I’ve slept a lot of nights since my last post. It wasn’t intentional; it just happened.

I took a break from writing on here and filled up a Moleskine with Blackwing scratches. When there were no more pages to flip, I did it again in a Blackwing journal.

To fill our time and make ends meet, I started preaching again. I started facilitating LifePlans. We drove between The Woodlands and the farm enough times to equal NYC and back, in cars too old to do such a thing. Two of them broke down. One of them broke down twice.

Ashley decorated a house. She’s led worship almost every Sunday for a friend of ours in Conroe.

I cut grass on a zero-turn.

We literally went to NYC twice in February. Once again in June. We’ll go back again next month, for a whole two weeks.

I’ve applied to jobs in cities I have no desire to live in. At least once I’ve been told we’d be a great fit for some opportunity, only for it to go nowhere.

I reconciled with people who hurt us, and who I had hurt in return.

I started lifting weights again.

I OCD spiraled at least twice, and then again last week. I figured out the way OCD works in my brain is that it doesn’t discriminate between types of OCD, which, in this case, is a really bad thing.

I read several bad books that were too long, needed a better editor, or should have never been written in the first place. I stopped those. Never finish a bad book; move on. Life’s too short to read bad books. Fortunately, I read a couple of great ones.

I made new friends. Caught up with old ones.

I lay awake at night more times than I can count, worried about the return of the Striped-Bark Scorpion to East Texas when the weather warmed up.

I celebrated another year of alcohol sobriety.

I laughed at Project Hail Mary, and then I watched it again. For once, the movie was better than the book, which I did not like.

In June, we packed suitcases and moved back to The Woodlands area for the summer. Back near friends and family who can remind you that you’re loved and not forgotten, and that you’re not crazy for believing God can do crazy things.

We’ve been surprised by random phone calls from friends and strangers alike who’ve been praying for us.

We’ve celebrated life: the birth of a new niece and the birthday of our 21-year-old son.

We’ve finished two more semesters of seminary, with only one left. We’ve cried and punched dirt and jumped in the pool when it was 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and I even lit something on fire just for fun once, safely. A mailer, from a church no less, that was begging for me to light it up. This was less satisfying than I expected because of the glossy coating. It was a feeble attempt. No trees were harmed.

I wouldn’t wish my story on anyone. It’s taught me a lot. Mostly that I don’t know as much as I thought I did.

Sixteen months ago I had a Zoom call with a guy named Jay. I told him part A of our tragedy. The betrayal. The wounding. The pain on top of pain. He listened. He was soft and warm and resolute and bearded and cool. He offered me no advice. He quoted no scripture or saint. I didn’t even get as much as a phoned-in obligatory prayer, which was perfectly fine with me. He just held space. At the end of the call, he said, “Ben, I think the best thing you and your family can do is move to the woods for six to nine months and just heal. Just sit with God in the woods and let Him heal you.” I know I said he gave me no advice; this was more prophetic. Like, “I see you doing that.” I nodded along like people do when they get the crap beat out of them. When I got off the call, Ashley asked, "What'd he say?” I said, “He said we should move to the woods for six to nine months. How stupid, right? We’ll never do that. Who owns land with trees like that… in the woods? What would we do, sit around and look at the trees?”

We went about our business, then part B of our tragedy hit three months later, in June. Suddenly the woods didn't sound so stupid. In September, we sold stuff and moved to the tree farm. A place people forget exists, and people forget you exist.

We never noticed we'd done exactly what he said. The callback came fourteen months after the call. Ashley and I were sitting on the porch one evening in May, watching the fireflies flicker in the distance. The sun was still up somewhere in our zip code, but blocked by acres and acres of trees. She looked over at me and said, “I guess Jay was right.” He was right. We did move to the woods. And God has healed us.

There are only a few pages left of my Blackwing journal. 100 GSM. The pages are thick and begging to be written on.

Maybe this season will end when I finish it. And a new one will begin.

Each new year carries a quiet ache.

We want this year to be different from last year. We hope something will finally shift, that patterns which have felt immovable might begin to loosen their grip. And yet, most of us arrive here cautiously. We have stood at this threshold before.

So perhaps the better question is not whether we want transformation, but why it so often eludes us.

Scripture gives us a word for the posture we instinctively reach for in moments like this: seek.

It is a familiar word. It sounds noble. Spiritual. Safe.

But Scripture never assumes that all seeking leads to life.

Hebrews 11:6 says something both simple and unsettling:

“Without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever draws near to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”

The promise is clear. God rewards seekers.
But the warning is implicit. Not all seeking is the same.

• It is possible to seek God and still remain unchanged.

• It is possible to seek God and grow more anxious, more distracted, and more exhausted.

• It is possible to talk openly about Jesus and yet be quietly formed by something else.

Which means the issue is not whether we seek.
The issue is whether our seeking is pointed in the right direction.

No one drifts through life aimlessly. Every life is organized around pursuit.

St. Augustine once said that the human heart is restless until it rests in God. But restlessness does not always look like rebellion. Sometimes it looks like effort. Sometimes it looks like busyness.

The danger is not that we will stop seeking. The danger is that we will seek in ways that cannot bear the weight of our hope.

As we begin a new year, Scripture invites us to examine not how much we are doing, but what our doing is aimed toward.

When we look honestly, four patterns of seeking begin to emerge. They are not personality types. They are orientations of desire. And most of us will recognize ourselves in more than one.

The Disordered Seeker

When God Is Used to Protect the Self

The disordered seeker is not irreligious. They are misaligned.

Their desires orbit what David Foster Wallace called the “skull-sized kingdoms” of money, beauty, power, and intellect. None of these are evil in themselves. But when finite things are elevated to ultimate status, they deform the soul.

Here, the therapeutic logic is overt.

God is approached as a stabilizer rather than a King. God is invoked to calm anxiety, affirm identity, and preserve control.

God is not rejected. He is reduced.

Scripture gives us a sobering portrait of this posture in the life of King Saul. Saul was chosen, anointed, and empowered by God. But when pressure mounted, he could not wait. So he seized what was never his to take.

Saul’s failure was not moral collapse. It was anxious control. A refusal to trust that God could be God without his intervention.

The disordered seeker prays most when their sense of control is threatened. Their seeking has no end beyond themselves.

The Distracted Seeker

When God Is Used to Regulate the Soul

The distracted seeker is not rebellious. They are overwhelmed.

Their life is not marked by defiance, but by fragmentation. Their calendar is full. Their intentions are sincere. But their attention is fractured.

Scripture names this posture through Martha. She loves Jesus. She serves Him. And yet she is “anxious and troubled about many things.”

For the distracted seeker, God becomes a means of steadying rather than a presence to behold. Prayer calms. Scripture grounds. Worship stabilizes.

This is not manipulation. It is survival.

But silence feels threatening. Stillness feels inefficient. God is sought when stress peaks, not when presence invites.

Busyness is not the enemy of faith. Inattention is.

The distracted seeker seeks God for relief, not relationship.

The Driven Seeker

When God Is Used to Justify the Self

At first glance, the driven seeker appears to be the prototype.

They are disciplined. Consistent. Impressive. Their life is optimized for spiritual effectiveness.

Scripture unmasks this posture through the story of the rich young ruler. He obeyed every commandment. But when Jesus invites him to surrender, he walks away sorrowful.

Not angry. Not defiant. Just unwilling.

Here, obedience becomes currency. Faith becomes a scoreboard. God becomes an evaluator who validates worth through output.

This posture is especially dangerous because it is often rewarded (especially in the church). It looks like maturity. It gains influence. And all the while, the interior life erodes.

The driven seeker feels closest to God when they are doing well.

They are seeking.
But they are exhausted by the God they are trying to impress.

