The Daily Memo

Tony Bullimore, aged fifty-six, was one of Britain’s most experienced transatlantic yachtsmen. He was feared dead after his sixty-foot yacht, *Exide Challenger*, capsized amid the icy vastness of the Southern Ocean, two months into the Vendée Globe round-the-world race. The keel came off ain fifty-foot waves. The boat went over. In his book, *Saved*, Bullimore described it as being like the Niagara Falls upside down. For four days he was entombed in a dark,,…

God desires friendship with you. God doesn’t tolerate you, neither does He love you out of obligation. Love is simply who He is. You aren’t called to just follow God but you are invited into fellowship with Him. That word ‘fellowship’ translated in the Greek, is ‘koinonia’ which means association, community, intercourse, joint participation and communion. God is ultimately calling you to live your life close to Him. This friendship that…

The single most significant decision that has changed my prayer life more than any other, the one step that has brought about greater results than all others combined is this (drum roll, please)... Asking Jesus what I should pray. So simple, and so revolutionizing! Utterly obvious once we consider it, but something we so rarely practice. That is probably one of the side effects of the “prayer is just asking God to do something” view; no doubt it is also more of…

In 1925, Langston Hughes, an aspiring writer working as a busboy at a hotel, discovered that a poet he admired (Vachel Lindsey) was staying there as a guest. Hughes shyly slipped Lindsey some of his own poetry, which Lindsey later praised enthusiastically at a public reading. Lindsey’s encouragement resulted in Hughes receiving a university scholarship, furthering him on his way to his own successful writing career. A little encouragement can go a long way, especially…

Most believers experience feelings of doubt at one time or another, and when they do, it affects their ability to receive the Lord’s wisdom. Doubting God means not trusting Him completely—and trust is how the Lord “will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5-6). God’s wisdom in your life may be clouded if you struggle to believe the following truths: God loves you all the time. When we’re “good,” most of us believe God loves us&mdash…

We live in a larger story. This is not the land of the white picket fences with a chicken in every pot. We don’t live in Oz or the Kansas of its wizard. There is an incredibly good ending to our story, but it often isn’t on this side of eternity. Joy comes. Here. Joy is available. Now. It is birthed in the unchanging love of our Father. To know God’s love is to be able to stand in gusts and gales, and though our bodies be knocked over, our souls remain…

Jesus promised us His joy, but at times it can evade us. There are some important things to understand about this spiritual fruit. As we saw yesterday, the Holy Spirit is its source. And being supernatural in nature, divine joy exists independently of our circumstances. Happiness, on the other hand, comes from external causes, is an earthly in character, and increases or decreases as events change. Holy Spirit-developed joy comes when we: Focus on our relationship with the.…

‘People often ask me what Mother Teresa was like,’ writes Shane Claiborne in his book *The Irresistible Revolution*. ‘Sometimes it’s like they wonder if she glowed in the dark or had a halo. She was short, wrinkled, and precious, maybe even a little ornery, like a beautiful, wise old granny. But there is one thing I will never forget – her feet. Her feet were deformed. Each morning I would stare at them. I wondered if she had contracted.…

Why don’t I wake with a joyful heart? Joy was just here. Where did it go? I began to realize that what I’ve done for most of my life is resign myself to this idea: I’m really not going to have any lasting joy. And from that resignation, I’ve gone on to try and find what I could have. Women do this in marriage. They see that they are not going to have any real intimacy with their husbands, so they lose themselves in soaps or tabloids or romance.…