I’ve been thinking about my own mortality lately. Not morbidly — I’m not sick, so far as I know, and I have no plans to slow down. I fully intend to live to a hundred plus! But whatever the age may be, I’m not sure I’ll get everything done that I still want to do. That thought doesn’t frighten me. It clarifies something else instead: I want to know, with some confidence, what ‘my cathedral‘ is for these later years. Not everything I could build. The thing I’m actually meant to build — and, just as important, the things that aren’t mine to build at all.

I found an unexpected companion for that question in King David, a man who ran out of years before he finished the one project his heart had set on above all others.

By the time we reach 1 Chronicles 22, David has done almost everything a king could hope to do. He’s unified the kingdom, brought the ark home, defeated Israel’s enemies on every side. And it was in his heart — Maclaren notes that phrase carries “earnest longing and fixed purpose,” the kind of desire that comes only after long, solitary meditation — to build a house for the name of the Lord his God. Not just any temple. A house for the God David called, characteristically, “my God.”

God told him no. Not because the desire was unworthy, but because David’s hands, however devoted, had spent a lifetime defending the kingdom’s very existence. The building of God’s house called for a different kind of king — a man of rest, not a man of war. Solomon would build it.

That could have been the end of David’s part in the story. It wasn’t. David called for Solomon and handed him, instead of a finished temple, an almost unimaginable stockpile: a hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, bronze and iron beyond weighing, cedar logs, dressed stone. “Arise and build,” he tells his son — not himself. Everything David gathered, he gathered knowing he would never see it become walls, a roof, an altar.

Maclaren, preaching on this passage as “David’s Prohibited Desire and Permitted Service,” names exactly what David’s position asks of every one of us who has ever wanted to finish something we can feel slipping past our own lifetime:

That’s the phrase I keep returning to this week: my cathedral. Not because I imagine my life will leave behind some monument other people will admire. Because I recognize the shape of the assignment. Maclaren pictures it exactly:

Our story is bigger than we are. We’re not the architects, and most of us won’t live to see the roof go on. But we are foundational to what comes after us — and that is what makes the part we’ve been given significant, not in spite of being unfinished, but because of what it’s unfinished for. There’s nothing vain about caring what you leave behind, when what you’re leaving behind is a foundation and not a monument to yourself.

David could have spent his last years grieving the temple he’d never build. Instead, he spent them gathering gold he’d never see set in place. Maclaren calls that no small thing: “if our work is but preparatory for that of those who come after, let us not think it of slight importance, and let us be sure that all who have had any portion in the toil shall share in the victory, that ‘he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together.’”

So, here’s my question for myself this week, and maybe for you too: what is your cathedral? Not everything you wish you had time for — that list is always longer than the years left to spend on it. The one thing that’s actually yours to lay stone on, right now, so that someone who comes after you can finish what you started.

With thankful thoughts for you, whatever chapter you’re in,

Chuck

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Welcome to This Week’s Edition of

Moments with Maclaren

We had moved in August. The home had a nice two-car garage. Thanksgiving had come and gone. Christmas and cold winter weather was on its way. One bay of that two-car garage was still full of boxes and other odds and ends. My work in those days called for a long early-morning commute. And you guessed it—my car was the odd man out. The thought of scraping ice and frost off my windshield in the dark, every morning, for months, was not appealing.

So, I told my wife I wanted to clear out enough of that second bay to get my car in. She said, “That’s not going to happen.”

I said, “Watch me.”

It was a mess, but my desire was bigger than the mess. Simply put, I wanted it bad enough. I made it happen.

A strange old story in 2 Kings triggered that memory. Most likely, you’ve never heard it preached. Elisha is dying. The king of Israel, a young man named Joash, comes to weep over him, and the old prophet — with almost no strength left — has one more thing to do before he goes. He tells Joash to take a bow and arrow, lays his own failing hand over the king’s, and has him shoot an arrow out the east window: Elisha exclaims, “The Lord’s arrow of victory! You shall strike down the Syrians until they are consumed.”

Then comes the strange part. Elisha tells Joash to take the rest of the arrows and strike the ground with them. Joash taps the ground three times, and stops.

Elisha is furious. “You should have struck five or six times — then you would have defeated Syria until it was finished. Now you will defeat it only three times.”

Nobody made Joash stop at three. Nothing in the command told him how many times to strike. The number wasn’t given — the desire was supposed to supply it. As Alexander Maclaren, whose sermons on Elisha and Joash first put this scene in front of me, explained it: the king had “an unused quiver full of arrows,” and with that error he exchanged a complete victory for a partial one.

That’s Joash. Now look at Hezekiah, a few chapters later, and you meet the opposite kind of king. Scripture sums up his whole life in four short phrases: he trusted the Lord, he clung to the Lord, he did not turn aside from following him, and he kept his commandments. Of him alone among all Judah’s kings it’s said, “there was no one like him.” The difference between Hezekiah and Joash isn’t that one had more power available to him than the other. It’s that Hezekiah kept reaching for more of what he already had. As Maclaren says of him, “However close we may be to God, it is always possible to press closer. However full may be the union, it may always be made fuller.”

Two kings, two levels of desire. One king who thought, “That should be enough.” Another one, who spent his whole life never getting enough of God.

I got that garage bay cleared because I wanted, badly, to never scrape a windshield in the dark again. It’s a small thing. But it taught me something about myself that Joash’s three taps and Hezekiah’s whole life both confirm: what we get is very often the exact size of what we wanted.

So, here’s what I’m asking myself this week, and maybe you’ll ask it too: not “what has God made possible for me” — that answer is always larger than what I’ve used — but what am I willing to clear out, to make room for it?

Joash left his quiver half full and called it done. Hezekiah kept clearing space his whole life for more of God and never once called it finished. I cleared a garage bay because I wanted, badly, to stop scraping ice in the cold and dark. None of us are really short on power. But maybe we’ve been short on making room?

With thankful thoughts for you,

Chuck

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Welcome to This Week’s Edition of

Moments with Maclaren

At my 50th high school reunion, a childhood friend looked at me and said, “Man, you look like your Dad.”

He meant it as a compliment, and I took it as one. But he was also telling me something truer than he knew. My father passed away in 2014, and in the years since, I’ve noticed it more than ever — not just in the mirror, but in how I think, how I react, how I carry myself. More than any other man, my father formed me.

That’s nature and nurture doing what they do. We ask which one shapes us more, as if we have to choose. The truth is, we don’t get to choose. Both are always working on us, whether we’re paying attention or not.

Here’s what unsettles me a little: the older we get, the more we become like who we really are. I’ve noticed it in myself, and I’ve noticed it in others — whatever was underneath starts to show. That’s not always a compliment.

Jehu understood something about zeal. He tore down the house of Baal with real energy — 2 Kings gives him credit for it. But the record is blunt about what came next:

He had the energy for reform. He never let it reach his heart. And so what was underneath — old compromises he never dealt with — kept surfacing, year after year, reign after reign.

Maclaren put his finger on exactly this:

Walking in the law of the Lord isn’t a phrase we can leave vague. It means becoming a student of the Word — reading it, wrestling with it, letting it correct us instead of just confirming what we already think. And it means something more than study: a relationship with Jesus Christ that actually nurtures us, the way a father nurtures a son, day after ordinary day, until we start to resemble Him. Jehu never got there. He had the zeal without the study, the reform without the relationship.

That’s what separates the two kinds of becoming.

One is automatic — you get older, and whoever you really are gets louder, whether that’s your father’s steadiness or Jehu’s half-measures. The other is not automatic at all. It’s the becoming that happens when we let ourselves be nurtured — shaped, corrected, formed — by walking with the Lord with all our heart, not part of it.

