The Daily Stand: A Morning Devotional

Longing.

You have been trying to name it for years. That ache that nothing quite reaches. That restlessness that settles in even when life is good. C.S. Lewis called it an inconsolable longing — and he said the fact that we feel it at all is proof we were made for somewhere else. Today on The Daily Stand, Day 2 of The Gloaming Hour, we talk about what it means to be homesick for a place you have never been — and why the One who planted that longing in you has already gone ahead to prepare the place that will finally quiet it.

Wonder.

A pink and lavender sky. A little girl who looked up and said — oh wow, Jesus is coming back soon. And a father standing next to her who looked at the same sky and saw beautiful weather. Today on The Daily Stand we begin a five-day series called The Gloaming Hour — and Day 1 asks one simple question: when did we stop seeing what our children still see?

The God Who Sees You

There is a lie that every dark season tells. It tells you that the distance you feel is real. That God has looked away. That somehow the weight of what you are carrying has put you somewhere outside His reach. Today on The Daily Stand, Day 5 of In the Dark, we open Psalm 139 and answer that lie with one of the most quietly revolutionary sentences in all of Scripture — darkness and light are the same to Him. He sees you this morning exactly as clearly as He has ever seen you.

Lament is not unbelief.

Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost. That is not a crisis of faith. That is a prayer — and God preserved it in Scripture for three thousand years. Today on The Daily Stand, Day 4 of In the Dark, we walk all the way to the bottom of Lamentations with Jeremiah and find the one word waiting for us there that makes the difference between bitterness and hope. Yet.

Don't sit alone.

We don't reach out because we don't want to be a burden. Because we've been burned before by someone who turned our pain into a project. Because we're not sure anyone will really understand. Today on The Daily Stand, Day 3 of In the Dark, we name those reasons honestly — and then talk about what it looks like to make one phone call, send one text, and say the most important five words you might say this week: I need someone to know.