Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
Read Proverbs 5:23
Samson was a he-man with a she-weakness. Although he was born of godly parents, set apart from his birth to be a Nazirite, and elevated to the enviable position of judge in Israel, he never won the battle with lust. Instead, lust eventually conquered him. Several things that illustrate his lustful bent may be observed from the record of his life, each one in the book of Judges.
Read Job 1:21-22
Job understood wounds. The words he used to describe them were more than patronizing platitudes and theoretical proverbs. He’d been there and back again. He could write about intense inner suffering in the first person because of his own massive ocean of pain.
Read Ephesians 5:15-19
I’m passionate about time management. I want efficiency and effectiveness. In fact, a weakness of mine is books on the investment of my time. Books that tell me how to replace being busy with being effective. Books that caution me to think things through before plunging into them.
Thankfully, God’s Word speaks straight to the heart of that issue. The apostle Paul wrote about it in his letter to the Ephesians:
Read Psalm 90:12
To me, birthdays are just another routine realization that I'm not getting any younger. I know that because the cake won't hold all the candles. Even if it could, the frosting would melt before I'd be able to blow all of them out. One year, my kind and thoughtful assistant reminded me of another approach I could take. She gave me a birthday card showing an old guy standing beside a cake covered with candles. On the front it read: "Don't feel you're getting old if you can't blow out all the candles..."
Read Hebrews 13:3
On that icy January morning, in a twenty-five-cent-a-night flophouse, a shell of a man who looked twice his age staggered to the washbasin and fell. The basin toppled and shattered.
He was found lying in a heap, unclothed and bleeding from a deep gash in his throat. His forehead was badly bruised, and he was semiconscious. A doctor used black sewing thread that somebody had found to suture the wound. All the while the bum begged for a drink. A buddy shared the bottom of a rum bottle to calm his nerves.
Read 2 Timothy 4:7-8
Growing old, like taxes, is a fact we all must face. Now, you’re not going to get me to declare when growing up stops and growing old starts. But there are some signs we can read along life’s journey that suggest we are entering that inevitable period of transition.
Read Proverbs 26:23, 26
Leonard was a paragon of respectability. The middle-aged, hardworking lab technician had worked at the same Pennsylvania paper mill for nineteen years. Having been a Boy Scout leader, an affectionate father, a member of the local fire brigade, and a regular churchgoer, he was admired as a model in his community.
Read John 8:4-11
The longer I live the less I know with absolute certainty.
In my younger years, I viewed most things as either black or white. Over the years, my perspective has been transformed—by the seasoning of years, the pain of disappointment, the reality of adversity, and the still small voice of God tempering my long-held convictions.
Now I’m much more uncomfortable with sweeping generalities.
Read Romans 12:1-3
Read 2 Timothy 4:9-13
If your found yourself near the end of your days, close to death, who or what would you most want by your side? That’s a compelling question, isn’t it? I know that as I grow older, much that I once attended to and perhaps even worried over through the years means very little now that I’m in my eighth decade. In those times of rare but necessary re-evaluation, what’s really important comes into clearer focus.
The aging apostle, likely nearing his seventh decade of life, wrote these meaningful words to Timothy, his younger apprentice:
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