“We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes.” ―Madeleine L’Engle

Jonathan Leeman’s The Rule of Love explains why the Biblical pronouncement that “God is love” does not mean zapping moral boundaries or judgments, or unconditionally accepting everything except authority and institutions. Leeman’s balanced, Biblical view is particularly crucial at a time when some say, “God is love” and push us to ignore His other attributes. I hope you’ll benefit from the following excerpt, courtesy of Crossway.

“The object of the artistic and spiritual life is to dig for the sunrise of wonder.” —G.K. Chesterton

Here in the Texas Panhandle, 2019 brought an exceptionally wet spring, and by the first of June, we had already received the 21 inches of rainfall that we recognize as our annual average. My wife, Kris, and I predicted that it would be a showcase year for wildflowers on our ranch—and we were right. For weeks, we felt we were watching a fireworks display on the ground.

Matthew McCullough in Remember Death: The Surprising Path to Living Hope asks, “How can you enjoy anything about life if you know that, in the end, the more you love something the more it will hurt when you lose it?” Buddhists say the answer is non-attachment to anyone and anything. McCullough shows how Christians can see that bid for support and raise it through Christ’s promise of eternal life. I hope you’ll benefit from the following excerpt, courtesy of Crossway Books.

Editor’s note: Marvin Olasky continues his monthly biographical series on key individuals from late 19th and early 20th century American history. In February and March, we looked at the life of John D. Rockefeller. In April and May, we studied Grover Cleveland.

Os Guinness for decades has spoken and written articulately. He brings to bear honed discernment in noting, “The present obsession with President Trump, whether supporting or opposing him, is a massively distorting factor for a simple reason: Donald Trump is the consequence of the crisis and not the cause. … The crisis created the president. … Trump’s election was like a giant wrecking ball that stopped America in its tracks, and it allows space for Americans on all sides to consider where they see the republic now, and where they think it should go.”

John R. Erickson, well known as the author of the great Hank the Cowdog series of children’s books, knows cowdogs because he was first a cowboy. He worked on ranches in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles for eight years, and in 1986 wrote a book titled Cowboy Country based on his experiences along the Beaver River in 1978 and 1979. I’ve put excerpts from that book into four baskets labeled spring, summer, fall, and winter.