The Devoted Seeker

When God Becomes the End

All human seeking is ordered toward something. The question is where it is meant to end.

The devoted seeker is not more intense than the others. They are more aligned.

They have come to see what the others are still negotiating. God is not a means to an end. God is the end.

• They do not seek God for comfort, though comfort often comes.

• They do not seek God for regulation, though their soul grows steadier.

• They do not seek God for validation, though their identity becomes secure.

They seek God because He is worthy.

Here, healing is received, not engineered. Regulation occurs as a byproduct of presence. Identity stabilizes without performance.

This posture becomes visible in the life of John Hyde, known simply as Praying Hyde. Inefficient by every modern metric. Physically frail. Largely unseen. He withdrew not to optimize impact, but to attend to God.

Hyde once said his greatest fear was not failure or suffering, but living a life that could be fully explained without God.

That sentence names the telos.

The devoted seeker does not live to be impressive.
They live to be surrendered.

The God Who Seeks First

The biblical story does not begin with human longing reaching upward. It begins with divine love moving outward.

Grace is not God’s response to our seeking. Our seeking is a response to grace.

From Eden to the Gospels, God is always the initiator. Jesus names His mission plainly: “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

We seek because we are already being drawn.

Which means the reward Hebrews speaks of is not transactional. It is relational.

God does not reward effort.
He rewards alignment. Attention. Surrender.

The reward of seeking is not something God gives.
It is God Himself.

A Quiet Decision

Formation reveals itself slowly. You usually recognize it in hindsight.

2025 was the most challenging year of my life. A few days ago, I scrolled through the photos on my phone and was caught off guard. I expected to see only loss. Instead, I saw joy. Not the absence of pain, but joy in the presence of it. I saw a man surrounded by friends and family, still celebrating, still showing up.

God did a work in me that I could not have named while it was happening. He carried me.

That is how formation often works. You rarely feel it forming you. You notice it later, in the shape you’ve become.

So imagine yourself a year from now. Not measuring accomplishments. Not tallying progress. Simply noticing the condition of your soul.

What do you notice?

• The disordered seeker keeps grasping and never arrives.

• The distracted seeker stays busy and never rests.

• The driven seeker achieves much and still feels hollow.

But there is another way. Quiet. Hidden. Often unnoticed.

A life no longer organized around control, regulation, or self-justification, but around presence.

Hebrews tells us that God rewards those who truly seek Him. And the reward is not leverage. Not comfort. Not control.

The reward is God Himself.

So this year, do not ask how much more you can do.
Ask where your life is actually aimed.

God is not waiting for your discipline.
He is waiting for your surrender.

Institutional Rot

While reading Amos 7:4–13 last week, I was struck by a drama that feels less like a historical artifact and more like a canonical study in institutional rot.

The narrative unfolds as a progression of escalating judgment.

God reveals a vision of devouring fire, yet relents at the prophet’s intercession. Even then, the reprieve proves temporary.

The Lord eventually introduces the plumb line—a cold, objective standard of measurement—declaring that the “high places” and “sanctuaries” of Israel are no longer structurally sound. They are marked for desolation.

Enter Amaziah, the priest of Bethel.

Amaziah

Amaziah is the quintessential henchman, a man whose spiritual authority has been fully eclipsed by his administrative usefulness. He is the bully executive of the sanctuary, possessing all the polished aggression of a corporate enforcer and none of the moral gravity of a shepherd.

His confrontation with Amos is a study in performative power. Lacking the substance to engage the prophet’s message, he reaches for the only tool available to him: territorial gatekeeping.

Amaziah manages the “brand” of Bethel, ensuring the liturgy functions as a seamless extension of the royal PR department. When the plumb line of truth threatens the institution’s integrity, he does not repent; he issues a trespass notice.

He is the company man in priestly robes, treating the Word of God like a regional franchise. His bark is not born of conviction but of a desperate, pedestrian need to protect proximity to power. To Amaziah, a prophet is merely an unvetted contractor causing a scene in the lobby. The response is predictable: protect the asset, silence the dissent, remind the intruder whose name is on the deed.

We all know Amaziah.

His reaction is the standard reflex of the institutional gatekeeper confronted by inconvenient truth. He does not dispute the prophecy’s substance; he simply pulls rank. His dismissal of Amos is blunt in its arrogance: “Get out of here… don’t preach at Bethel—it is the king’s sanctuary and the national shrine.”

The subtext is unmistakably proprietary. Amaziah has confused stewardship with ownership. He treats the divine as a domestic asset, reframing the temple not as a house of God but as a royal annex, a national shrine designed to serve the king’s image rather than the truth. Because the king funds the altar, Amaziah assumes the king owns the Word.

Amaziah’s proprietary instinct was not the root of his failure, but a downstream symptom of a priesthood no longer anchored in covenant loyalty to YHWH.

King Jeroboam II

If Amaziah is the bully executive, King Jeroboam II is the insulated CEO, a man so cocooned by success that he has outsourced his conscience to subordinates.

Jeroboam is the absentee autocrat, the leader who has ascended to history’s keynote stage and now believes his own press releases.

Where is Jeroboam?

While Amos dismantles the scaffolding of the kingdom, Jeroboam remains conspicuously absent. He avoids engagement because he has employed men like Amaziah to ensure the truth never reaches the executive suite.

Jeroboam’s silence is his defining trait. It is the silence of presumed invincibility. Under his reign, Israel enjoyed economic expansion and territorial security; the brand was winning.

Prosperity, in the mind of the successful egoist, is often mistaken for divine endorsement.

Why listen to a shepherd from Tekoa when the GDP is rising?

Scripture reveals Jeroboam’s true innovation: the commodification of the sacred. He inherited a system designed to prevent pilgrimage to Jerusalem and perfected it. Theology was incidental; utility was everything. Bethel mattered not for what it proclaimed, but for what it stabilized.

Religion became a tool of domestic management, a spiritual perk for the populace.

When conflict emerged, Jeroboam did not respond; he delegated. Amaziah handled the PR problem. Though Jeroboam trafficked in the language of the kingdom of God, he treated the actual word of God as a middle-management issue. This is the arrogance of the elite: the assumption that even divine judgment can be routed through HR.

Jeroboam believed the institution existed to preserve his legacy. He felt no urgency before the plumb line because he assumed the building belonged to him. He forgot he was a tenant-farmer in God’s vineyard, mistaking longevity for permanence.

The Pattern

Jeroboam II and Amaziah are not anomalies. They are prototypes, patient zero in a leadership pathology that has metastasized across centuries and cultures.

This is the canonical pattern of institutional rot, a cycle so consistent it operates with the predictability of a physical law.

The descent follows five inevitable movements:

Phase 1: Authority as Possession.
Leadership shifts from stewardship to entitlement. An office becomes a throne; mission gives way to monument.

Phase 2: Stewardship as Entitlement.
What was entrusted becomes assumed. The sanctuary is recast as a private subsidiary.

Phase 3: The Criminalization of Truth.
Once identity fuses with institution, the prophet becomes a saboteur. Critique is reclassified as treason.

Phase 4: Hubristic Overreach.
Unchecked by dissent, the leader ignores the plumb line and extends beyond the limits of character.

Phase 5: Axiomatic Collapse.
Downfall becomes inevitable. A foundation that cannot support its own vanity eventually gives way.

Names change. Settings evolve. The script does not.

The Historical Precedent

History is a relentless ledger of those who believed themselves exempt.

Louis XVI mistook the pageantry of Versailles for stability and is remembered not as an owner but as a failed custodian.

Charles I collapsed the distinction between stewardship and divinity and was publicly judged by his people, establishing an enduring truth: nations are not possessions.

Qin Shi Huang pursued immortality through absolute control, only to discover that the Mandate of Heaven is stewardship, not title deed.