I favor my father in a hundred ways I never worked for. But who I’m meant to become — that takes more than resemblance. It takes surrender.

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Moments with Maclaren

I have missed so much. I have missed the glory of too many sunrises and the majesty of too many sunsets — not just at the beginning and ending of my days, but in all the moments in between.

I missed the fierce love of a Mama Bear for her cubs in the sacrifices of my mother. I missed the love and determination of the Heavenly Father in my father’s efforts to provide for his family. I have paid too little attention to the potential for greatness in the dreams and hopes of my children and grandchildren.

The business and busyness of life has misted my eyes to the flaming backdrop of eternity, clouding how near it truly shines in the precious moments of my days and hours.

I think of another set of eyes that needed the mist cleared:

The servant wasn’t wrong about what he could see. He was only wrong about what was there. The mountain was already full — fire and horses, surrounding Elisha before the prayer was ever prayed. Nothing changed when Elisha prayed except the servant’s eyes.

Maclaren names exactly what stood between the servant and the mountain:

Without eternity showing through, the servant could only measure by what surrounded him — horses, chariots, hopelessness. With his eyes opened, the same ground held a different scale entirely.

The mist was never on my mother’s sacrifice, or my father’s provision, or my children’s dreams. The mist was only ever on my own eyes. The mountain, in my ordinary days, was already full — I simply hadn’t asked to see it.

I don’t need new mountains. I need what the servant needed.

Lord, open my eyes, that I may see.

What mountain in your life is already full — waiting only for your eyes to open?

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With thankful thoughts for you—whatever chapter you’re in,

Chuck

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Moments with Maclaren

And don’t miss the bonus at the end of the devotional!

For years, I called one particular career move a mistake. More than that, I considered that I had missed God’s perfect will for my life at that point. At two years in, it had turned to disaster. I was offered assistance for some other type of employment, because I was “not cut out for the type of work for which I was being terminated.”

A little like Elijah standing before the Lord, I asked many times, Why did that all happen? What had I missed? Why did God permit me to miss it so badly?

I am still not sure I have satisfactory answers to those questions. But I can tell you this: just about every good thing that has happened to me and my family over the last 30 years is, in some way, a result of that dark time.

Alexander Maclaren is still helping me to understand this journey. He writes:

It is often easy to resist the ‘trouble’ God has permitted to impact our lives — and usually without asking, “What is God up to?” In my experience, there was some falling short on my part. But as for what God was up to, I have spent most of the last 30 years doing “the type of work I was not cut out for.”

So today, I challenge you to consider Maclaren’s challenge: am I resisting what God is permitting in my life right now?

And remember this: “God is not mad at you, He’s mad about you!” (Thank you, K.W., for that great truth!)

A BONUS FOR EVERYONE THIS WEEK - THE DEEP DIVE

I don’t usually open up the Audio Deep Dive to free subscribers, but this one felt like it needed to be heard by more than just the paid tier.

This AI- generated conversation goes further than I could go in the 400 words of the devotional. The two hosts sit with Maclaren’s line about resistance and trouble, push back on it hard, and land somewhere I found genuinely clarifying, even about my own story.

There’s a moment about halfway through where they compare the whole thing to a pinecone that won’t open until a forest fire melts the resin. I wasn’t expecting that image to hit as hard as it did.

It runs about 20 minutes. If you’ve got a commute, a walk, or a quiet cup of coffee this week, I think it’s worth the time.

Know someone who could use this word of encouragement? Feel free to share!

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With thankful thoughts for you—whatever chapter you’re in,

Chuck

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I’ve had more than one experience that “seemed like a good idea at the time.” I was serving with an organization that fit — my training, my gifts, the work itself. Leadership had even mapped out where I could go next. But the timeline moved slower than I wanted, and my supervisor showed no interest in retiring. A vice president position opened elsewhere: a modest raise, a bigger title. I said yes. I never seriously vetted the leader I’d be working under, or asked whether our approaches to fundraising would actually hold together. They didn’t. It ended badly. I later returned to the organization I’d left, serving in three more capacities, each with greater responsibility than the last.

I wasn’t waiting on God’s timing. I was tired of waiting on mine to catch up. That’s its own kind of Haran. It took me years to see it for what it was.

So, now consider Abram’s journey. God called him to leave Ur and go to Canaan. But his father Terah took the family and “settled in Haran”—just over halfway to their destination. Terah died there. Sometimes a life adjustment is needed before we can move forward. It seems the voice that had inhibited moving on was now silent.

Next we read:

Life offers many options—many bad, some good, some better. But what is really God’s best for you today?

Alexander Maclaren observed:

Paul understood this same principle: “This one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). One thing. Single aim. Settled purpose.

Here’s what a single aim delivers us from and delivers us to:

𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 clarifies the aim—it’s the counterpoint to all the choices and voices.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 inspires effort—it’s the counterpoint to all the desires and demands.

𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐦 adjusts the attitude—it’s the counterpoint to all the storms and strife.

Don’t settle for Haran.

𝑰𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒔𝒊𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒚, 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒎? 𝑯𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒔𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 “𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈“?

Canaan was Abraham’s calling. 𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕‘𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒚𝒐𝒖?

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With thankful thoughts for you—whatever chapter you’re in,

Chuck

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We live in an anxious age. The world around us models reactivity—anxious responses to every perceived threat, defensive argumentativeness about everything that matters, harsh dogmatism masquerading as conviction, emotional volatility treated as authenticity. We’re told to fight harder, shout louder, defend our positions more fiercely.

Then Alexander Maclaren reminds us: “An elevated calm and ‘sweet reasonableness’ will mark the [person] who truly lives by faith.”

Maclaren wrote that reflecting on Abram and Lot, whose herdsmen were quarreling over grazing land. Rather than fight for his rights as the elder kinsman, Abram told Lot:

Abram could let go of the land because he wasn’t gripping it in the first place.

Not the person who merely believes in faith. The one who lives by faith. There’s a difference. And that difference shows up as a particular posture: elevated calm and sweet reasonableness.

Habakkuk shows us what that same trust looks like when there’s nothing left to give away:

I’ve been the beneficiary of this kind of faith-marked calm. When I was 35, I was elected President of the Board of Management of a campmeeting, second youngest among 24 members, most of them in their 60s and beyond. Dick Davis—late 60s himself—became my anchor. He wasn’t quiet, but he was never loud or dominating. He knew how to get things done, yet his advice always came wrapped in elevated calm and sweet reasonableness. He supported without controlling, guided without demanding. When he spoke, you listened—not because he was forceful, but because his calm reflected a well-reasoned reliability. He passed away seven years into my tenure. I’d later call him “a campmeeting President’s best friend.”

That’s what faith looks like in action. Steady. Even in complexity.

That is a posture worth cultivating and one our world desperately needs to see—in you—and me.

Who is your world seeing in you TODAY?

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With thankful thoughts for you—whatever chapter you’re in,

Chuck

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Welcome to this week’s edition of Moments with Maclaren

I’m glad you’re here.

Long ago, one wintry night, I was driving alone on a curvy state road. It was snowing and getting worse. Snow had begun to stick, and the road was getting slippery. Suddenly, I felt the back right end of the car losing grip. The tire slipped onto the shoulder. I wasn’t speeding, but I was fishtailing out of control.

Then, just as suddenly, the car was back on the road. I have very little recollection of how that happened.

There’s no verse that hands each of us our own guardian angel. But I am sure of this: it wasn’t my driving skills that nudged that car back on the road. That’s my story, and I’ve stuck to it for five decades now.

