The absurd responsibility never seems to leave for very long. It swoops in from the distance and circles above me with mysterious purpose. Then it lands on my shoulder with a weight that I am unsuited to sustain; and it sits there, refusing to leave.

The hat I wear changes often as day gives way to day. Sometimes I’m a father and husband endeavoring to be bold, strong, gentle, and calm all at once. At other times, I’m a friend balancing an understanding ear with the clash of iron sharpening iron. I am a pastor trying to point the way to righteousness while inwardly I grapple with that very thing.

At all times I am a believer who often struggles to believe. I am a paradox; a jar of clay holding the treasure of heaven.

So, I sit in tension, trying to make sense of it all.

The eyes that look to me, know me. They know how frail and foolish I can be. But they remain here, depending on me. Why?

And, there is One Who knows me better than any of them possibly could. He is the One Who keeps sending the weight down to my shoulders. He knows my weaknesses so well that He sent His Son to die for me. I couldn’t have reached Him otherwise. He sent His Holy Spirit to indwell me because there was no other way I’d make it alone.

Still, He chooses me. Why?

In some ways I feel perfectly adequate as a messenger, it’s just in the ways that matter least.

I am not known for my elegant fashion – which is to say, I usually dress for comfort. I love my shorts and novelty T-shirts. It’s all a part of the package of my “dad” mystique.

But, I would never dream of dressing like that for an important meeting; especially when I’m representing our church. When I’m representing others, I want to honor that trust and privilege. It’s a responsibility that demands dignity. Even if I’m not comfortable, I’m answering to a higher call.

But presentation aside, I almost never feel unworthy of representing our church. Privileged yes; unworthy no. I’ve been doing this for a very long time now. I’m comfortable with it and reasonably good at it.

The clothes are a necessary inconvenience – window dressing to get them to pay attention to the substance that I already possess. And it’s made all the easier when I casually forget that I’m doing this as an ambassador of God.

But everything flips when I consider what I do in the light of Whom I am doing it for.

On the face of it, it seems absurd to claim to speak for God. After all, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. I can’t even approach His throne to beg for mercy without the covering of grace through His Son Jesus Christ. How, then, can I possibly carry His words to the World?

As a minister serving Jesus, I feel much more comfortable with the window-dressing of my appearance than I do the substance of my worth. I can copy the image of a pastor fairly easily. I cannot even pretend to be worthy of being God’s messenger.

Yet, that is precisely what I am every time my children crawl up on my lap asking me to tell them a Bible story. I’m a messenger. That’s what I do when I stand in the pulpit or offer counsel to a friend. I’m a minister.

All in the name of Jesus Christ. The words that I am saying are often being received as having His authority. That’s a terrifying responsibility.

Our lot as believers is to take human words, interpretations, personality, limitations, and ultimately – fallibility – and in spite of it all undertake communicating the character and Word of God faithfully.

That’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? The people who are listening to me are counting on me to represent Christ accurately. The framework of my children’s theology is being constructed on the basis of what they see and hear from me. My church has entrusted me to accurately teach God’s Word. My neighbor, who has yet to accept my invitation to church and doesn’t own a Bible, sees and hears me.

And the thing is, I know that God is perfectly capable of speaking for Himself. He didn’t ask Peter to affirm the divinity of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. His own eternal voice irrupted into Creation to proudly announce, “This is my beloved Son with Whom I am well pleased.”

So – why would He speak through me? He’s seen previous messengers use His holy name to promote their own selfish words. He’s heard well-intentioned men make a complete mess of the things He has said.

Everything inside of me confesses I can’t be trusted when the stakes are this high. I love God. I want to honor Him. But far too often I fail. He can do it far better than me.

That’s the thing, He is so good at what He does that His strength is perfected even in my weakness. I can speak for God because He abides in me. His intention was never for me to be a jar of clay struggling to contain the fullness of glory. His glory is remolding and refining me.

I can speak for God; not as some loose cannon sanctifying my every whim with a haphazard flourish of His name, but as a fountain who has been filled to overflowing with His Word.

And, if my strength is not my oratory, then neither is it my piety. He doesn’t studiously follow me hiding my failure to prop up a false vision of a perfect life. He pulls my failures out into the open and draws words of full repentance from my mouth. As I stand trembling, waiting for lightning to strike, the heavens receive my plea and mercy rains down instead.

The responsibility is only absurd when we think of it as our burden to bear, as if we are autonomously serving God from our own strength. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are vessels formed of lowly clay but made fit for the Master’s use.

