devotional

NPM2016 - God's Grandeur

Especially for my Christian friends, the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins is a great place to go for devotional poetry. And it serves as a nice bridge toward enjoying poetry for Christians who only know the poetry of hymns. Also listen.

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Keller's Five Questions

Bible reading

I'm not sure I've posted this before, but even if I did it's worth putting up again. David Cooke has posted Keller's Five Questions over at Cookies Days (a blog you should check out). He first posted it in 2009, I believe.

Keller said these are five questions he asks of a biblical text as he reads it for himself. Helpful.
  1. How can I praise him?
  2. How can I confess my sins on the basis of this text?
  3. If this is really true, what wrong behavior, what harmful emotions or false attitudes result in me when I forget this? Every problem is because you have forgotten something. What problems are you facing?
  4. What should I be aspiring to do on the basis of this text?
  5. Why are you telling me this today.

Explore App - The Good Book Company

Explore app

I really like The Good Book Company. Brad Byrd is a friend and is always telling me about new resources they are putting out. But before he could even tell me about it, I noticed the Explore app on The Good Book blog and downloaded it on my phone. It's excellent.

It's a self-paced devotional that you can use daily or use as you want. You start with 28 daily devotions free as an introduction to the devotional, and then you can subscribe to more. And these aren't just written by some no-name dude behind the scenes. They come from guys like Tim Chester, Christopher Ash, and Tim Keller. 

Go to your app store and find Explore and give it a try. I think you'll like it.