title: Thoughts From the Diary of a Desperate Man: A Daily Devotional
author:  Walter A. Henrichsen 
description: Christianity is a religion of rescue, designed for the desperate, just as an awareness of one's depravity is essential for holiness, so too a feeling of desperation, manifested in perpetual brokenness and dependence, is the heart of the believer's life in Christ. The title burned in my mind long before the first day's devotion was written: Thoughts from the Diary of A Desperate Man. My objective from the start has been to help people think biblically. All permanent change takes place by altering how a person perceives reality. We may not know if all see the same color when looking as a red object, but we do know that as people of the Book, our objective is to see things as God sees them, as they truly are. How does one accomplish this task? The only way I know is through Scripture.
zlib_text: [Maps](index_split_005.html#filepos2080)
  
  
  France in 1942
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00037.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](images/00044.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Dedication](index_split_005.html#filepos2154)
  
  
  To Anne and Annie, companions on my travels
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Epigraph](index_split_005.html#filepos2234)
  
  
  The memory of the world is not a bright, shining crystal, but a heap of broken
  fragments, a few fine flashes of light that break through the darkness.
  
  
  Herbert Butterfield In searching for an explanation of the motivations of the
  Righteous Among the Nations, are we not really saying: what was wrong with
  them? Are we not, in a deeper sense, implying that their behaviour was
  something other than normal? . . . Is acting benevolently and altruistically
  such an outlandish and unusual type of behaviour, supposedly at odds with
  man’s inherent character, as to justify a meticulous search for explanations?
  Or is it conceivable that such behaviour is as natural to our psychological
  constitution as the egoistic one we ac