I LOVE TO TELL THE STORY

by Katherine Hankey

I love to tell the story;

More wonderful it seems

Than all the golden fancies

Of all my golden dreams,

I love to tell the story,

It did so much for me;

And that is just the reason

I tell it now to thee.

I love to tell the story,

’Twill be my theme in glory

To tell the old, old story

of Jesus and His love.

I’m not going to lie. Ministry is hard.

It’s not the kind of hard that causes dirt to cling to your sweat-drenched clothes. Nor is it the kind that puts your life in imminent daily danger. I would never confuse typical ministry with that.

It is hard on your heart.

It asks you to sacrifice your ambitions for a life of service. It requires you to care while others cannot be bothered. It compels you to endure when no one offers thanks and, instead, take advantage of you or say unkind things behind your back.

No sane person would willingly sign up for a job like that. A casual glance could immediately pick out a thousand red flags.

God doesn’t ask us to ignore that. He simply asks us to take another, more informed glance through the eyes of faith.

A Look Behind The Curtain Can’t Show You Everything

I first felt pulled toward ministry as a young teenage boy. In truth, it was kind of taken for granted by many around me. Both my father and grandfather were pastors and I wanted to be just like them. I would go to sleep at night with visions of traveling to far-flung lands and leading thousands to Christ. It was my dream.

But the closer that I drew to leaving home and entering “real life,” the more that I began to resent the expectations and the idea of a calling. I had lived around ministry all of my life and had watched the toll that it had taken on the ones that I loved.

So, quietly, I just stopped talking about it and hoped that everyone else would forget. To their credit, no one ever pushed me about my sudden silence, even when I accepted a scholarship to a public university to pursue a career far away from ministry.

The night before I left home, I was sitting in the front yard with my dad. The air was clear that night as we sat beneath a tree and I remember how brightly the stars shone.

We spoke the awkward phrases of a father and son who were reaching a turning point in their relationship. He offered his advice, hard-learned through his own experience, and challenged me to cling to my faith. And somewhere in the middle of it all, the dam burst.

I confessed that I knew – I didn’t know how, but I knew that God was calling me to be a pastor. I have no idea what went through my father’s mind at the sudden turn of the conversation. He didn’t say a lot. Mostly, he just listened.

Finally, he firmly but gently asked me why I didn’t want to do it if I was so convinced that it was what God wanted me to do. So, I told him the truth. I told him how I had seen the price he and our family had paid. I told him that I had seen sleepless nights, financial pressures and so many other things that played no part in the life that I wanted.

He didn’t deny a single word. He simply waited for me to finish and shared one simple, brilliant thought. He said, “Yes, you’ve seen some of the cost that ministry can carry. The cost is always the easiest thing to see from the outside. But you can never know the joy of serving God with complete abandon until you’re willingly doing it from the inside.”

Conviction is the Great Determiner

I’m 52 years old now and I’ve been a pastor for more than two-thirds of my life. Although it seems completely crazy to me, I’ve been pastoring now a full decade longer than my dad had been when he shared his wisdom with me all of those years ago.

I certainly don’t feel like I’m all that wise, but I do have my share of experiences. As an 18-year-old boy, I only had a glimpse behind the curtain. I’ve lived it now for most of my life.

Many of my fears were made reality. I’ve been lonely for the majority of my life, which is rather odd considering my job consists of working with people. But ministry sets you apart just as a parent isn’t the best friend of their child no matter how much they love each other. They’re the parent.

I’ve lost countless hours of sleep worrying and praying over things that otherwise had nothing to do with me. I’ve sat in the office for long hours sharing counsel only to watch people plunge headlong into disaster anyway. And then stayed around to try and help pick up the pieces.

But in the experience, I learned something about these “costs” that I was never able to glean as I watched from a safe distance.

I’ve learned that a lot of the things I had perceived as costs are actually the results of my own imperfections. I never considered that the pastor sometimes gives bad advice. They sometimes react foolishly in anger or ignore something far too long for some petulant reason.

I never considered it until I found myself doing all of those things and then turning to God, begging Him to please clean up my mess!

But the main thing experience has taught me is the truth of my father’s counsel from so many years ago. The joy of willingly serving God can only ever be experienced from the inside as our hearts meld themselves to His.

Oh, I could see the clues back then. I saw my grandfather have peace when he should have been falling apart. I saw my dad endure when he had every financial and self-care reason to just walk away. But those glimpses lacked the context of experience and I could not understand it. It didn’t present as joy; it looked like inexplicable craziness.

Here’s the thing – ministry is hard, burnout is real, and loneliness is a thing. And the peace that comes from Christ still surpasses them all. What can compare with Him looking down approvingly at our pitiful efforts and whispering, “Well done!”?