Alexander Maclaren wrote:

Here’s what matters: It’s not important whether we have a guardian angel watching over us. What’s important is that we’re walking the paths where they already are.

Jacob discovered this.

Not on some spiritual mountaintop, but on the dusty road of common life, doing what God had called him to do that day. Maclaren puts it plainly:

We don’t need mystical experiences. We need faithful obedience in the ordinary paths of everyday life—going to work, caring for family, doing what’s in front of us. That’s where God’s help meets us, right at the hour of need.

𝐼𝑡’𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤—𝑜𝑟 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡—𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟, 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑓𝑖𝑣𝑒. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑡ℎ 𝐻𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑎𝑙𝑘 𝑇𝑂𝐷𝐴𝑌.

𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲? 𝐖𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐢𝐭 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐲. 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞.

With thankful thoughts for you—whatever chapter you’re in,

Chuck

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Welcome to this week's edition of

Moments with Maclaren!

Thanks for reading.

My Clifton Strengths® assessment tells me one of my top five themes is Futuristic. The definition reads: People exceptionally talented in the Futuristic theme are inspired by the future and what could be. They energize others with their visions of the future.

At 72, I find that just a little ironic.

Can a person be a little too futuristic? I have been.

Years ago, a position opened at an institution in Central Ohio — beautiful country, a place I had known as a student and carried deep affection for ever since. It seemed, in every way I could imagine, a perfect fit. Beth went with me for the interview and was given a tour of the community. She loved it. I had already loved it for years. I came home, certain. I anticipated a positive response.

It was not to be. A local businessperson was hired instead.

About five months later, in an unrelated conversation with the president of that institution, he mentioned that the person hired had left after three months. My private, unspoken response—“Well, I would still be there.”

It had seemed idyllic in my imagining — and in some ways still does. But my only conclusion is that it was not where God wanted us to be. The future I had constructed so carefully in my mind was not the future He had prepared.

Alexander Maclaren, preaching from 1 Kings 8:59, offers counsel that has stayed with me:

He is not dismissing prudent planning — Maclaren is far too wise for that. In fact, he insists there is one future that deserves our longest gaze: our eternal destiny. But for the uncertainties between here and heaven, he counsels a different posture.

I know something about the wrong kind of long views. The résumés sent out, and the imagined moves that followed before any offer came. The conversations rehearsed with supervisors who never said what I had so carefully prepared to answer. Perhaps I am not the only one who has done this. The uncertain evils that could befall us, the unlikely possibilities we script in such careful detail — these are the long views that steal from us without giving anything back.

Dwelling on the uncertainties of the future will hinder focused faithfulness in the present.

That is Maclaren’s pastoral warning. It is also simply true. The matter of the day belongs to the day. Today has its own grace, its own assignment. When we live somewhere else — in the imagined future, whether feared or desired — we can miss the opportunities for obedience in the real present.

What we attend to in the present will be the message we send to the future. The legacy we leave for those we have known and loved is not built in imagination. It is built in the faithful minutes, the discharged duties, the quiet obedience of ordinary days. The future I always wanted? It turns out it is being written today.

What are you writing today?

With thankful thoughts for you—whatever chapter you're in,

Chuck

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I know something about trusting in the dark.

The dark, where 2014 began. My brother Tim — thirteen months younger than me — died of lung cancer on January 4th, seven days short of his 59th birthday. Five weeks later, we lost my Dad. In April, we said goodbye to Carmy, our dog of twelve years.

Loss after loss. In May, it seemed I was losing—stamina, breath, health.

Before summer officially began, my body was failing in ways no one could explain. Blood transfusions. Iron infusions. Hospital stays. Temporary improvement followed by declining counts again. In late July, a job interview in Texas my energy—the lack thereof—gave me away. Month after month of treatment that sustained me without revealing why I needed sustaining.

The cause remained hidden until it could no longer hide. A deep endoscopy in early August finally found the tumor. Surgery revealed metastasized melanoma.

Not too soon. Not too late.

Alexander Maclaren, reflecting on Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 8:59 — that God would maintain His people’s cause “as the matter of a day in its day” — offers a different framework:

God’s timing rarely matches our calendar. The darkness can be long. The waiting, disorienting. But Maclaren’s insight holds: the delay is not indifference. It is the very ground on which trust is built and proven.

There is often a residual darkness even after the answer comes. After the loss, after the funeral, after the heartbreak, annual checkups, certain holidays, quiet nights in the dark, quiet questions that never fully leave. That is not a failure of faith. That residual darkness is precisely what walking by faith is for.

You have proven Him true. Prove Him again.

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I was in the hardware store the other day looking for light oil for my battery-powered hedge trimmer. Friendly place. An employee met me almost at the door, and I told him what I needed. He led me back to the right aisle and pointed out a few small cans.

One of them was Three-in-One oil.

I recognized it immediately. My dad always had a can around the garage. I mentioned that. His response came without hesitation: “So did mine.”

We talked for a moment — just a moment — about our dads and how they used that oil on everything. Then he said he thinks about his dad every day. I said yeah. Me too. As I headed toward the checkout, I said, “Well, thank God for Dad memories, right?” He seemed to appreciate that.

Then, as we parted, he said something I don’t often hear from a store employee: “It was nice talking to you.”

Here’s a question I hear often in coaching conversations — and one I’ve wrestled with myself: What does God want me to do with this chapter of my life?

It’s not a small question. Long-term discernment is genuinely hard. Alexander Maclaren understood that, and he had a word for the uncertain season:

“We are all impatient of uncertainty, either in opinion or in conduct; but if you are not quite sure what God wants you to do, you may be quite sure that He does not at present want you to do anything.” — The Untrodden Path and the Guiding Ark, Joshua 3:4

Wait. When the path isn’t clear, don’t force it. That’s wisdom, not weakness.

But Maclaren had another word — for the moment when the path is clear:

“Let us learn that, though ‘the race is not always to the swift,’ promptitude of action, when we are sure of God’s will, is usually a condition of success. Life is too short, and the work to be done too pressing and great, to allow of dawdling.” — David Appointing Solomon, 1 Kings 1:28-39

Don’t dawdle. When you know, move.

So, which is it? Wait or move?

Both. But here’s what I’ve come to believe: most of us know what God’s will is for today. The long view is hard. But today’s prompting? Usually, clear enough.

Don’t resist the nudge to be kind. Don’t swallow the encouraging word. Don’t walk past the stranger in the hardware store aisle without mentioning your dad and the Three-in-One oil.

Obey today’s clear prompting. Then do the same tomorrow. The future has a way of taking care of itself.

I can’t be sure I brightened my hardware friend’s day.

But he brightened mine.

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From Chuck’s Desk . . . Do You Know Your Own Strength?

I was writing a reference letter for a former team member last week when I stumbled across something I hadn’t thought about in a while — a Clifton Strengths® Matrix I had built for my development team back in 2017.

Nine people. Five strengths each. All of it laid out in a single document.

I sat with it for a moment. Looking at it again, I could see exactly why that team worked as well as it did. We were strong in Strategic Thinking and Relationship Building, with just enough Executing and Influencing to round it out. Honestly, it was a good team. Really, a great team.

Here’s what struck me sitting there with that old document: most of those nine people never fully knew what the rest of the team brought to the table — and honestly, not all of them fully knew what they brought to the table.

That’s still true for most of us. But I can tell you this, the discussions and interactions that chart led to opened a whole new world for that team—and me. Do you know your top five strengths? Not what you’re good at. Not your job title. Your strengths — the way you naturally think, feel, and behave at your best?