Leopold II treated a people and a land as a private holding. His ownership was revoked by history itself.

The Roman Emperors transformed empire into personality cult and were crushed by its weight.

Tsar Nicholas II lost his throne not through weakness but through the erosion of stewardship, clinging to a chair in a room that no longer belonged to him.

The modern versions are familiar: CEOs, presidents, pastors whose vocabulary betrays possession—“my” ministry, “my” people, “my” platform. The possessive is always the warning sign.

The Plumb Line

The first structural failure is linguistic.

I know this because I have heard the possessive slip into my own vocabulary long before it showed up in my behavior.

When leaders govern primarily through the first-person possessive, they are no longer measuring themselves against the mission; they are measuring the mission against themselves.

The plumb line is indifferent. It does not care about stock options, endowments, or legacies. It measures alignment. A wall that leans—no matter how celebrated—is already losing its argument with gravity.

The Litmus Test for Stewardship

Ask three questions:

1. The Origin of Success: Is success described as collective fruit or personal genius

2. The Reception of Dissent: Is critique treated as warning or trespass?

3. The Nature of the Exit: Is the institution built to outlive the leader, or to depend on them?

The lesson from Amos, Amaziah, and history’s ghosts is simple: you cannot own what you are only meant to tend. When leaders forget they are tenants, they become obstacles. The ground eventually reclaims what was never theirs.

Surrendering Ownership

Ownership is the most misunderstood sphere of surrender. We celebrate it as virtue—“take ownership,” “own the outcome.” But in the egoist, accountability mutates into possession.

Alignment begins not with strategy but with confrontation.

I discovered how deeply ownership had taken root when obedience required me to step back without being vindicated.

True stewardship submits to a standard it does not control. When leadership becomes a shrine to image, the remedy is rarely introspection alone. It requires external reality.

Anonymous feedback. Independent audits. Voices that cannot be silenced.

Deep down, the Sun King usually knows. You know when “my” and “mine” have colonized your imagination. You know when people become assets and institutions become stages.

The harsh truth of leadership is this: the problem is rarely the landscape. It is the architect.

To surrender ownership is to remember you are a guest, not a proprietor. The vineyard does not belong to you. The people are not yours to command. They are a trust.

Surrender hands the deed back to the true Owner. It costs the throne, but it saves the house.

History is finished with those who believed they owned the world (at least, I hope it is). The question is whether you will join them—or lay down the title deed before the plumb line does it for you.

When leaders relinquish ownership, they gain stewardship. The work becomes lighter, freer, and—paradoxically—enduring.

The clock is ticking for those who say, “This is mine.”
But for the one who says, “I am Yours,” the work outlives them.

I’ve been working on the final sphere in my 8 Spheres of Surrender project, and it will go live Monday morning at 8 a.m.

This one took longer than the others. I had to sit with it. I had to listen. A few trusted friends read early drafts and pushed me where it mattered.

Here’s a brief preview.

The harsh truth of leadership is this:

The problem is rarely the landscape.
It is the architect.

To surrender ownership is to remember you are a guest, not a proprietor.

The vineyard does not belong to you.
The people are not yours to command.
They are a trust.

More on Monday morning.

Most of us don’t need better prayers.
We need a rhythm.

Something simple enough to return to when words run out.
Something faithful enough to carry us when motivation disappears.

I’ve noticed this in my own life: when prayer becomes another thing to optimize, it slowly ceases to be prayer at all. It turns into performance, pressure, or avoidance. And eventually, silence.

So I made a one-page prayer rhythm. Not a productivity system. Not a spiritual flex. Just a gentle, repeatable structure that helps me pray for what matters most, without needing to feel inspired first.

It’s built around the days of the week:

• Daily anchors like family, gratitude, and freedom

• A simple focus for each day (missionaries, teachers, workers, those who suffer, and more)

• Short prayer phrases you can use as prompts when you don’t know what to say

This is not about praying more.
It’s about praying faithfully.

If you’re tired, distracted, unsure what to say, or just longing for something steady, this might help.

It’s sent automatically when you subscribe.

Subscribe now

If you’re already subscribed, it’s coming your way by email.

Earlier this week, I wrote The Tyranny of Originality, a piece about how the pressure to stand out is quietly making us all the same. What I didn’t say is how often I fail to practice what I just preached. Especially when I said:

Originality doesn’t flow from self expression but from self surrender.

I believed that line when I wrote it, but I didn’t realize how much it would turn back on me.

That sentence exposed more than I expected.

I didn’t see it coming.

It is easy to write about surrender. It’s harder to talk about how I blow it.

So, today I want to tell the truth behind that line. And the truth is simple.

I have spent much of my life trying very hard to be original.

Read more

It’s Wednesday, friends. Here’s a little boost for the middle of your week, a few things that have been shaping my imagination and steadying my soul.

Quotes I’m Reviewing

Moses doesn’t gather the tribal leaders for a brainstorming session so they can come up with a vision and mission statement or a five-year plan. The gathered community depends entirely on Yahweh’s leadership. They await his presence and seek to remain faithful to his commands and follow his instructions. What if our churches today looked more like this instead of following the latest church growth plan (which are modeled after corporate business strategies)? What if we were marked by the joy of feasting together in God’s presence instead of the quest to increase “giving units” or online followers? - Carmen Joy Imes

“If you can’t explain a decision to your team, you probably shouldn’t make it.” - Ben Horowitz

The happiest people in the world are not those who don’t have problems - they are those who are not afraid of problems. - Ajith Fernando

Books I’m Reading

Becoming God’s Family by

I’m late to the party, but I’m so glad I found her. This book is part 3 of a series I’m reading in reverse, and I’m devouring it. Our professor at Western Seminary, Gerry Breshears, told Ashley and me about her a couple of years ago, and my only regret is not reading her sooner.

When God Doesn’t Answer Your Prayer by Jerry Sittser

This is the go-to book on how to keep praying when it doesn’t seem to be working. Praying through disappointment and disillusionment. Another rec from Gerry. (I love you, Gerry!)

Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway

Slowly working my way through this one. After I saw a clip from Scott’s interview on The Today Show (you can watch it here), I instantly purchased the book. Galloway names something nobody is talking about, and it’s the correction, the move to the center, our culture needs in this discussion (especially in the church).

Music Recs

Here’s what I’ve been listening to this week.

lichen // fragmented - Single - Peter Bark

Study, reading, writing soundtrack.

All I Can Think About is You - Coldplay

I live for that instrumental bridge that starts at 02:38… never gets old. I literally listen to this song on repeat for 30 minutes at a time every few days.

weren’t for the wind - Ella Langley

I know. I know. For those of you who know me, you know that I hate country music. What is happening? I have no idea. I blame living in a town with a population of 1,585 people. I even bought Tecovas last week. I returned them. But I bought them. Tried them on and everything. I’m going to stick with my Blundies for now.

📬 Tomorrow for Paid Subscribers

Tomorrow I’ll unpack some more vulnerable thoughts on yesterday’s post, The Tyranny of Originality: Why the Need to Stand Out Is Making Us the Same. I’ll share some personal stories of how I’ve been and remain guilty of trying to be unique.

Until then, may your Wednesday be filled with wonder.

Thanks so much for reading, sharing, and subscribing. It’s truly a joy to walk with you. - Ben

I love binging good TV.

But back when I watched Seinfeld, Friends, Lost, Alias, 24, and The Office, you had to wait 7 days for the next episode. And when the day finally came, you only got 22–23 minutes of actual content, interrupted by 7–8 minutes of commercials you couldn’t skip.

Thankfully, this primitive content consumption evolved into renting whole series DVD sets at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video.