In spite of some of my worst efforts, I have experienced the joy of His delight in my offerings. And that changes everything. The taste of His pleasure in our service changed a boy who never wanted to start into a man that never wants to quit – even when he wants to quit.

It sounds trite, but our conviction is the great determiner of whether we will find ministry worth the cost.

I used to read Paul and be mystified. How could anyone say, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls. If I love you more, am I to be loved less?” What about that kind of circumstance would make the minister “most glad?”

Jesus.

That kind of conviction doesn’t mean that I am glad in every moment. It means that I have already counted the cost and decided that serving Jesus in His Church is worth far more than its pain.

That is why I pray for God to send more people into His service. That’s why I encourage young believers at Mosaic to get involved in ministry in spite of what I know about hardships.

Coming to know Christ was a joy. Helping someone else to know Him makes that joy complete.

Hours turn into days turn into weeks.

And for those of you who know, time does not exist in the hospital. Time washes away in the never-ending routine of vital checks, bandage dressing, IV drips, the physician rounds, or the pending result from blood drawn or a naked body scanned.

The outside weather; morning, evening; sunrise and sunset; the familiar routines of weekday to weekend - they all disappear in the hospital.

Time does not exist in here.

I was sitting with a woman whose own legs stopped working years ago. One crisis after another landed her in one of many facilities that were overburdened, understaffed, and overlooked. It seemed like a never-ending nightmare.

Yet, she held a sweet spirit and a child-like love for God - trusting his goodness through all the ups and downs. And there were many ups and downs. But even in the questioning, she looked to God like a father. She had many questions, but she always directed them to her heavenly father. She always went to him first.

In our brief couple of visits, we prayed for healing. We prayed for her endurance in waiting. We prayed for her to end up in the right place with the right care.

There was one thought nagging at her though. She kept saying she hoped God would be able to use her somehow. She’d recount the ways she would uplift nursing staff, CNA’s, and residents in the facilities. But she kept wondering if God could use her so much more if she did not have this paralysis. What if she did not have this poor health keeping her down? She was pained by this.

So, I asked her if she believed that God was using her right now?

The woman looked down - unsure. How could he be using her right now? She was here, in the hospital, stuck.

I then asked her why she thought I was at the hospital.

She looked up and gave a puzzled look. It was a bit of an off-the-wall question, but she humored me.

I told her that God had placed me in this hospital to bring the hope of Christ into rooms where people were hurting. I could not do that unless I was first present in this place. And the hospital was a place full of staff, residents, and families to reach - every day, coming and going. There were plenty of people here without hope who needed hope.

I told her I imagined she was here at the hospital for the same reason. She even looked more puzzled by this statement.

But you see, the only difference between us was that she was sharing her faith in the midst of a very public hardship. Her faith was no doubt loud and clear. Despite her suffering and loneliness, she proclaimed the goodness of God with joy and kindness. What an incredible witness to those without faith - to see how good God is. This woman had a deep joy and kindness when so many earthly hopes had disappeared. This speaks of some hidden treasure she’d found, one that surpassed the treasures of this earthly life. It begs the question doesn’t it: what have you found?

She smiled.

She understood.

No, this did not take away her pain or suffering. It did not answer all her questions. But I think she began to realize that God was not hindered in using her because of this hospitalization or paralysis. In fact, there was a great opportunity here for God to use her in a mighty way.

Knowing her faith and spirit in that short time, this was not an opportunity she was going to fumble anytime soon.

To the sick believer entrapped in their sickness; to the believer stuck in and out of the hospital; to the believer who questions how they can be purposeful for God in the midst of their own fleshly prison - I want to encourage you as Paul was encouraged in his own imprisonment.

He writes to the Philippians, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear” (1:12-14).

The hospital is the unexpected trip to prison, an obstacle in our plan to serve God. No one sets out to serve God with a plan that includes hospitalization, chronic sickness, or a life-altering diagnosis.

No one considers this to be an ideal strategy for our lives. No one plans for it as a life goal.

Paul didn’t and you and I certainly don’t.

Yet, Paul looks past the obvious fact that the imprisonment is an obstacle and instead chooses to see divine opportunity laying behind it.

His imprisonment has given him two opportunities. The first is the opportunity to reach others he otherwise would never have met. The second opportunity is to share the hope of the Gospel in the midst of earthly suffering. This is about showing the resilience of our joy and faith in Christ despite the shattering of earthly expectations. This is because it rests in the resurrected Christ who overcomes earthly sorrows.