If you’d like to know more about Clifton Strengths® — and yours . . . I’d love to have that conversation. Reach out and let’s set up a free exploratory call.

Book a Conversation with Chuck

Whatever chapter you’re in.

With thankful thoughts for you,

--Chuck

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Whatever.

You know the tone. The slight eye-roll. The verbal shrug that ends a conversation without really ending it. It’s the sound of someone who has stopped caring, or never started. We use it constantly — frustrated, indifferent, done. It’s the word that means I’m out.

It’s hard to imagine a word more hollowed out by our culture than whatever.

And yet.

Open your Bible to 2 Samuel 15 and you find the same word carrying the weight of the world. King David is at the lowest moment of his life. His son Absalom has staged a coup. Jerusalem is lost. David is fleeing — broken, humiliated, unsure where he will even land. And in that moment his servants gather and say: “Behold, your servants are ready to do whatever my lord the king chooses.” (2 Samuel 15:15)

Same word. Entirely different universe.

But one man paints us an unforgettable picture.

His name is Ittai. A Gittite — a foreigner from Gath, Goliath’s hometown of all places. No obligation to David, no long history of shared battles, no political stake in the outcome. David himself pulls Ittai aside: “You are a foreigner and also an exile; return to your own place. You came only yesterday — return and take back your brothers.” (2 Samuel 15:19-20)

A clean exit. A reasonable one. An honorable one. Nobody would have blamed him.

Ittai didn’t take it.

Whether for death or for life. Whatever it costs. Whatever comes next.

That is whatever.

I’ve faced cancer, surgeries, the whole unwelcome journey. Honestly? It didn’t shake me the way you might expect. Pain I can manage. Surgeries don’t frighten me.

But then I consider twenty-one men on a Libyan beach.

February 15, 2015. Twenty-one Coptic Christian men kneel in orange jumpsuits against the grey of the Mediterranean. ISIS militants stand behind them demanding they renounce Christ.

They didn’t. Witnesses reported the name on their lips as the moment came was “Lord Jesus.”

Twenty-one Ittais on a beach. Whether for death or for life.

Alexander Maclaren saw this kind of loyalty clearly:

Nobody mistook which King they served.

So here is the question Ittai and those twenty-one men leave with us: When the moment comes — and it comes in ways both dramatic and painfully ordinary — under which King will you be found? On the Libyan beach, yes. But also in the conversation you’d rather avoid, the conviction you quietly pocket, the small daily moments when folding your colors would be so easy, so unnoticed.

Hoist your colors.

Lord, give me an Ittai heart. Whatever!

From Chuck’s Desk . . .

I am long past 40, and I've noticed this personally — more so recently.

The research is clear: as we move through life past 40, most of us spend increasing time alone. Social circles shrink. Connections thin. It happens gradually, almost without noticing.

I noticed something else too. So many of you — my subscribers — are treasured face-to-face friendships I have left behind across the years. Different cities, different seasons of life, different chapters. The miles between us are real.

And yet here we are, still finding each other around Scripture.

I’d love for you to read this piece by a Facebook and LinkedIn friend of mine, Scott Couchenour. It’s brief, honest, and worth your time.

More Alone After 40

It’s also got me thinking. I’m working on something for this community that speaks directly to this — intentional, unhurried, and open to everyone. More details coming soon.

In the meantime, if you find yourself in a season of transition — wondering what this chapter of life is supposed to look like — I’d love to have a conversation. That’s exactly what Finish Well Coaching is for.

Book a Conversation with Chuck

Whatever chapter you’re in.

With thankful thoughts for you,

--Chuck

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Welcome to this week’s Moments with Maclaren

A Note Before You Read . . .

If you’ve been reading Moments with Maclaren as a free subscriber, I’m grateful you’re here. Every Tuesday devotional will always be free — that won’t change.

But if you’ve ever wondered what paid subscribers receive, this week is a good example. Alongside the devotional, paid subscribers this week have access to:

• An Audio Deep Dive (~8 min.) unpacking the devotional in conversational depth

• A Video Teaching Guide — a 13-slide presentation designed for small groups

• A Visual Infographic for group discussion and handouts

• Five Discussion Questions for personal reflection or group study

If that sounds like something you’d value — for yourself, a small group, or a Sunday school class — I’d love to have you join us.

Become a Paid Subscriber

Now — let’s talk about looking back.

The poet-songwriter, Fanny Crosby, sets the tone for us:

All the way my Savior leads me.
What have I to ask beside?
Can I doubt his tender mercy,
Who thru’ life has been my Guide?
Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,
Here by faith in him to dwell!
For I know, whate’er befall me,
Jesus doeth all things well.

King David is at rest. The wars are behind him, the kingdom is established, and he sits in his house thinking it is time to build God a proper temple. God sends the prophet Nathan to him — not with blueprints, but with a reminder. Before David builds anything for God, God wants David to remember what He has already built for David. “I have been with you wherever you have gone.” That’s not a promise about the future — not yet. It’s God asking David to look back. All the way back. Over the shepherd’s fields, the giant, the wilderness years running from Saul, the failures, and the grief. I was there. All of it. All the way.

That’s the word David needed. And if we’re honest, it’s the word we need too.

Mistakes, wrong turns, and errors in judgement — as we look back over our lives, we can all point to them. Before we go further, though, let’s clear the air. Certainly, these things do not automatically rise to the level of sin. But there are times when we reach for kinder words than what they may actually be — sins against strangers, friends, loved ones, and ultimately God.

I’ll just leave that right there.

Here is what I know: you have a story. I have a story. Every one of us carries a history of roads taken and roads we wish we hadn’t, of chapters we’re proud of and chapters we’d sooner forget. The particulars of those stories are as different as we are. But that’s not really the point, is it? The point — the only point that finally matters — is whether we can look back over all of it and recognize Who was there—and even in the mud and mire of our own making, never left.

That is a harder thing than it sounds. But it is the whole invitation of this text.

Maybe I can best explain my thinking through Maclaren’s words themselves.

Every devout person — I have known devout people. I have read their writings. I confess I feel far more familiar with the aspiration toward devoutness than with devoutness itself. Perhaps that’s where most of us live.

Often... retrace — Maclaren is referencing a regular practice of reviewing our life’s journey. Not once, at the end. Often. There’s a discipline here that most of us resist. Personally, I can be very nostalgic about my mental visits to yesteryear. I’ve worn that groove out. But Maclaren means something healthier: a practiced, intentional looking back.

Thankful thoughts — Now there’s the hard part. It’s difficult to be thankful in the middle of a mess, isn’t it — especially one of our own making. Thankful thoughts about mistakes, wrong turns, and errors in judgement? Actually? No. What Maclaren is calling us to is an ever-present, deep gratitude for the One who was loving, leading, sustaining us—all the way.

All the way... God has led us — And there it is. That is the ground under everything. He has led us. Even through the detours. Even through the failures. Even through the wilderness seasons we brought on ourselves. All the way.

Thankful thoughts are the key. But don’t hear what I’m not saying. I don’t believe for a minute we need to be thankful for tragic loss, or pain, or the wounds others have inflicted on us. But we can be thankful for lessons learned. For what drew us closer to God and to the people we love. We can be thankful — and we need to continually rehearse that thankfulness — for the way God has sustained us on the journey. For the results that have moved us, however haltingly, toward something that looks a little more like devoutness.

Which brings us to the question every journey eventually asks: Are we there yet?

Do you believe your life is the realization of a plan of God’s? Can you look back — over all of it, the good chapters, and the painful ones — and with thankful thoughts retrace the way He has led you?