But true “binging” didn’t begin for me until Breaking Bad. Then The Walking Dead (until season 7… RIP Glenn). After that, there have been so many shows I can’t keep track: Sherlock, The Crown, Ted Lasso, Tiger King (why???), Peaky Blinders, The Bear, Severance, and dozens more.

This shift wasn’t just about watching more TV; it revealed something about our cultural moment:

We now consume stories the same way we consume identity: quickly, constantly, and always searching for the next thing to keep us from feeling ordinary.

We’re drawn to shows with unique storytelling, acting, cinematography, and scoring because they help us feel something real again; they give language to the dissonance in our own disjointed experience.

”Hot Take” Addiction

We worship the next big thing. I’m desperate to find the next show that scratches the itch. And it’s not just shows, it’s books, talks, podcasts, and posts on Substack. Always searching for:

• Fresh insight.

• Nuanced analysis.

• Simplified narrative.

• A voice that “cuts through the noise.”

But beneath all of that is a quieter ache:

The fear of being ordinary.

Most of what we call “originality” is just a recycled widget with better packaging. We’re not trying to reveal ourselves, we’re desperate to be accepted.

And nothing destroys the soul more quickly.

When the pressure to be special becomes your plumbline, you don’t become original. You become a prisoner.

Jesus & Originality

Jesus is utterly unique. He lived, taught, and healed in ways no one had ever seen. His originality wasn’t crafted, it was intrinsic to who He is as the Son.

Yet even Jesus said, “I do nothing on my own” and “I speak only what the Father gives me.” When someone called Him “good,” He redirected them: “Only the Father is good.”

Jesus is one with the Father and the Spirit, yet in every moment of His earthly life, He lived in complete surrender to the Father.

Jesus, the man, was a rabbi, and He had mathētai (disciples) whose goal was to become like Him in every way.

Peter, James, and John weren’t trying to be original (not ultimately at least). They were trying to be formed.

They desired to bear the χαρακτήρ (charaktēr) imprint of Jesus. His way. His character. His image. His essence. His aroma.

He said, “Follow me.”

Not, “Go build a brand called you.” Not, “Curate a unique identity.”

But: “Abandon project-self. Surrender the person you’re trying to construct, and receive the self only I can form.”

Jesus never tells people to express their uniqueness. Even later in the New Testament, Paul tells his disciples to imitate him, as he imitated Christ.

Jesus calls us into apprenticeship, a way of life that requires surrendering:

• Self-invention

• Self-protection

• Self-promotion

• Self-curation

Why is that?

Because the only way a person becomes their true self is through finding their identity in Him.

As Thomas Merton summarized: “There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God.”

Originality doesn’t flow from self-expression.
It flows from self-surrender.

The shift here is to relinquish the exhausting choreography meant to impress invisible crowds to letting the Spirit form you into who God created you to be.

As Augustine and Luther describe it, sin is the self turned inward — incurvatus in se.

When the soul collapses inward, it cannot breathe.

The only way to be free, then, is to turn outward and upward toward the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Enemy of Originality Is Not Plagiarism, It’s Self-Consciousness

David Foster Wallace diagnosed our age with ruthless insight: We’re imprisoned by irony — terrified of sincerity, allergic to earnestness, addicted to detachment.

But the kingdom of God is built on a vulnerability that refuses to hide.

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the pure in heart.

There is nothing ironic about the Beatitudes. They bless what the world dismisses. And there is nothing desirable about execution on a cross

So, if you care more about being impressive than being formed, you will never produce anything spiritually substantial.

Irony may get applause, but vulnerability is what still speaks when the room grows quiet.

Sub-Creators Standing in the Light

Tolkien and Lewis offer a rebuke we need: We are not creators, we are sub-creators. We shape and reveal; we do not originate from nothing.

Meaning:

Your originality isn’t what you invent. Your originality is what God releases through your surrendered life.

Rick Rubin calls it “the signal passing through the filter of your soul.”

In Rubin’s framework, the task is not to produce brilliance, but to remove interference.

We have to get out of our own way if we ever hope to let the Holy Spirit clarify what’s coming through our lives.

No one else has your filter. No one else carries your scars, your joys, your losses, or your wiring.

No one else can sound like you if you stop trying to sound like someone else.

Summary Matrix: The Definitions of Originality

Practices for an Unforced Voice

1. Tell the truth — even when it’s boring.

2. Take action before it’s polished.

3. Ask those closest to you: “Where am I performing?”

4. Pay attention to what moves you spiritually.

5. Tell the fear of being unoriginal to shut up.

A Benediction of Surrendering Originality

Originality is not something you win. It’s something you receive.

You receive it the moment you surrender the exhausting pressure to be impressive.

The moment you choose honesty over novelty. Confession over curation. Formation over performance. Presence over applause.

Beneath the striving, beneath the fear, beneath the editing.

Originality is your life with God, hidden with him.

And the only way that hidden life becomes visible is through surrender.

Jesus isn’t asking you to be original. He’s asking you to follow Him.

And when you stop trying to stand out, you’ll find the hidden gift of contentment, a steady joy and quiet peace no amount of striving can manufacture.

Because in the kingdom of God, the most authentic life is always the surrendered one.

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Good morning, friends.

Yesterday I shared the Thursday essay for paid subscribers. Several of you reached out asking about the practice PDF I mentioned, so I wanted to make it available to everyone today.

This is a simple guided practice meant to help you quiet your inner life and become a little more attentive to God. It fits naturally into this season, when most of us feel stretched and pulled in different directions. Simply put, it’s a tool to help you slow down and pay attention.

Download the PDF: How to Quiet a Scattered Soul
Free for everyone this weekend

Take your time with it. Move slowly. Let it meet you where you actually are. And if it gives you rest or clarity, feel free to pass it along to someone who could use the same.

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If this kind of work serves you and you want to help me create more resources like it, you can become a paid subscriber below. Your support means more than you know.

Thanks for being here. I hope the practice is helpful as you step into the weekend.

-Ben

Most people read this as a comfort. But if you sit with it long enough, you realize Willard is naming a kind of spiritual defiance. A holy resilience. A refusal to believe that God is absent simply because life feels frozen. He is saying that even the season you would never choose is the place where heaven intends to form you. This is not resignation. It is warfare. The quiet kind.

Winter in the Soul

There are seasons in life that feel like winter in the soul.
The kind of winter you do not choose, but the kind that chooses you.

Everything familiar goes quiet.
The ground freezes.
Nothing moves.

You pray, but the heavens sound muffled.
You wait, but the waiting feels hollow.
You wonder if God has stepped away for a moment longer than you can bear.

And then one day, without warning, the life you built begins to come apart.

One morning, my life looked one way.
By nightfall, I was standing in the ruins of a story I could no longer name.

A future I believed God was shaping for me dissolved in real time.
Conversations once full of possibility collapsed into confusion.
Paths that felt ordained were quietly rerouted.

And as the dust settled, something painful became clear: There would be a story the other side would tell, and there was a story I carried in my own heart.

Only one of those stories is allowed to be spoken.

This was the beginning of my winter.
Not a season of weather, but a season of the soul.

The Stillness That Does Not Lift

I tried to stay humble.
I tried to learn what I could.
But nothing about the experience offered an easy lesson.

It felt as if life itself had gone dormant.
And then the ground shifted again.

Read more

Happy Wednesday, friends. Here’s a little spark for the middle of your week, a few things that have been shaping my imagination and steadying my soul.

