The Daily Memo

Year after year, generation after generation, Rosh Hashanah is celebrated by countercultural groups of people who resist the thundering, punitive voice of the pharaoh who tries to reduce their identity to enslaved producers: “More bricks! More bricks!” Instead, it commemorates our existence as human miracles, not human resources. Rosh Hashanah says that we are already built to be loved by God and remain safe in his presence. Instead of asking us to please God …

Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man. (1 Corinthians 15:49 NLT) You’ll be made perfect. Finally, the totality of your being will be saturated only with goodness. Think of all that you’re not going to have to wrestle with anymore. The fear that has been your lifelong battle, the anger, the compulsions. No more internal civil wars; no doubt, no lust, no regret; no shame. What has plagued you these last many years? What…

Sometimes our conversations with God are fruitful. Other times prayer feels like talking to a wall. But in fact, we shouldn’t be surprised by such variation. Why would we expect our prayer life to remain uniform when we ourselves aren’t the same every day? How we speak and listen to God depends on ... Our understanding of who God is. The way we view the Lord changes the way we hear Him. For example, if you see God as a loving Father, you will hear His…

Yes, we have all been wounded in this battle. And we will be wounded again. But something deeper has also happened to us than mere wounds. I expect that all of us at one time or another have said, "Well, part of me wants to, and another part of me doesn't." You know the feeling — part of you pulled one direction, part of you the other. Part of me loves writing and genuinely looks forward to a day at my desk. But not all of me. Sometimes I'm also…

From a Christian perspective, our first reaction should be to take a deep breath and relax. At some point in time, this world is going to end (2 Peter 3:10). Christ will return (Revelation 19:11–13) at the time He is prepared for (1 Corinthians 15:51–52). And yet, every single person on earth is a split second away from a personal doomsday, right now (Psalm 39:5). Heart attacks, war, accidents, and such can bring us face-to-face with our Creator more readily…

In Isaiah 55, God declares, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Isaiah 55:8). In fact, that’s one of the biggest frustrations of the Christian life—a lack of understanding about God’s ways. There are times when we could really use a miracle, and He doesn’t come through for us, which can lead to confusion, disappointment, and anger. Why did God let me down? God works in both supernatural and ordinary ways, and…

Time after time the Scriptures help us make sense out of life’s puzzles: failing marriages, rebellious children, drug addiction, warring nations, the return of leaves in spring, the insatiable longings of our hearts, the fear of death, the coming into being of children, the universality of praise and blame, the prevalence of pride, and the admiration of self-denial. The Bible confirms its divine origin again and again as it makes sense out of our experience in the…

“This morning I thought I was worth a great deal of money; now I don’t know that I have a dollar.” Former US president Ulysses S. Grant said those words the day he was swindled out of his life’s savings by a business partner. Months later, Grant was diagnosed with incurable cancer. Concerned about providing for his family, he accepted an offer from author Mark Twain to publish his memoirs, which he completed a week before he died. The Bible tells us…

This is the world [God] has made. This is the world that is still going on. And he doesn't walk away from the mess we've made of it. Now he lives, almost cheerfully, certainly heroically, in a dynamic relationship with us and with our world. "Then the Lord intervened" is perhaps the single most common phrase about him in Scripture, in one form or another. Look at the stories he writes. There's the one where the children of Israel are pinned against…