If you’re not there yet, you can be. Trust God with your past. Accept His forgiveness for the mistakes, the wrong turns, the errors in judgement — and yes, for the sins. Compared to all that, trusting Him with your future will be a walk in the park.

With thankful thoughts of you,

—Chuck

All the way my Savior leads me,
Cheers each winding path I tread;
Gives me grace for ev’ry trial,
Feeds me with the living Bread.
Tho’ my weary steps may falter,
And my soul athirst may be,
Gushing from the Rock before me,
Lo! A spring of joy I see.

From Chuck’s Desk . . .

Alexander Maclaren said it better than I could:

“The best use of memory is to mark more plainly than it could be seen at the moment, the Divine help which has filled our lives.”

That’s the thing about looking back. We rarely see God’s hand clearly while we’re in the middle of the hard chapter. It’s only later — sometimes much later — that the shape of His leading comes into focus.

This week’s devotional asked whether you can retrace your journey with thankful thoughts. Maclaren is saying you probably can — better now than you could have then.

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION

What moment in your past looks different now — more clearly guided, more graciously held — than it did when you were living through it?

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— Chuck

It was the Fall of 1975. I was starting my last year of college and had just taken on a part-time Youth Ministry position in Barberton, Ohio. I was living in Copley with my future brother-in-law, Dan, and his grandmother, Ruth Wager Hufford.

Grandma Hufford was a saint of the highest order. A Prayer Warrior—and yes, those words deserve the capitals. When she passed away, many in the family could sense the loss of her prayers. That is not a small thing to say about a person.

One Saturday night Dan and I decided to do something fun. We went bowling. We were wild like that. It was 1975, and in those days smoking in public buildings was still perfectly legal. We enjoyed the bowling. But I’m sure we reeked of smoke when we got home.

Grandma Hufford was still awake. She wasn’t suspicious—just curious. She asked where we’d been. We told her innocently. And that’s when she said it.

She looked at us quietly for a moment.

“Well, I don’t think I would want to be in a place like that when Jesus comes back.”

One sentence. No sermon. No lecture. Just that quiet, certain line—and then she turned and went back to her room.

Dan and I turned sheepish. We felt no guilt, exactly—only the particular sting of being a disappointment to a great saint. That is its own kind of conviction.

I have reflected on that moment many times across the decades. The weight of her words has never quite lifted.

Alexander Maclaren, preaching from the story of Elijah hiding in a cave at Horeb, recalls a similar moment from the childhood of Charles Spurgeon. The young boy was visiting his grandfather, pastor of a small country church. A prominent member of that congregation had a habit of slipping into the local pub on occasion. One day young Spurgeon walked in, found the man sitting there, walked straight up to him, and said:

“What doest thou here, Elijah?”

Maclaren tells us it was the turning point of the man’s life.

That is the question God asked the exhausted, discouraged prophet hiding in his cave—not in anger, not in condemnation, but with the searching honesty of One who knows exactly where we are and why. What are you doing here, Elijah?

It is worth asking ourselves the same question. Not with guilt. Not with a list of rules. Maclaren, characteristically, refuses the legalistic path:

“I can quite believe that the theatre might be made an instrument of morality. I can quite believe that a race-course might be a perfectly innocent place. I can quite believe that there may be no harm in a dance.”

But then he offers two questions that cut straight to the heart:

“Can I ask God to bless this thing, and my doing it? And does this help or hinder my religion?”

Not—is this on an approved list? Not—what will people think? Just two honest questions, taken with you wherever you go, applied to whatever you’re doing.

Grandma Hufford wasn’t asking whether bowling was sinful. She was living so close to Jesus that the question “would I want to be here when He comes back?” was simply how she thought about everything. It wasn’t a rule. It was a relationship.

Fifty years later, I’m still hearing her.

What are you doing here?

FINISH WELL COACHING

Someone reading this right now is standing between two chapters.

The last page of one is already written—a career, a role, a season of life that defined you for decades. And the first page of the next one is blank. That blank page can feel like freedom or like falling, depending on the day.

That’s exactly the kind of conversation Finish Well Coaching exists for.

Not to hand you a plan. Not to tell you what the next chapter should look like. But to sit with you in the gap—between where you are and where you sense God is calling you—and help you think clearly about what comes next.

If that’s where you are right now, I’d love to talk. The first conversation is free.

👉 Book A Conversation with Chuck here:

A Conversation with Chuck

From Chuck's Desk . . .

I sat in a coaching workshop this week and heard something I haven’t been able to shake:

“The certainty of the calling trumps clarity about the path.”

That’s not original to the workshop leader—it’s one of those lines that’s been floating around long enough that nobody remembers where it started. But it landed fresh for me this week.

Most of us spend a lot of energy trying to see further down the road than we’re meant to see. We want clarity about the path before we’ll trust the calling. But maybe that’s backwards. Maybe the calling is the solid ground—and the path is something we find by walking.

I don’t know what you’re navigating right now. But if you’re waiting for clarity before you move—this might be worth sitting with.

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION

Where (and maybe why) are you waiting for clarity about the path when you already have certainty about the calling?

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The days are long, but life is short. The years are few for all of us, no matter our age at passing from this world, because whatever God calls us to, it is greater than ourselves. And that’s why the working out of our callings is worthy of strenuous concentration.

James Lewis Nutt—Jimmy to those who knew him as a boy, Jim in his adult and professional life, Dad to me—was born on August 10, 1929, two and a half months before the onset of the Great Depression. He was the sixth and last child of Charlie and Mary Crawford Nutt, born at home on Russell Street just outside Zanesville, Ohio.

When Jimmy was three, his mother Mary died on an operating table. Dad told me once he had no memory of her. He also told me that Mary must have been a good woman because she had been able to keep Charlie from the bottle. But after her death, alcoholism sunk its claws deep into Charlie. All the older children escaped the household by the time Dad was in eighth grade, and he lived alone with his father until midway through his junior year of high school, when his second-oldest sister Elsie and her husband Dean took him in.

Dad graduated from Zanesville High School in 1947, made his way to Alliance, Ohio, worked in his Uncle Wade’s feed business, and was drafted into the Army in late 1950. He asked my mother to marry him before he went into service. She said no. But she waited, and so did he. They married on February 26, 1953. I was born nine and a half months later.

In the late 1950s, a neighbor lady named Mae invited the young family to attend Quaker Hill Friends Church in Sebring, Ohio. A North Carolina preacher, Rev. William Atchison, led Mom and Dad to the Lord. Over the next fifty years, Dad would serve as Sunday School teacher, Presiding Clerk, Spiritual Life elder, church treasurer, and in several other capacities.

Without a college education, he became Manager of Production at Babcock & Wilcox Tubular Products in Alliance—the highest position ever reached by a non-college graduate at that company. He brought the same strenuous concentration to his work that he brought to his service in the church.

In 1963, when I was nine years old, he took me to my first adult services at Sebring Interdenominational Holiness Campmeeting. The floor of the tabernacle was still sawdust. I was called to the ministry there when I was thirteen. I have served as President of the Board of Management of that campmeeting for thirty-five years. Dad served thirty-one years as its treasurer, sixteen of those alongside me.

His faithfulness reached forward into my life, into my calling, and now into the lives of everyone I minister to. He passed away in February 2014, having seen most—but not all—of what his faithfulness generated in me and my siblings. He never knew about these devotionals, never saw the continued fruit still being borne.

I found a note in his Bible from his later years. Very simple, yet it must have made an impression on him and harkened him back to his own journey:

“Whenever we trust God, we do it one day at a time.”