Quotes I’m Reviewing

Feeling stupid is no fun. But being willing to be stupid—in other words, being willing to risk the emotional pain of making mistakes—is absolutely essential, because reaching, failing, and reaching again is the way your brain grows and forms new connections. When it comes to developing talent, remember, mistakes are not really mistakes—they are the guideposts you use to get better. - Daniel Coyle

Early in my career as an engineer, I’d learned that all decisions were objective until the first line of code was written. After that, all decisions were emotional. - Ben Horowitz

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being has roots by virtue of his real, active and natural participation in the life of a community which preserves in living shape certain particular treasures of the past and certain particular expectations of the future…Every human being needs to have multiple roots. It is necessary for him to draw wellnigh the whole of his moral, intellectual and spiritual life by way of the environment of which he forms a natural part. - Simone Weil

Books I’m Reading

Opening to God by David Benner

Opening to God sneaks up on you. Benner doesn’t try to impress with complicated ideas; he invites you to see prayer as an honest relationship, the slow opening of the heart to a God who already loves you. As I read, I kept recognizing how much of my own prayer life has been shaped by effort rather than by trust. His writing has a quiet way of loosening the grip of performance and making space for a more relaxed, attentive way of being with God. It lingers with you long after the last page.

Theology in the Context of World Christianity: How the Global Church Is Influencing the Way We Think about and Discuss Theology by Timothy C. Tennent

Theology in the Context of World Christianity is a jolt to the narrow theological imagination many of us were handed without question. Tennent writes with the urgency of someone who has seen the global church up close and knows its witness carries a fire the Western world desperately needs. Page by page, he dismantles the quiet assumption that our way of seeing God is the center of the story, inviting us instead into a worldwide communion that prays, sings, suffers, and hopes with a depth that humbles the soul. What emerges is not a critique but a call to let the Spirit stretch our theology until it can hold the weight of a kingdom that spans every tribe and tongue. This book will not leave you where it found you; it expands the borders of your faith.

Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth by Bryan Burrough

Forget the Alamo is one of those history books that unsettles you in the best possible way. The authors write with a steady, unforced honesty, peeling back layers of myth most of us accepted without question. What surprised me most was how their clarity doesn’t lead to cynicism but to a kind of relief, as if telling the truth about the past might actually help us belong to it more fully. The book shows a Texas shaped by real people with real flaws, not the heroic legends we grew up with, and somehow that makes the story feel more trustworthy.

Music Recs

Here’s what I’ve been listening to this week.

Death (Is Not The End) by Sam McCabe

Sandlóa by Snorri Hallgrímsson

Brooke Fraser - Albertine (feat. Auckland Philharmonia) [Live]

📬 Tomorrow for Paid Subscribers

Tomorrow I’m releasing a practical guide for cultivating interior stillness in a world that wants to keep you distracted. It offers a framework for discerning the quiet movements of God beneath the noise of your daily life. I hope that it sharpens your focus, strengthens your spirit, and helps you recognize the voice of God when everything else competes for your devotion.

May your Wednesday be filled with wonder.

My great-grandfather once told me something I think about often:

Opportunities are like streetcars. If you wait on the corner long enough, another one will come along.

He spent his days repairing streetcars for the Dallas Railway and Terminal Co. back when downtown Dallas pulsed with neon. He understood something most of us never learn:

Very few people know how to wait. Instead, we shove our way toward the next open door, terrified we might miss the moment that changes everything.

Waiting is rare because waiting feels like losing control. We fear that if we let an opportunity slip away, nothing else will come.

But our deepest anguish rarely comes from what happens. It comes from when it happens.

• When will my next season begin?

• If I say no, will I stay stuck?

• Shouldn’t I strike while the iron is hot?

I have lived through a lifetime of proverbial streetcars. Some I chased. Some slipped by. Others I had to release because they were never mine to claim.

The ones I chased and missed linger in my mind. Not because I failed, but because in the pursuit, I traded something essential. I exchanged doing for becoming.

And this is where my grandfather’s wisdom meets the voice of another sage.

Legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said something that arrests the soul:

When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.

There is truth here. Preparation matters. Discipline matters. Formation matters. But waiting matters too.

It may be too late to prepare, but it is never too late to wait.

In the practice of waiting, God moves in the quiet places we rush past. He shapes a humility the world cannot imitate. He forms patience until we become immovable, secure in the unknown.

When I take an honest inventory of my life, I see the tension repeating over and over. I am well acquainted with the sprint toward the streetcar that just passed (after all, my last name is Rush). I know all about FOMO. But I am learning the deeper work of standing at the corner, surrendered and secure, waiting for what actually belongs to my story.

Waiting is not passive. It is not resignation. It is the rooted strength of Psalm 1, hearing the Father whisper, “Do not grab the first fruit you see.” Waiting knows that not every fruit leads to life.

Some fruit needs to be avoided. And this requires a specific kind of skill:

The Art of the Holy No

David Brooks captures this idea with uncomfortable precision:

If you aren’t saying a permanent no to anything, you probably aren’t diving into anything fully.

Refusal is not rejection. It is devotion.

Every no strengthens the foundation of your deepest yes.

Warren Buffett doubles down:

Really successful people say no to almost everything.

We live in a culture that worships the one who acts, not the one who waits. It doesn’t matter what you are saying yes to as long as you are saying YES. The problem is, there are many kinds of yeses.

• There is the impulsive yes - acting before wisdom speaks.

  • The shadow side here is reactivity.

• The flexible yes - shifting quickly to please others.

  • The shadow side here is fusion.

• The anxious yes - bowing to pressure and naming it “opportunity”.

  • The shadow side here is fear.

• The ambivalent yes - half-hearted agreement without inner alignment.

  • The shadow side here is low differentiation.

• The compliant yes - surrendering agency to avoid conflict.

  • The shadow side here is appeasement.

• And the avoidant yes - avoiding discomfort by agreeing quickly.

  • The shadow side here is emotional cutoff.

• Saying no to leaders who choose comfort over courage.

• Saying no to organizations that steal biblical language to justify unbiblical behavior.

• Saying no to the silencing of women.

• Saying no to the elevation of power over purity.

• Saying no to whatever corrodes the soul or trades integrity for applause.

Listen beneath the noise.

Where is God inviting you to say no, not in fear, but in defiant faith?

Every surrender creates space. Space for calling. Space for clarity. Space for the life that is actually yours.

Building Your Sacred Universe

Derek Sivers writes in Anything You Want:

When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you control all the laws.

Sivers is naming a truth we often ignore: your life will become the world you build. Every no becomes a boundary line. Every yes becomes a brick.

He is not talking about domination. He is naming the truth that each of us carries something sacred. A calling. A contribution. Not crafted from the scraps of other people’s approval, but breathed into being by conviction.

You do not need a blueprint.

You need courage.

So what are you building while lesser opportunities roar by in a false sense of urgency? What are you gripping with fearful intensity when God invites your surrender?

Here is where the inner universe begins to take shape. Because once you dare to build something true, you realize the real battle is not out there. It is in here. In the quiet space where no one applauds. In the discipline of watching without rushing.

The Work Behind the Window

Peter Drucker says opportunity belongs to those who search for it. But searching is not always a pursuit. Sometimes it is the fierce discipline of waiting. Watching the door. Unhurried. Steady. Ready.

C. S. Lewis whispers the reminder we forget:

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

But the deeper strength is in restraint. In waiting for the door carved for your hand alone.

Waiting is not wasting. In the silence, invisible work is happening. Roots go down so that when your moment comes, you stand in it with holy steadiness.

If you are waiting, you are not idle. You are faithful.

Waiting shapes the soul for the decisions that matter most.

The Heavy Grace of Saying No

As I review my life, I do not lament the refusals born of conviction. I lament the yeses that compromised my calling and scattered my strength.

I have poured out too many yeses shaped by malformed discipleship: impulsive yeses, flexible yeses, anxious yeses, ambivalent yeses, compliant yeses, avoidant yeses, all while forgetting how often Jesus said no. And he said no with astonishing clarity.