Perhaps you are facing a life-altering diagnosis that will forever limit your life in some way. Perhaps you are facing chronic pain that seems to inhibit your ability to do more for your church, your family, or your community. Perhaps you have spent more time in and out of the hospital than you have in your own home.

You may very well be facing the imprisonment of a healthcare crisis.

But you are not alone and you have not fallen out of the Lord’s purpose for your life.

Instead, there may be an incredible opportunity to show others the vitality of your faith - not necessarily in a squeaky clean fashion but in your consistent trust in God. Who knows the other people who will cross you in your detour. Who knows the doctors, nurses, patients, and families that need to see your faith - the faith that simply clings to God and doesn’t let go.

Even as you wrestle with the “why” and even as you cry yourself to sleep or struggle with anxiety or lose your temper because of the incessant pain, you keep trusting in the goodness of God who sympathizes with your weakness. You show the watching world that Christ is worthy enough to trust. He is good enough.

And when people ask for the hope that is within you, no one can question your testimony. How can they? Suffering has a way of highlighting our most sincere values and hopes.

But Paul has more to say. There is something else his own imprisonment has accomplished.

Paul’s imprisonment has emboldened other believes to share their faith and speak without fear. They see Paul’s steadfast faith in the trial, and they begin to envision the possibility of how God can sustain them in their own trials to come.

As a chaplain, I recognize I am called into these rooms to minister, but often times I walk away ministered to.

I am emboldened by these imprisoned souls.

They seem to have every obstacle and frustration thrown at them. They seem to have every excuse to toss in the towel and curse God. They have every reason to be angry, every reason to be embittered; but instead, I find pure joy and deep kindness in their eyes and tone. I hear their child-like faith that states they love God even when their pain is an 8 or 9, even when the remission never comes, and when death sounds sweeter than the years of pain that awaits them.

Their faith encourages me as they lay on the bed.

I realize there is hope. I know I have plenty more suffering coming my way, but I’ve seen it’s possible.

God can sustain you in the worst.

It is possible. Thank God, it is possible.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

Isn’t it odd that sometimes, underneath the surface of our deepest, sweetest sleep, our mind is never really at rest? We dream. And sometimes, the dreams speak.

It was so vivid that night. I had closed my eyes after another day of mental struggle trying to sort through my life. I knew the same issues would still be waiting for me in the morning, but sleep is a persistent companion. It will not be forever ignored.

As I surrendered to its embrace, I entered the woods that surrounded my childhood home. I hadn’t been there for years but it was the most familiar it had ever been. Every sense – smell, touch, sight, taste, sound – was a trigger to another memory. The delicate scent of the honeysuckle made me feel like a child again, seated beneath it and pulling out its stem to extract a single drop of the sweetest dew.

Behind me, in the distance, hung a somber cloud. But the low rumble of its threatening thunder was lost among the chorus before me. The harmony of the wind and birds was mesmerizing. But something deeper in the woods broke my reverie.

Someone was waiting for me out there and I didn’t know how I knew. It wasn’t an alert from my senses because I hadn’t heard a sound or seen a thing. But He was there – God.

It was so strange. I felt like He was calling me to Him, though I hadn’t heard a voice. Reverence permeated the invitation. I wanted to sit in front of Him, look Him in the eye, and pour out all of my problems. I wanted to be wrapped up in His embrace. I just didn’t know if I could.

And as I stood there frozen with indecision… He came to me.

I wouldn’t say I saw Him exactly. He remained just beyond my vision at the edge of the trees, though I felt like I could see something like wisps of a cloud. What I could not see, I could definitely feel.

We stood there in silence. I had questions that I wanted to ask: whys and hows, mostly about my problems. I had wished a thousand times that I could stand here, in a place like this and ask these questions to Him directly. Now, I couldn’t. “Should I take off my shoes?”

Then, His voice broke the silence. It was just a whisper, but it drowned out everything else around us. The roll of thunder that had been inching nearer, fell silent. Even the birds and the breeze had bowed their heads as if in hushed worship. The whisper demanded that I lean in to listen, but the words were unmistakable.

“I’ve heard your prayers. Every single one. I’ve seen your tears, felt your fears, tasted your anguish. Tomorrow, I will return and you will have one minute to ask anything you’d like.”

Before any words could form on my tongue asking for clarification, I woke up in my bed.

Normally, I would have lain there trying to sort out where the dream ended and reality began. But not that morning. I had never been more convinced of the reality of God. To be honest, prayer had often seemed like a dream to me. I was always half convinced that Someone was listening and half fearful that it was all fantasy.

