The Daily Memo

It’s fine to pray for safety and blessings, but what if you want more? What if you desire power from the Holy Spirit, strength from heaven, unshakable faith, genuine intimacy with your Father? Instead of just asking God to keep you safe, give you more, and protect your life, you may have to ask God to break you. When I think about praying this prayer, “Lord, break me,” I think about the experience Amy and I once had in our small group. On a blustery, cold…

Cateura is a small slum in Paraguay, South America. Desperately poor, its villagers survive by recycling items from its rubbish dump. But from these unpromising conditions something beautiful has emerged—an orchestra. With a violin costing more than a house in Cateura, the orchestra had to get creative, crafting its own instruments from their garbage supply. Violins are made from oil cans with bent forks as tailpieces. Saxophones have come from drainpipes with bottle…

Why did God curse Eve with loneliness and heartache, an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill? Wasn’t her life going to be hard enough out there in the world, banished from the Garden that was her true home, her only home, never able to return? It seems unkind. Cruel, even. He did it to save her. For as we all know personally, something in Eve’s heart shifted at the Fall. Something sent its roots down deep into her soul—and ours—that mistrust…

The Lord makes known His love for mankind in so many ways. Consider, for example, His providential care and kindness to all humanity, our beautiful planet filled with creation’s wonders, and the gift of eternal life to all who trust Christ as Savior. But have you ever recognized that God also shows love by transforming believers into the image of His Son? Genesis 1:26 tells us that in the beginning, God created mankind in His likeness. Though that image was marred…

True strength does not come out of bravado. Until we are broken, our life will be self-centered, self-reliant; our strength will be our own. So long as you think you are really something in and of yourself, what will you need God for? I don't trust a man who hasn't suffered; I don't let a man get close to me who hasn't faced his wound. Think of the posers you know—are they the kind of man you would call at 2:00 A.M., when life is collapsing around?…

We like to believe we’re in charge of our life, but when trouble inevitably comes our way, we’re reminded that’s not true. Yet even in times of difficulty we quickly try to regain control. In an attempt to put all the pieces back together, we may resort to manipulating circumstances or people, devising strategies, or using our own efforts to fix matters. Helplessness is one of the means God uses to break pride and produce humility. This was certainly true…

There are few things more crucial to us than our own lives. And there are few things we are less clear about. This journey we are taking is hardly down the yellow brick road. Then again, that's not a bad analogy at all. We may set out in the light, with hope and joy, but eventually, our path always seems to lead us through dark woods, shrouded with a low-lying mist. Where is this abundant life that Christ supposedly promised? Where is God when we need him most? What is…

In his book Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, co-authored with Philip Yancey, Dr. Paul Brand observed, “A hummingbird heart weighs a fraction of an ounce and beats eight hundred times a minute; a blue whale’s heart weighs half a ton, beats only ten times per minute, and can be heard two miles away. In contrast to either, the human heart seems dully functional, yet it does its job, beating 100,000 times a day [65–70 times a minute] with no time off for rest,…

The word I choose to describe Jesus is life. Pure, lush, exuberant Life. Life that proves to be unquenchable, unstoppable, indestructible. As John summarized the whole affair, “In him was life, and that light was the light of men” (1:4). It sure was. Let’s turn back to nature one more time. It is such a liberating force from the religious fog, because it is God’s and it speaks volumes about his true—pardon the pun— nature. What does…