Jesus said no to:

• Pressure — John 2:3–4; Matthew 12:38–39

• Manipulation — Luke 12:13–14; Luke 4:23–30

• Premature timing — John 7:1–8; John 2:3–4

• False expectations — Mark 3:31–35; Matthew 8:21–22

• Political power — John 6:14–15; John 18:36

• Family demands — Mark 3:31–35; Matthew 8:21–22

• Spiritual entertainment — Luke 4:23–30

• Conflict avoidance — Luke 9:51–56

• Distraction — Mark 1:35–38

• Shortcuts — Matthew 4:1–11

• Misaligned opportunities — Matthew 16:21–23; John 6:14–15

If we want to become like Jesus, we must reclaim the art of the ‘holy no’. Saying no is the sacred work of trusting that every closed door is an invitation into deeper clarity and unity with Christ.

Have you ever shut a door with trembling hands? What did God reveal in the silence that followed?

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A Framework for Holy Discernment

If you are wrestling between your yes and your no, sit with these questions:

• Does this align with the way of Jesus?

• Does this opportunity stretch me or scatter me?

• Is my response rooted in faith or fear?

• After I have made my decision, does peace settle in, or does unrest linger?

• Will my yes bring flourishing to the people I am called to love?

What are other ways you have surrendered opportunities to God?

Protect the assignment God has placed on your soul. Good things can distract you from your God-appointed assignment. Where is this happening in your life?

Waiting on the Corner

Maybe this is what Papaw Rose understood all along. You cannot choreograph which streetcar appears next.

You can only prepare.

Stand.

Watch.

Wait.

And when the timing of God meets the readiness of your soul, step aboard.

It is not luck.

It is a holy alignment.

If something here stirred you, subscribe and step deeper into the rhythm of surrender. Share this with someone standing on their own corner, afraid they will miss what is meant for them.

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What’s Your Holy No

Tell your story.

Your voice may be the invitation someone else desperately needs.

Ready to walk this road together? Subscribe. Hit reply. Share.

Your moment is coming.

Wait for it.

Prepare for it.

And when it arrives, step in with holy courage.

This week, I am asking what it means to surrender opportunities to God, the art of the holy no, and waiting as a quiet form of resistance.

Tomorrow (Tuesday): Waiting on the Corner: A reflection on surrender, releasing the illusion of control, and learning to discern God’s invitations rather than chasing every open door.

Wednesday: A midweek word for the restless, the ones trying to reconcile momentum and peace. This is my weekly dose of quotes, books, and music to inspire you.

Thursday (Paid Subscribers): A practical guide for cultivating interior stillness and discerning the subtle movements of God in your daily life.

This week’s writings are meant to steady you, not overwhelm you.
I pray they create space for clarity, courage, and unhurried obedience.
Grateful to walk with you as we learn to trust the slow work of God together.

Cyber Monday Offer

If these writings have spoken to you, steadied you, or helped you walk more attentively with God, I would love to welcome you as a paid subscriber. Your support allows me to keep creating work that nourishes the inner life and serves the deeper callings of the soul.

For Cyber Monday, I am offering 30 percent off your first year for anyone who wants to join us in a more intentional way. 👉🏼Access the offer here:

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God My Father, YHWH,

Thank you for calling me your own.

Thank you for the love you give without condition or explanation.

I cannot earn it. I cannot justify it.

You love me because you love me, and every gift in my life flows from that river.

Jesus, Messiah, Son of God,

Thank you for laying down your life so I could find mine.

I was blind, and now I see.

Not because I discovered the way, but because you opened my eyes.

Through your life, death, resurrection, ascension, and coming return, you promise the undoing of all that breaks us.

Sickness. Shame. Death. Fear. Loss. Betrayal.

All of it will bow to your Name.

Holy Spirit,

Thank you for whispering who I am and who God is when I forget.

Thank you for teaching me what Jesus taught:

to love God with my whole being

and to love others as I love myself.

Thank you for dwelling within me,

giving wisdom when I am confused,

power when I am weak,

and the desire to walk in faithfulness to your Name.

Make my life a constant act of gratitude.

Make every breath thanksgiving.

Make my heart a home for your presence

Happy Wednesday afternoon, friends.

Here is your Midweek Spark, a list of what I’m reading and listening to.

Quotes I’m Reviewing

Whatever the ultimate explanation of it, the most telling thing about the contemporary Christian is that he or she simply has no compelling sense that understanding of and conformity with the clear teachings of Christ is of any vital importance to his or her life, and certainly not that it is in any way essential. - Dallas Willard

The thing that keeps God out of our lives is not our sin. It is our compulsion to pretend, to cover up our nakedness with fig leaves, to climb sycamore trees in order to see without being seen. And when we do, He will sometimes look up laughing and invite Himself to tea. - Pete Greig

But the modern church’s best-kept secret is this: we believe in productivity, not prayer. We believe in solid programs, above-average teaching, and yet another worship album release. That’s success right? The church’s underground atheism in our time is that we will busy ourselves with almost anything except prayer. - Tyler Staton

Books I’m Reading

John Ortberg’s Steps is a deeply practical guide to transformation, showing how real change begins when we stop trying to fix ourselves and let God do what we can’t. It’s grounded, clear, and quietly powerful; a roadmap for anyone ready to trade control for freedom.

How Big Things Get Done hit me like a reality check for ambition. It’s a masterclass in patience and precision in a world hooked on moving fast. It reminded me that big goals don’t fail because they’re impossible; they fail because we rush what deserves time to be built right.

Tell Her Story is a prophetic wake-up call to a church that’s grown too comfortable ignoring half the population. Nijay Gupta doesn’t write with outrage; he writes with evidence, clarity, and a kind of holy impatience, pulling the women of Scripture out of the margins where modern Western theology has carelessly left them.

Music Rec

Andrew Peterson’s A Liturgy, A Legacy & The Songs of Rich Mullins is the kind of homage that makes you want to worship, smash your phone, and write a Psalm in the woods. I have no idea why some people think re-recording Rich Mullins' songs is a good idea, especially when they make them worse. This is not that.

📬 Tomorrow for Paid Subscribers

More thoughts on orientation, disorientation, and reorientation - and all that I’m learning in the middle space of disruption and waiting.

When Phones Were Made for Talking

One early summer morning in 1997, my friend Kevin Henderson and I drove to pick up our friend Josh Allard at Houston Intercontinental Airport.

Back in the late 1990s (the era of dial-up, frosted tips, and phones that were only used for voice calls), there was no such thing as Apple Maps or GPS. I did have a physical map in my car, and I could have printed directions from MapQuest, but I was running low on my 100 free hours of AOL on a 28.8 kbps connection.

So I was driving without a map.

Kevin rode shotgun. We had the windows down, music up, and absolutely no plan beyond “head toward the airport and figure it out.” What we lacked in navigation, we made up for in teenage confidence, the kind that assumes everything will work out because, well, it just does.

Even though the 30-minute trip took two hours because I turned west on Beltway 8 instead of east, somehow we made it. We found Josh. We got home.

Looking back, I realize that trip wasn’t just about picking up a friend. It was about learning to move forward when you can’t see the whole route, when the next turn isn’t programmed into a screen, when all you have is faith that you’ll figure it out.

“We don’t have a map, but we have a guide.” - Pete Hughes

Orientation isn’t about having all the answers mapped out. It’s about surrendering your chosen direction and trusting that God will lead you step by step.

The Hardest Sphere to Surrender

I have OCD.

My mind doesn’t just crave order, it manufactures obsession. Silent mental loops, compulsive rituals, the relentless drive to make meaning out of every single detail.

I’ve spent years believing that with more discipline, greater productivity, and a better strategy, things would finally fall into place.

Maybe you know that game too: exhausted by control, haunted by the illusion that a perfect life is possible.

But here’s the truth: an obsession with order is an idol as seductive as any vice.

