Insight for Today
A Daily Devotional by Pastor Chuck Swindoll

IDOLS TAKE MANY FORMS. A church building can become an idol to us, when all the while it is simply a place to meet and worship our Lord—nothing more.

DURING MY PASTORING DAYS in New England, I heard of a teacher who quizzed a group of high school students on the Bible.

BOTH ADVERSITY AND PROMINENCE confront our equilibrium, but prominence is perhaps the more challenging test. The classic example is David.

THE GREAT PLAGUE STRETCHED across London like a thick, drab blanket. It came as a thief in the night. The mortality rate was astounding.

INSTANT REPLAYS HAVE BECOME OLD HAT. We now expect them in all televised scenarios.

ONE OF THE TOUGHEST assignments in life is to communicate clearly what happened during a time when emotions were high. People who “fall in love” can hardly describe the details of the moment.

WE OFTEN HEAR PEOPLE SAY, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Although sweating the small stuff can occasionally be a drag, there’s another side to that coin.

DURING THE REIGN OF OLIVER CROMWELL, the British government began to run low on silver for coins.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

LEONARD WAS A PARAGON OF RESPECTABILITY. The middle-aged, hardworking lab technician had worked at the same Pennsylvania paper mill for nineteen years.

THE LONGER I LIVE THE LESS I know with absolute certainty. In my younger years, I viewed most things as either black or white.

THERE'S NOTHING MORE DISTASTEFUL than someone who is set on self-glossing—offering his résumé and list of achievements unsolicited to everyone in the room.

IF YOU 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?

MY HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATING CLASS had its thirtieth anniversary reunion many summers ago. Since I could not attend, I decided to blow the dust off my yearbook and stroll down nostalgia lane.

EIGHT WORDS WERE BRASHLY SMEARED across the dashboard of the speedboat tied up at Gulf Shores, Alabama. They reflected the flash and flair of its owner whose fast life was often publicized in sporting news across America.