Joseph reached back to God’s promise in his trials and concentrated on faithfulness. My dad, born into impossibly hard circumstances, did the same. He couldn’t fix his past. He couldn’t control outcomes. But he could concentrate on faithfulness—one day at a time.

We will leave many things unfinished. But that does not mean we cannot finish well.

What deserves your strenuous concentration—whatever that means for you—with the time God has given you, be it long or short?

One day at a time.

Before you go . . .

That devotional you just read was my first. Published before a single subscriber had found their way here. Thirty-three views—and more than a third of them were me.

I returned to it today because it turns out my father’s story wasn’t just where Moments with Maclaren began. It was where everything I’m about to tell you began too.

Joseph concentrated on faithfulness when nobody was watching. My dad did the same—born into impossible circumstances, no college degree, no guarantees—and his faithfulness reached forward into my life, my calling, and now into the lives of everyone I minister to. He never saw these devotionals. Never knew about this community you and I have built together one Tuesday at a time.

But he finished well. And that changes everything.

I’ve been thinking for a while about what it would look like to sit down with someone—one conversation at a time—and help them think through the same questions I’ve been carrying. Not as a pastor. Not as a counselor. As a coach.

So today I’m excited to introduce Finish Well Coaching. Whatever Chapter You’re In.

Here’s what it is—and what it isn’t.

It isn’t a program. There’s no curriculum, no workbook, no six-week track. It’s a focused, forward-looking conversation to help you think clearly about what God has next for you. What do you want to leave behind? What message do you want to send to the future? What deserves your strenuous concentration with the time you have left? —Whether that’s five years or fifty.

I bring fifty years of ministry, two cancer survivals, and seventy-two hours of professional coaching training to the table. But mostly I bring the same questions you’re carrying. I’ve just had a little longer to sit with them.

Here’s how it works:

A single session is $75. I allow up to an hour—because some conversations need room to breathe. And because I want to make sure this is the right fit for both of us, I’m offering a free thirty-minute conversation to start. No obligation. No pressure. Just a conversation.

Some people come for one focused session and leave with exactly what they needed. Others find that the conversation opens something worth continuing. Either way, we’ll follow your lead.

This isn’t counseling and I’m not your pastor in this context—these are focused, intentional conversations to help you find your strenuous concentration, whatever chapter you’re in.

If something in you is ready to have that conversation, I’d love to talk.

👉 Book your free 30-minute conversation here:

A Conversation with Chuck

Finish well. Whatever chapter you’re in.

—Chuck

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Glad You're Here!

“But it ought to be.”

That sentence knocked me over. (Translation: Maclaren slapped me.)

I have a personal commitment to be an encourager with my online presence. But it is not always easy—and sometimes, I don’t want to. I never like it when people “should” on me, but sometimes I want to “should” on them.

“But it ought to be.” And that 19th-century preacher is looking right at me.

David had something more than a keyboard. He had a knife.

Saul—the king who had been hunting David like an animal across the wilderness—wandered alone into the very cave where David and his men were hiding. The opportunity felt almost supernatural. His men certainly thought so: “God has delivered your enemy into your hand,”they said. The justification was ready. The action was easy. No one would have blamed him.

David cut off the corner of Saul’s robe instead. And even that troubled his conscience.

Maclaren’s full challenge is worth repeating:

“To repay evil with benefits, to abstain from retaliation when it is in our power, to keep our tongues from bitter and wounding words, to appeal to the adversary’s better self, even at the cost of our own dignity—all that is not easy nor usual among professing Christians. But it ought to be.”

Not easy. Not usual. “But it ought to be.”

Maclaren also offers a striking image: you can crush an iceberg to powder, but every fragment is still ice. Only sunshine melts it. Retaliation may feel like winning. It never transforms. Only love does that.

And this is precisely where David—living centuries before the cross—points us toward Jesus. Peter tells us that when Christ suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2:23). The knife was in the cave. The nails were in the soldiers’ hands. Neither was used for retaliation.

Leave it in the cave.

GOING DEEPER WITH MACLAREN The Knife in the Cave — 1 Samuel 24:4-17

Alexander Maclaren saw something in this passage that the devotional could only gesture toward. The cave scene and David’s restraint are compelling enough. But Maclaren doesn’t stop there. He follows the story to its most sobering moment—and that’s where the real weight lands.

The King Who Wept and Didn’t Change

Saul stood outside that cave and heard everything. David’s restraint. His passionate defense. His appeal to God as judge. And something broke open in the old king—at least for a moment.

He wept.

Maclaren describes it as a sudden flashing out into vehement emotion—characteristic of Saul throughout his life, and in his later years, a sign of enfeebled self-control rather than genuine repentance. There was a flicker of recognition. He called David “my son.” He confessed that David was more righteous than he was. For one brief, luminous moment, he saw himself clearly.

And then nothing changed.

Going Deeper is a weekly feature for paid subscribers of Moments with Maclaren—where we slow down, stay longer with the passage, and let Maclaren say the things a short devotional can’t hold.

This week we follow Saul’s tears to one of Maclaren’s most sobering warnings—about icebergs, about sunshine, and about what happens to the heart that feels conviction and walks away unchanged.

If that’s a conversation you want to be part of, I’d love to have you at the table.

Subscribe here — $6/month or $60/year.

Subscribe now

Going Deeper with Maclaren For Paid Subscribers

The Knife in the Cave — 1 Samuel 24:4-17

Alexander Maclaren saw something in this passage that the devotional could only gesture toward. The cave scene and David’s restraint are compelling enough. But Maclaren doesn’t stop there. He follows the story to its most sobering moment—and that’s where the real weight lands.

The King Who Wept and Didn’t Change

Saul stood outside that cave and heard everything. David’s restraint. His passionate defense. His appeal to God as judge. And something broke open in the old king—at least for a moment.

He wept.

Maclaren describes it as a “sudden flashing out into vehement emotion”—characteristic of Saul throughout his life, and in his later years, a sign of enfeebled self-control rather than genuine repentance. There was a flicker of recognition. He called David “my son.” He confessed that David was more righteous than he was. For one brief, luminous moment, he saw himself clearly.

And then nothing changed.

He went back to hunting David. The tears dried. The tyranny of his dark passions held him fast.

The Iceberg and the Sunshine

This is where Maclaren’s most striking image earns its full weight. In the devotional we touched on it briefly. But here it is in full:

You can crush an iceberg to powder. Shatter it completely. But every fragment is still ice. Only sunshine—patient, persistent, warm—melts it into something new. Something useful. Something that can give life.

Maclaren’s point is that love is the only true conqueror. Not because it overpowers—but because it transforms. Retaliation might win a moment. It never changes a heart. David’s forbearance in that cave was sunshine, not a hammer. And for one moment, it melted something in Saul.

But Saul wouldn’t stay melted.

The Warning We Don’t Talk About Enough

Here is where Maclaren says something that should stop us cold. He writes that Saul’s fleeting glimpse of his own folly—that moment of genuine emotion, genuine recognition—actually increased his guilt because he didn’t follow it up.

Read that again slowly.

The conviction we feel and ignore doesn’t leave us where it found us. It leaves us harder. Emotion that does not lead to action, Maclaren warns, hardens the heart and adds to our condemnation.

This is uncomfortably relevant. We live in an age of emotional response. We feel deeply—about injustice, about our own failures, about relationships we’ve damaged. We may even weep, like Saul. But feeling is not repenting. Recognition is not transformation. The moment of clarity that comes and goes without a decision in its wake does not leave neutral ground behind.