The world promises control. Jesus invites surrender, not as defeat, but as a pathway to peace.

Of all the spheres of surrender - outcomes, opinions, optics, objects, opportunities, originality, and ownership - orientation is the hardest for me. It’s not about giving up what I have; it’s about releasing how I move through the world.

Head Down or Head Up?

Everything in this section I learned from a talk by Pete Hughes.

When God led the Israelites out of Egypt, He didn’t give them a map; He gave them a cloud by day and a fire by night - manifestations of His presence. Their singular task was to remain close to God's presence and follow His lead.

If you have a map, your task is head down, execute the plan, follow the map. But if you have a head up spirituality, then your job is to follow God’s presence. - Pete Hughes

Pete reminds us:

• This is why Jesus said, “I only do what I see my Father doing”. Not “I have to execute the five-year plan.” But “I watch where my Father is moving, and I follow.”

• Paul calls it “keeping in step with the Spirit”. Not marching according to a predetermined route, but staying in rhythm with the One who leads.

This doesn’t mean we don’t make plans. It just means we hold those plans lightly. And when God speaks, we’re willing to rip up our plans and go wherever He calls us to go.

Roots That Hold, Arms That Release

Every day, the view from the windows of the tree farm where we temporarily live teaches me about surrender.

In the earth beneath the trees, tangled roots form a “wood wide web.” There, each tree supports the next. Survival depends on letting go, bending with the wind, and trusting unseen networks for nourishment. (Learn More in The Hidden Life of Trees)

Weakness isn’t failure, it’s an opportunity for connection. Surrender isn’t defeat; it’s our response to God’s invitation to be held in ways no human system can provide.

The Trapeze and the Art of Letting Go

Henri Nouwen, the renowned spiritual writer, became fascinated with a group of trapeze artists called the Flying Rodleighs late in life. There was something about their courage and complete dependence on one another that inspired him, like a parable for life with God.

In John Ortberg’s book Steps, John recounts a conversation that Nouwen had with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe:

“The secret is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar.”

“You do nothing?” Nouwen said, surprised.

“Nothing,” Rodleigh repeated. “The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I am not supposed to catch Joe. It’s Joe’s task to catch me. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him.”

The flyer does nothing. The catcher does everything. And the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there.

That’s orientation. It’s the moment mid-swing when you realize your map doesn’t work anymore, your grip is failing, and all you can do is trust the One who sees everything.

Should You Stay or Should You Go?

This brings us to the most important questions:

• Are you trying to stay when God is asking you to go?

• Are you trying to go when God is asking you to stay?

The Israelites didn’t set out when they got bored or when life got hard. They stayed until the presence moved.

Sometimes days. Sometimes years. Always led by His presence.

God will not guide us if we are not giving our attention to God.

Here are a couple more questions to consider:

• Do you want God to guide you into the future, or would you prefer to guide God into the future?

• Do you want the presence of God, or just the plan of God?

An Invitation to Let Go

Take a minute to reflect.

• What are you trying to bring order to?

• What’s beneath the desire to control things?

• What’s the story you tell yourself about what happens if you release control, even for a day?

Control is exhausting. Surrender unlocks possibility.

Perfection isolates. Vulnerability multiplies support.

Order gives the illusion of peace. Surrender delivers the real thing.

You don’t have to bring order to disorder. You’re invited to walk through it. Perhaps today, your next brave step isn’t doubling down; it’s loosening your grip and looking up to see where God’s presence is leading.

What Happens Next?

If this message finds you in the struggle, don’t let it stop here:

📧 Forward this post to a friend who’s trying to navigate without a map.

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💬 Drop a comment: What’s the single grip you want to release?

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📊 Quick poll: What’s hardest for you to surrender: control, approval, comfort, or the future? Reply below.

🔔 Hit subscribe: Join a community learning to keep their heads up and follow God’s presence.

P.S. We don’t have a map—but we have a Guide. And He’s moving. Are you watching?

It’s easy to lose your bearings. The world pulls at your attention, fills your schedule, and before long, you realize you’ve been running on instinct, not intimacy.

This week, I’m asking what it means to walk with God without needing to see the map. To trust that every twist, delay, and turn is forming something sacred within us.

Tomorrow (Tuesday): Orientation: Driving Without a Map
A reflection on surrender; letting go of control, learning to see life through God’s perspective, not your own.

Wednesday: A midweek word for the restless, the ones trying to reconcile momentum and peace.

Thursday: For paid subscribers, a deeper dive into the tension between surrender and discipline. How do we yield to God’s lead yet still steward the path He’s given?

We’re not lost. We’re being led. And sometimes the only way to find your way forward is to slow down and listen again for the whisper that called you in the first place.

The Crisis Moment

The church is called to be a breathtaking alternative community, a “colony of heaven,” whose very life together proclaims the kingdom of God. This beautiful calling is precisely why we felt so deeply troubled when Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10th. Ashley and I watched in real-time as some rushed to canonize him as a saint and martyr. We grieved his murder and mourned for his family, and we were confused by the immediate impulse to baptize political violence as a sacred sacrifice.

This pastoral concern, born from deep love for the church, sent us searching for theological language to understand what felt confusing about turning a political commentator’s assassination into Christian hagiography. We found helpful language in Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon’s Resident Aliens - a book that diagnoses exactly why American Christianity keeps confusing Caesar with Christ.

The Constantinian Temptation

Hauerwas and Willimon trace this confusion to what they call “Constantinianism” - the early church’s fusion with secular power under Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. When Christianity became the empire’s official religion, it traded its identity as a countercultural “colony of heaven” for respectability and political influence.

This pattern repeats whenever Christians conflate political loyalty with Biblical faithfulness. The rush to martyrize Kirk wasn’t really about honoring his death - it was about sanctifying our own political commitments by wrapping them in religious language.

The authors argue that both liberal activism and conservative conversionism fall into the same Constantinian trap: “Both assume that the main political significance of the church lies in assisting the secular state in its presumption to make a better world for its citizens”. Whether we’re baptizing progressive social justice or conservative culture war, we’re still making the state our primary vehicle for kingdom work.

Three Ecclesial Options

Drawing on John Howard Yoder’s analysis, the authors identify three ways the church can relate to political power :

• The Activist Church transforms society but ends up as “religiously glorified liberalism.”

• The Conversionist Church saves individuals but collapses into “religiously glorified conservatism.”

• The Confessing Church rejects both extremes and commits to “worship Christ in all things”.

The third option, the Confessing Church, offers the most radical alternative precisely because it refuses to make politics ultimate.

As Hauerwas and Willimon put it: “The reason we Christians must forever be letting go of our Constantinian assertions is that we are forever forgetting how decisive, how eschatological, is the event of Christ”.

The Church as Political Alternative

Here’s where the theological language becomes crucial: Christianity itself constitutes a “politic” - not partisan activity, but the lived order of a people shaped by the gospel of Jesus. The church’s political significance doesn’t come from influencing elections or supporting the right candidates, but from embodying practices of worship, truth-telling, and forgiveness that point beyond Caesar’s kingdom.

Their most provocative claim: “The cross is not a sign of the church’s quiet, suffering submission to the powers-that-be, but rather the church’s revolutionary participation in the victory of Christ over those powers”. The cross stands as God’s eternal ‘no’ to the powers of death, and God’s eternal ‘yes’ to humanity.

This means the church’s primary political task is being “the community of the cross” - a visible alternative polis whose practices embody the story of Jesus. When we rush to canonize political figures, we’re essentially saying Caesar’s story is more compelling than Christ’s.

Why This Matters for Discipleship

The theological stakes couldn’t be higher. As Hauerwas and Willimon argue, Christian ethics cannot survive apart from the Jesus community. The radical countercultural demands of the Sermon on the Mount (enemy love, nonviolent resistance, radical hospitality) only make sense within a community shaped by Eucharist, storytelling, and the imitation of saints.

