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Perfectly Off Course

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Exodus 13:17-22 There are several things I’ve noticed about young people today. One that still surprises me is how early we train them to think about the future. High school students once chose educational tracks to prepare for careers. Then middle schoolers began making similar decisions. Recently, I heard of an elementary student confidently announce his intention to attend MIT. When I was his age, I wanted to be a bartender or a professional wrestler. I love encouraging young people to dream. There is wisdom in setting goals and planning ahead. But I wonder whether we have also taught them, and ourselves, that there is one perfect path through life. You know the path: school, career, marriage, children, home, retirement. Now, there is nothing wrong with that route. But I didn’t follow it exactly, and neither have many others. And when life takes an unexpected turn away from this route, people often feel like they have failed. They que...
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Prayer at the Roots

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Matthew 21:18-22 Jesus didn’t say faith could move a mountain. He said it could move this mountain. And “this mountain” may have been more than a motivational metaphor. Jesus was nearing Jerusalem, the city built on a mountain and crowned by the temple. Just before this, he had entered that temple looking for prayer and wasn’t happy with what he actually found. Then he left and approached a fig tree covered with leaves but bearing no fruit. The tree becomes a living parable of the religious landscape. It was impressive from a distance, but empty where it mattered. There were plenty of leaves, but no love. Plenty of religion. No righteousness. Then Jesus tells his disciples that prayerful faith can move “this mountain.” Scholars interpret the mountain in different ways, so we should be careful not to claim too much. But within Matthew’s story, Jesus may be pointing beyond a difficult situation to an entire religious system that had stop...
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Humble Pie

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Psalm 119:65-72 I’m not sure you’ll find references to baked pastries in the Bible, unless you count a serving of good old humble pie. The expression began as umble pie . “Umbles” were the heart, liver, and inner organs of an animal. Wealthier people received the choice cuts, while the poorer people were left with the umbles. Eventually, “eating umble pie” became “eating humble pie,” meaning an experience that brings you down a few notches. The psalmist, apparently, had just eaten a slice. In our passage today, he twice mentions being humbled. We aren’t told exactly what happened. But the Hebrew word translated "humbled" or “afflicted” carries the sense of being bowed down or brought low. Whatever the experience was, it changed the psalmist’s appetite. Before he was humbled, he wandered. Afterward, he hungered for God’s instruction. And some have seen that hunger hiding in the Hebrew text. In verse 66, the psalmist asks God for “go...
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Looking Higher

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Psalm 121 I’m not sold on it yet, but Psalm 121 has me considering putting up a billboard for my church. I’ve thought about it for weeks as I travel over the highest point in town. When you reach our bridge, two digital billboards rise into view and grab your attention. I’ve wondered whether displaying an invitation on one of them would be worthwhile. After all, as you climb the bridge, you have to look up to see them. Why not see a message from our church? That may connect with one reading of this well-known psalm of ascent. The joyful traveler is making the uphill journey toward the sanctuary of God. Along the way, he sees the surrounding hills. Some may have held rival places of worship, each offering its own god, its own promise, and its own invitation. So, the traveler looks at the hills and asks, “From where will my help come?” Then comes his answer: “My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” The hills may advertise ...
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Check Your Inbox

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Check Your Inbox September 4, 2026 Romans 10:15-21 I have an old backup email account that’s mostly subscriptions. There are newsletters, promotions, updates, and who knows what else I signed up for twenty years ago--it's a Hotmail account, after all. Thousands of emails can pile up. For the longest time, I would scan through them before deleting anything. Because what if I missed something? Only recently did I decide it wasn’t worth it. Now, I select them all and hit delete. Every one of those emails was delivered. But delivered doesn’t mean read. I wonder how often that’s true of what God is trying to tell me. In Romans 10, Paul asks, “have they not heard?” His answer is yes, God's good news had gone out. But hearing isn’t the same as listening. You can hear something and not really hear it. Not really receive it. You know that. You can sit through a sermon, sing a hymn, hear the same nudging from God again and again, and still men...
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Quit Pro Quo

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional 2 Corinthians 12:14-18 “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours" sounds friendly enough. Helpful, even. You do something for me, and I’ll return the favor. There’s even a familiar Latin phrase for it: quid pro quo. This for that. But if we’re not careful, “this for that” can become the math we use for relationships. I helped you, so you should help me. I showed up for you, so you should show up for me. I gave, so eventually you should give something back. Paul wants nothing to do with that kind of relationship with the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 12, he tells them, “I do not want what is yours but you.” Then he uses the parent-child relationship as an example. “Children ought not to lay up for their parents, but parents for their children.” Paul’s not saying children never give anything to their parents. He's describing the direction of mature love. Mature love asks, “What can I give?” before it asks, “What am I getting?” Tha...
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Plant Another Tree

  Click here to listen to today’s devotional Matthew 13:1-9 This weekend, we traveled to Corpus Christi to celebrate our son’s birthday. Well, that was the official reason. The real reason was to get our hands on our newborn granddaughter. Knowing I’d spend the day with our kids and then drive four-plus hours home, I needed to make time for some reading. So I woke up early Saturday and went downstairs to the hotel lobby. There was only one other person there. Breakfast was still being set up. And the Weather Channel was the background noise. I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard something that sounded familiar. I was reading about innovation in the church. One of the images was nurturing saplings. That is, planting something new, tending it carefully, and giving it room to become what it might become. At almost that exact moment, an apple farmer appeared on television. He explained that some trees produce more fruit than others. The same orchard can receive the same rain, su...
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