It leaves harder ground.

A Question Worth Sitting With

Is there a Saul moment in your own story—a time when you saw something clearly, felt it genuinely, and then went back to the way things were? What would it look like to revisit that moment now, not with guilt, but with honest intention?

David left it in the cave. Saul left his tears on the hillside.

Only one of them finished well.

THE DEEP DIVE

In this episode of The Deep Dive, we explore a thousands-of-years-old standoff in a dark, damp cave that serves as a startling mirror for our modern, divided digital age. Drawing from Chuck’s meditation, we revisit the moment David held a knife over his sleeping pursuer, King Saul, and made the agonizing, counter-cultural choice to prioritize restraint over a “perfectly justifiable” retaliation.

We unpack a challenging 19th-century quote from Alexander Maclaren that felt like a literal “slap in the face” to Chuck, confronting our modern obsession with “clapping back” and taking trophies of dominance in our office email chains and social media feeds. Using Maclaren’s powerful physics metaphor, we discuss why retaliation is merely a hammer that fragments an iceberg into more ice, while only the “sunshine” of active grace can actually melt and transform a human heart.

Join us as we learn why true power isn’t the capacity to strike down an enemy, but the spiritual discipline to “leave the knife in the cave” and protect the dignity of those who may not deserve it. As Maclaren reminds us of this difficult standard: “It is not easy. It is not usual, but it ought to be”.

BIBLE STUDY PRESENTATION

A Gift for Small Group Leaders — and Anyone Who Wants to Go Deeper

The Knife in the Cave is a visual and theological deep dive into the high-stakes encounter between King Saul and David in the wilderness of Engedi. This resource is designed to help your group or personal study navigate the complex “anatomy of a rationalization”—the moment when opportunity, means, and justification align to make retaliation feel not only logical but even spiritually sanctioned.

The presentation explores the sharp contrast between the “usual” human response to an offense and the “Ultimate Restraint” modeled by David and, ultimately, by Jesus. Using a powerful physics metaphor, these slides illustrate why retaliation acts as a “hammer” that only shatters conflict into smaller pieces of ice, while the “sunshine” of active grace is the only force capable of fundamentally changing the nature of a relationship.

Most importantly, this resource bridges the gap between an ancient cave and our modern digital landscape, challenging us to see that our keyboards today offer the exact same temptations that David faced with his knife: the power to strike unseen at the cost of our own dignity. We invite you to use these materials to explore the “Theological Blueprint” for overcoming evil with good and to embrace the final, difficult charge: “Leave it in the cave”.

It’s designed for:

• Small group leaders looking for a ready-to-use teaching tool

• Sunday school classes and Bible study groups

• Personal study and reflection

• Anyone who processes truth better through visuals

Download the full 13-slide presentation here: 👉 Bible Study Presentation - The Knife in the Cave

(PDF format — opens on any device, no special software needed.)

As always, I’d love to hear how you use it. Drop a comment below or reply to this email.

— Chuck

SMALL GROUP STUDY & DISCUSSION RESOURCES

To help your small group navigate the high-stakes choice between “clapping back” and choosing active grace, we have provided two integrated resources based on Chuck’s meditation, “The Knife in the Cave.”

Our Reflection and Discussion Guide offers probing questions to help your group deconstruct the “theological justifications” we often use for retaliation and identify the modern-day “knives”—from cutting words to digital posts—that we may need to abandon. Accompanying these prompts is the “Leave the Knife” Infographic, a visual roadmap that contrasts the “Impulse of the Cave” with the “Way of Grace”.

Together, these tools challenge your group to trade the “hammer” of retaliation, which only shatters conflict into smaller pieces of ice, for the “sunshine” of love that truly transforms an adversary. This package provides a practical framework for your group to move beyond what is “usual” and toward what Alexander Maclaren insists “ought to be” for those following the path of Jesus.

Questions for Personal Reflection or Small Group Discussion

1. David’s men had a ready-made theological justification for killing Saul—“God has delivered your enemy into your hand.” Have you ever found yourself dressing up a desire for retaliation in spiritual language? What does it look like when we put a religious varnish on our impulses?

2. Maclaren says David had the knife in his hand—and even cutting the corner of Saul’s robe troubled his conscience afterward. When is the last time your conscience caught up with you after you did something that seemed harmless in the moment? What did you do with that conviction?

3. The devotional opens with an honest admission—sometimes we don’t want to be encouragers. We want to retaliate. Where in your life right now is retaliation the easier and more appealing path? What is making it hard to leave the knife in the cave?

4. Maclaren offers a striking image: you can crush an iceberg to powder, but every fragment is still ice. Only sunshine melts it into something new. Think of a difficult relationship in your own life. Have you been reaching for the hammer—or the sunshine? What would sunshine actually look like in that situation?

5. Saul wept. He saw himself clearly for one brief moment—and then went back to hunting David. Maclaren warns that emotion which doesn’t lead to action hardens the heart. Is there a conviction you’ve felt recently—about a relationship, a pattern, a response—that you’ve felt but not acted on? What would one faithful step look like this week?

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A Topical Guide to Moments with Maclaren

Genesis through Job

A curated index of biblical themes drawn from Alexander Maclaren’s expositions, designed to help readers trace Scripture’s enduring questions of faith, suffering, hope, and devotion.

Compiled for readers of Moments with Maclaren

by Chuck Nutt

This index is provided for paid subscribers as a living reference tool—designed for return, reflection, and slow engagement with Scripture.

This index draws together themes from Moments with Maclaren, a curated collection of passages from Alexander Maclaren’s Expositions of Holy Scripture that have shaped my own reading of Scripture. At present, the index spans Genesis through Job, with additional books added as the work continues.

Welcome to Moments with Maclaren for Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Glad you're here!

He was just looking for donkeys.

That’s where the story of Israel’s first king begins — not in a throne room, not in a battle, but on an errand. Saul, son of Kish, trudging through the hill country of Benjamin looking for lost livestock. Nothing remarkable about it. Just a tall young man doing what his father asked.

And then Samuel speaks words that must have stopped him cold:

No posturing. No hidden ambition. Genuine surprise.

Alexander Maclaren, reflecting on this moment, issues a quiet warning:

To sail with low sails. That phrase struck me — I had to look it up. It’s a classic 17th-century nautical idiom meaning to move through life with humility and caution — ‘keeping a low profile,’ ‘staying grounded.’

And a little more recent ancient history—a conversation from the spring of 1977.

I was a young, part-time youth pastor. A new senior pastor had come, fresh from seminary. Our brief year together was challenging. Near the end of that season, I shared a little of the story with a denominational leader. He listened, then said something that stopped me the way Samuel’s words must have stopped Saul: “He’s threatened by you.”

I did not see that coming. I wasn’t trying to threaten anyone. My whole plan, before he ever came, was to head off to seminary the summer of ‘77—a thousand miles away.

I’ve reflected on it many times since. Here’s what I’ve come to understand: sometimes the wind fills your sails whether you intend it or not. Confidence, gifting, calling — these aren’t sins. But they can create friction in others even when you believe your heart is in the right place.

The answer isn’t to shrink your calling. It’s to carry it with greater grace, greater self-awareness, and a tighter grip on the One who gave it—and I am still working on that lesson.

Saul started well. The donkey errand was honest work, faithfully done. He was sailing with low sails, and he didn’t even know it.

But somewhere between the hill country of Benjamin and the throne of Israel, he lost his grip.

Fair beginnings may end ill.

So, keep a ‘steady head’, and ‘sail with low sails’—and keep checking whether the wind has shifted.