Conversion is not simply an individual, private moment, but an ongoing process of being formed into Jesus’ alternative family.

When we allow political tribalism to shape our communal life more than gospel practices, we undermine the very formation that makes Christian discipleship possible.

The authors put it bluntly: “We shall have to break our habit of having church in such a way that people are deceived into thinking that they can be Christians and remain strangers”.

The Kirk Crisis as a Diagnostic Tool

Dr. Nijay Gupta’s recent critique of Christian praise for Kirk following his assassination amplifies these theological concerns (his Substack can be found here: ). Gupta points out that uncritical praise for figures whose rhetoric excludes or demeans ethnic minorities “not only sends harmful signals to marginalized Christians but also undercuts the church’s calling to embody the radical hospitality of Jesus”.

This is precisely what Constantinian accommodation produces - a Christianity that baptizes cultural tribalism rather than abolishing it. In Jesus, the church is called to eliminate social barriers, ethnic hostilities, and categories of suspicion that fracture society. When we canonize political figures who embody those divisions, we reveal how thoroughly we’ve confused the gospel with American civil religion.

The Alternative Vision

Resident Aliens calls the church to reclaim its identity as a visible, countercultural community shaped by the story of Jesus rather than the narratives of American political culture. The church’s credibility doesn’t come from resisting culture for its own sake, but from courageous witness to the reconciling love of Jesus, a love that transcends ideology, refuses tribalism, and proclaims the kingdom of God in the midst of the world.

The church’s distinctive political practice isn’t found in supporting the right candidates or policies, but being a people whose life together embodies the kingdom of God.

The ultimate question isn’t whether Charlie Kirk deserved to die (to be clear, he did not), but whether our response to his death reveals a church shaped more by Caesar’s story than Christ’s. In our rush to canonize political martyrs, we may be sacrificing the very thing that makes Christianity worth dying for: the radical, reconciling love of Jesus that refuses to be co-opted by any earthly kingdom.

In Jesus, the church possesses everything needed to be the radiant alternative community the world is dying to see. May we choose the beautiful path of being God’s colony of heaven, where love destroys political idolatry and the Kingdom of God transforms every earthly allegiance.

Happy Wednesday, friends.

Welcome to my first Midweek Spark!

Quotes To Ponder

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell. - Edward Abbey

There is a deep hole in your being, like an abyss. You will never succeed in filling that hole, because your needs are inexhaustible. You have to work around it so that gradually the abyss closes. Since the hole is so enormous and your anguish so deep, you will always be tempted to flee from it. There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal. - Henri Nouwen

Our society has attached a meaning to greatness that is not as far away from Hitler’s as it would like to believe, despite our cant about democracy and freedom. Our idols today are economic conquest, unending ‘growth’ built on turning all life into ‘resources’ for human consumption, scientism disguised as objective inquiry, manic forward motion, and the same old quest for perfectibility. - Paul Kingsnorth

It was important, his father said, to craft the backs of cabinets and fences properly, even though they were hidden. “He loved doing things right. He even cared about the look of the parts you couldn’t see.” - Walter Isaacson writing about Steve Jobs

Book Recs

Against the Machine

Resident Aliens

Nobody’s Mother

Music Recs from the Family

The Rush family wanted in on this one…

Esja, Hania Rani - Ben (and Coleben)

Garment of Praise, Brooke Ligertwood - Ashley

Longer Shadows, softer stones, Snorri Hallgrímsson - Coleben

Mudroom, Tiny Habits - Kinsley

Hamilton, an American Musical - Korley

📬 Tomorrow for Paid Subscribers

Ashley and I review Hauerwas/Willimon’s “Resident Aliens”
“The church’s social task is to be herself…that unapologetic community born of God’s own life.”

This deep dive examines why the church’s greatest act might be an entirely new politic.

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P.S. First 25 new paid subscribers this week enter a drawing for Ashley’s favorite notebook, the one that survived three house moves and countless coffee spills.

“The things you own end up owning you.” – Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven…” – Jesus (Matt. 6:19-21)

The construction dumpster sat in our driveway like a monument to middle-class delusion.

For four days, I stood elbow-deep in the archaeology of twenty years: seven hammers, five thousand coffee mugs, mountains of papers that mattered to no one but somehow felt too sacred to discard. Each box was a time capsule of who we once were and thought we needed to be.

Move number thirteen in twenty-one years of marriage. We’re professional nomads at this point. But this move to East Texas broke something open inside me that I wasn’t prepared for.

Because standing in that garage, surrounded by the sediment of an unconscious life, I couldn’t escape the haunting encounter between Jesus and the rich young ruler.

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The Man Who Had Everything Except Freedom

Here was a guy with the perfect religious résumé. He’d kept all God’s commandments. His moral track record was spotless. Yet when Jesus invited him to sell everything and follow, he walked away heartbroken.

The text says he had “great possessions.” But I wonder if the possessions had him.

This is the untold crisis of American Christianity: we’ve baptized accumulation and called it blessing. We’ve confused stewardship with stockpiling. We’ve built churches that look more like sanctified shopping centers than places where people learn to die to themselves.

Jesus knew something we’re still learning the hard way: the things you own end up owning you.

What the Prosperity Gospel Gets Catastrophically Wrong

Every megachurch parking lot tells the same story: luxury SUVs lined up like altars to the god of more. We’ve created a Christianity where your spiritual maturity is measured by your square footage, where God’s favor is calculated by your credit score.

But Jesus was always on the move, once commenting that he didn’t even have a place to lay his head. His invitation to the rich young ruler wasn’t cruelty; it was surgical precision. He saw a man enslaved by his possessions and offered him liberation.

The prosperity gospel has turned the cross on its head. Jesus didn’t die to make you comfortable. He died to set you free.

The Prophetic Act of Letting Go

Each bag we threw into that dumpster felt like a small resurrection. With every release, invisible threads of guilt and responsibility loosened their grip. Our mental focus sharpened. Our sleep improved. Our hearts collectively felt lighter.

I’m not talking about minimalism as a lifestyle brand. This is surrender as spiritual warfare against the idols that have colonized our hearts.

Marie Kondo captures something profound: “To truly cherish the things that are important to you, you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose”. Kondo is right, but she’s describing something ancient, the way of the cross. (1)

A Generation Drowning in Blessed Junk

We live in a moment when an entire generation is drowning in debt to pay for things they don’t need, to impress people they don’t like, to maintain a lifestyle that’s killing their souls.

The American dream has become a nightmare of endless consumption, and the church, meant to be a prophetic voice, has too often blessed the very materialism that Jesus came to liberate us from. (2)

But what if we lived as if Jesus’ words about treasure were actually true?

The Exchange That Changes Everything

In Matthew 11, Jesus offers something staggering: “Take my yoke upon you... For my yoke is easy and my burden is light”. He’s not adding to your load. He’s offering to replace it.

His yoke is easy. His burden is light. But we only experience this freedom when we release our death grip on the things that promise security but deliver anxiety.

Peace isn’t found in a full closet but in a freer soul. Surrender isn’t the loss of freedom; it is freedom itself.

The Question That Won’t Let You Go

The rich young ruler walked away from the greatest offer in human history because he couldn’t let go. Don’t let his tragedy become your story.

The question isn’t whether you need to sell everything. The question is whether everything you own owns you.

Your turn: What’s the one thing in your life that makes your heart heavier instead of lighter? Share it in the comments below, because naming it is the first step toward freedom.

Ben’s Substack cuts through cultural noise to find the sacred in the everyday. If this convicted you, share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you’re ready to join others who refuse to settle for shallow living, hit subscribe.

(1) Seed of Beautiful Resistance

(2) Run Into Controversy