotions . . . are meant to be read slowly, preferably in a quiet place with your Bible open.” We hope you are blessed by today's reading. Passage to Read When you decide on a course of action that is in line with My will, nothing in Heaven or on earth can stop you. You may encounter many obstacles as you move toward your goal, but don’t be discouraged — ne...

Happy Mid Year Thanksgiving. Passage to Read The Wedding Celebration, Matthew 22:1-14; Luke 14:15-24. Point to Ponder Imagine throwing a wonderful wedding feast. How would you feel if you offered invitations to your family and friends but nobody came? Yet that’s exactly what happens in this story, told in two different parables by Jesus. A king invited a bunch of friends to a wedding celebration for his son, but they dismissed the invitation and went their different ways, one guy to his farm, another to his business. Luke’s version gives a fair amount of color and detail here. It paints a picture of people who are just too busy and self-absorbed to come to the party. One guy RSVPs by saying he can’t make it because he just bought a new piece of property; too much to do there. Another says he’s busy with his livestock. Then another one says he’s just gotten married himself and can’t possibly come. Consider these parables as if they are about the call to corporately...

In the high-speed, go-go-go nature of our everyday lives, taking care of ourselves can often fall to the wayside. It gets smothered under other needs — and suddenly we’re left feeling worn-out and sick. Our shoulders tense from stress, we’ve been eating way too much fast food, and we’re having constant aches and pains. Does this sound familiar? Taking care of yourself physically is so important — important enough to do every single day. Remember how much you love taking long walks on the beach? At sunrise, sunset, or anytime in between, long walks on the beach are beneficial for mind and body. How often did you wish you hadn’t walked the beach? You probably can’t recall a time. Walks on the beach are always a good idea, and they are a great way to take care of your body. To take care of yourself physically, begin by making small changes in the way you take care of your body, and you’ll start to see big results. Add greens to your morning smoothie, make that doctor’s ...

It’s been said that faith may move mountains, but prayer moves God. Amazing, isn’t it, that our prayers, whether grand and glorious or feeble and faint, can move the very heart of God who created the universe? To walk with God we must make it a practice to talk with God... Prayer moves God, and when God moves in your life, things get exciting! Years ago I never dreamed that God would move in my life the way He has. Even after my accident, when I signed up at the University of Maryland for art and English classes, I never realized how God would use diverse elements in my life to mold me to His will. But I sensed God was preparing me for something, and He started me out on a spiritual journey of prayer and praise that has not yet ended. You, too, have a journey through life ahead. Why not make it a journey of prayer and praise? ~Joni Eareckson Tada Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know...

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  — 1 Peter 5:8 Why is it important to understand the enemy? Before you fight a war, it’s always a good thing to know something about your enemy. Nowhere is this statement truer than in the spiritual realm. Many Christians do not take the enemy seriously because they don’t know enough about him to take him seriously. In fact, Satan’s cleverest strategy is to make us believe that he does not exist or that he’s not a real threat. Some Christians do not even believe in a literal devil. Instead, they believe he is a biblical symbol for evil. But that is not the position of the Bible. The devil is every bit as real as God is. It’s hard for a symbol to do the things attributed to Satan in Scripture: deceiving, murdering, tempting, destroying, lying, accusing, and controlling. In the famous exchange between God and Satan in Job 1, God asked Satan...

We brought nothing into the world, so we can take nothing out. But, if we have food and clothes, we will be satisfied with that. — 1 Timothy 6:7-8 Satisfied? That is one thing we are not. We are not satisfied. We take a vacation of a lifetime. We satiate ourselves with sun, fun, and good food. But we are not even on the way home before we dread the end of the trip and begin planning another. We are not satisfied. As a child we say, “If only I were a teenager.” As a teen we say, “If only I were an adult.” As an adult, “If only I were married.” As a spouse, “If only I had kids.” We are not satisfied. Contentment is a difficult virtue. Why? Because there is nothing on earth that can satisfy our deepest longing. We long to see God. The leaves of life are rustling with the rumor that we will — and we won’t be satisfied until we do. God Is Enough Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You... My soul will be satisfied as with ...

When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore.  — John 21:9–11 A beach fire is a welcome sight. The warmth of it beckoned the weary but exhilarated disciples, the smell of the broiled fish wafting across the beach. As they landed their boat at last, they realized that Jesus had been busy while waiting for them: breakfast was almost ready. Food always tastes better when shared in the open air, and it was just what they needed for their growling stomachs. But look again at that fire. Peter certainly did. Just days earlier Peter had denied that he even knew Jesus. Having vehemently disassociated himself from his friend and rabbi, weighting his words with curses, perhaps he was shocked at himself, stunned because he had crumbled so quickly. He hadn’t endured a terrible beating, the Ro...

One of the most haunting experiences I have ever had as a man took place on an early summer day in Alaska. My family and I were sea kayaking with humpback whales in the Icy Strait, and we stopped on the shore of Chichagof Island for lunch. Our guide asked us if we wanted to go for a hike into the interior of the island, to a clearing where grizzlies were known to feed. We were all over that invitation. After a twenty minute walk through a spruce forest, we came into what appeared to be a broad, open meadow about four hundred yards across. Being midday, and hot, there were no bears to be seen. “They’re sleeping now, through the afternoon. They’ll be back tonight,” he said. “C’mere — I want to show you something.” The meadow was actually more of a bog, a low-lying jungle of brushy groundcover about two feet high, barely supported underneath by another foot of soaked moss and peat. A very difficult place to walk. Our guide led us to a trail of what seemed to be massive footpr...