"Thanks for being a part of this community. We all know someone who is trying to sail with low sails — or who needs to hear that the shifting winds aren't their fault. Pass this along. The share button is right below."

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TUESDAY, APRIL 28, 2026

From mid-2006 to early 2009, I spent a lot of time on airplanes. I was working as a consultant to Christian organizations. My work took me from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Tampa, Florida, from Massachusetts to Los Angeles. It was fun! But spending that much time on airplanes will teach you at least two things: one – to lose any thrill you might have for air travel, and two – you are not in control.

I remember one trip in particular. I was flying to San Antonio for a conference, connecting through Dallas Love Field on Southwest. Storms had pushed us far off course, circling wide around the worst of it before we finally touched down in Dallas — late. The San Antonio flight was long gone. No hotel nearby. Just me, my carry-on, and a night on the floor of Love Field airport.

Lying there, I had a lot of time to think about control—specifically, how little of it I actually had. I couldn’t move the storms. I couldn’t speed up the plane. I couldn’t un-miss the connection. All I could do was be there, in that airport, at that hour, waiting.

That’s when it hit me: most of what we call “being in control” is really just things going the way we planned. When they don’t—and they won’t—we discover what we actually trust.

I like being in control. Most of us do. It’s a great idea, too, to control the things we should—my lack of patience, my temper, my responsibilities. No one said it would be easy.

But we live in a chaotic world. And if the world isn’t out of control, most of it is out of my—our—control.

But God has another idea. Note our text above. He offers peace for our life in an out-of-control world. It is conditional. It means trusting God—that means surrendering control. No worries. Mostly, you don’t have it anyway. It also means fixing our thoughts on Him. That is much harder with all that clamors for our attention.

Alexander Maclaren clarifies the benefits for me:

Let me give you my quick take on these thoughts:

• Strife – ALL the hard stuff

• Courage – needed for the hard stuff – the annoying little irritations that drive you —OK, me—crazy, the shattering diagnosis, the difficult and broken relationships, the lost job . . .

• The heart at leisure to fling all its power into the conflict – the peace of God is a mighty weapon in life’s battles

• The consciousness of a divine ally – the awareness of God’s presence and promise to be with you — through it all

Wow. Surrender the control you don’t actually have. Trust God. Fix your thoughts on Him.

Hard to believe? Perhaps. But I have found it so.

When life shatters your world, the peace of God will help you pick up the pieces.

This week I'm also including five questions for personal reflection or group discussion. Use them on your own, share them with a friend, or bring them to your small group.

1. The Illusion of Control Think of a time when circumstances completely overturned your plans — a missed connection, an unexpected diagnosis, a relationship that fell apart. What did that experience reveal about what you were actually trusting in?

2. The Things We Should Control Chuck mentions that controlling our patience, temper, and responsibilities is a worthy goal — and not easy. Which of these is your greatest personal challenge right now? What would intentional growth look like in that area?

3. Fixed Thoughts Isaiah 26:3 links perfect peace to where we fix our thoughts. What competes most loudly for your attention and pulls your thoughts away from God? What is one practical step you could take this week to redirect your focus?

4. Maclaren’s Three Benefits Alexander Maclaren describes the peace of God as producing courage, freedom to engage fully in life’s battles, and awareness of a divine ally. Which of these three do you need most right now — and why?

5. “But I Have Found It So” Chuck closes with a quiet personal testimony: Hard to believe? Perhaps. But I have found it so. Can you point to a specific season of your life when God’s peace proved real in the middle of chaos? What would it mean to trust that same peace today?

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Joshua was old. Not only old — advanced in years. And God, looking over the landscape of his long and faithful life, said essentially: here is what you did not get accomplished.

Was God rubbing it in?

Alexander Maclaren didn’t think so. He saw in that moment something every one of us eventually faces:

Sunday evening, July 30, 1967. The last service of Sebring Campmeeting. I was thirteen years old, just finishing my first year in the Youth Program. I remember next to nothing about that service. But what I do remember changed my life.

Dr. Morton Dorsey was the preacher. His text was Romans 12:1-2, and I remember it the way I first heard it — in the King James: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

Then, somewhere in that service, I heard something — not audibly, but unmistakably — “Go tell My people.” For nearly sixty years, I have recognized that as my Calling Moment.

I could say things didn’t turn out exactly as I planned. But upon honest reflection, occasionally I fell short of the planning itself. And since God so loved the world, I’ll admit I sometimes had a little trouble figuring out which of “My people” He had in mind.

Now here I am — a bit like Joshua. Old. My grandchildren are fairly certain I am “advanced in years,” and I’m not inclined to argue. But I have done some thinking, and I do have a plan: hang around to love and torment those grandchildren for years to come. It’s clear they are a great part of “My people” for this season.

I have other plans, too. You, reading this, are among them. My list, for an old guy, is actually quite long.

And yet — Maclaren’s words are a deep comfort to me. The limitations he describes don’t arrive in old age. They have been with us all our lives. The unfinished land is not a verdict on Joshua’s faithfulness. It is simply the nature of the fragment.

If the fiery cross we carry is the one Jesus himself has called us to pick up, we can be content. Our calling is bigger than us. It always has been. It is one thread in a story far greater than any single life.

It is a privilege — and a blessing — to carry that cross a little way.

To each of us, there will come a day when Jesus says of our time, “It is done.” And though we may feel, on that day, that something remains unfinished — there will be “other hands.”

“Let us see that we do our own fragment.”

Chuck Nutt writes Moments with Maclaren every Tuesday.

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Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,

“O sun, stand still at Gibeon,
And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.”
So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. -- Joshua 10:10-12

What parent or grandparent hasn’t felt this in some way? Wishing to stop time—and life—from sliding away.

A couple weeks ago, I attended a once-in-a-lifetime event. Being the grouchy grandpa I can be, I didn’t want to go. Neither, at the time, did I recognize its once-in-a-lifetime uniqueness. But because I could and because I should, I decided to fulfill my ‘Papa’ duties.

And there they were, four classrooms of 7 & 8 year-olds—second graders—on the stage, on risers, each one holding a ‘Stuffie’ (a stuffed animal toy for the uneducated). And everyone in pajamas, too! They were presenting a program of rousing music which served as a narrative of the bed-time hour in a young children home. And honestly, I have to say--’as they say’, “It was the cutest thing!”

As a lifetime musician, I was thoroughly impressed by a talented teacher who worked just one hour a week with each class for the previous three months to pull this together. Complete with brief speaking parts by several children, motions, enthusiastic singing, and smiles all around, the kids did a fantastic job! And they had a blast!

It wasn’t till later that the once-in-a-lifetime quality hit me. Sure. Those kids little realized they would never again gather on that stage as those same four second grade glasses of Northside Elementary. Never again would they sing the same songs and do the crazy motions with the same friends around them as did that day.

Once-in-a-lifetime, and never again.

Maclaren also said, “Strenuous work is the true way to lengthen each day. Time is infinitely elastic. The noblest work is to do ‘the works of Him that sent me.’”

So, today I am thinking that part of the strenuous work and the work that Jesus has sent me to do is ‘to wake up to’ and ‘capture the memory’ of the once-in-a-lifetimes—the fleeting moments that, most likely, will never come again. Quite often, there is something precious profound in them.

If we can ‘wake up’ and ‘capture’, we will be doing some of the work that Jesus sent you and me to do. And if we hold them precious and profound, who knows what battles may be won? And Maclaren adds, “If so, the passing day will have results that never pass.”

No, the sun will not stop its journey across our skies and time will not stand still.

But, there are moments . . . .

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