Not today. This had happened.

One minute. I mean, sixty seconds to say whatever I wanted to God. I felt like a member of an exclusive club! I didn’t even think my pastor had ever received an invitation like that. But what could you ask in one minute? I had so many problems and things that I had never understood and never been able to forget.

But there were issues so much larger than mine in the world as well. Should I ask about hunger, disease…war?

I started to type out notes on my phone, but that didn’t seem worshipful enough. So I dug through the drawers of my desk for some paper and pen to organize my thoughts. I needed to craft the question perfectly.

I barely moved from my chair all morning. Hunger and all appointments were forgotten as if they had been the dream. I must have written and scratched out a thousand lines that morning. Nothing sounded quite right.

Only one minute with God. Why would He make it so short? He created time so surely He could afford a little more.

Then, on the corner of my desk under a pile of books and papers to be sorted out “later”, I saw my Bible. I reached for it, desperate for some insight into how to distill life’s problems into sixty seconds of words.

Genesis seemed like a reasonable place to start, but I had a hard time getting beyond the phrase, “In the beginning God…” That had always seemed like a fantasy tale, invented to grab the minds of children. But I had been in His presence for those few fleeting moments and it brought weight and meaning to familiar, overlooked words.

I sat there reading, crying, and reading some more. I read until I nearly forgot why. Then… I was startled by a yawn.

“Not yet!” I momentarily panicked. I didn’t have a single clue of what to ask God. But, behind the panic came peace. It was the strangest peace. It didn’t come from me, but it possessed me.

And I slept. Almost immediately I found myself back at my childhood home. It was as vibrant as I remembered. The same smells filled the air, the same gentle breeze blew.

Then, the colors began to dim. At first, it was almost imperceptible. But quickly it resembled my present neighborhood more than a dream. It wasn’t ugly, just a little more… plain.

Suddenly, I was back at my desk. Had I been robbed of my one minute? I had no idea what I would have asked, but I definitely wanted to ask it!

Then, a whisper. The same quiet, demanding whisper from before. I couldn’t quite make out the words this time, but I knew the voice. And the room seemed alive.

“Why, God?” That was my question. “Why?”

“Why what?” He replied.

I didn’t know. So, I deflected, “What about my one minute?”

“My child,” He whispered, “I’m here. I’ve always been here. Ask.”
I still don’t know where the words came from, but I meant them more than any I had ever spoken before. “I don’t even know what to ask. Would you mind if I just listened a little longer?”

“Yes, my child.”

And I awoke.

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In our living room is a sofa that wraps around one half of the room. It’s a rather unassuming sofa, the same color brown that you’ll find in a thousand other homes. It doesn’t do anything special, other than recline. Its only function is as a place to sit. And the first seat on that sofa is mine.

For all of its blatant ordinariness, that sofa is the most unstable place in the house; at least for me. Its location never changes, but the perspective it offers is in a state of constant churn.

I’m a minister. That seat is where I sit at the end of the day. The path that leads me to it is always a little different. Sometimes I arrive from preaching and other times from visiting the sick, listening to a couple struggling in their marriage or officiating a wedding. Just as often, I sit there as a husband and a dad. Regardless of the path, I always end up there. And while I sit, I think, until my thoughts run away with me.

Did I actually help anyone? Did I try my best? Was it enough?

How do you even begin to evaluate the quality of the work that you do in service of the Lord?

The Problem of Anticipation

I still remember when we bought that couch. My wife and I were newly married and just beginning to merge the dreams we had always had for our futures. To me, a new sofa embodied all of that.

As we wandered around the furniture store hand-in-hand, I couldn’t help but imagine how the pieces would look in our home. I pictured watching movies with my wife’s head resting on my shoulder while our kids fell asleep around us. I thought of all the families that would come to visit us and the kinds of conversation that we would enjoy.

I settled on the brown leather one because it seemed perfect. (And, it had an extended length on one end that teased the perfect nap!)

All of that has happened to some degree. But, I must confess, my family likes sitting around the kitchen table more than they like the couch. Our visitors often do as well.

You can dream about the future, but that doesn’t mean you understand it.

I started ministry as a very young man with those same types of anticipation dancing in my head. I loved the Lord, but there was a lot of hubris in my dreams as well.

When I closed my eyes, I envisioned preaching to throngs of people. And my sermons were always filled with wit, wisdom and power. I knew that parishioners would come to me for advice – and in my mind, I would always have just the right answer.

That’s to say nothing of the amazing family man that I was going to become. My wife wouldn’t be able to believe how lucky she was and all my kids’ friends would be jealous of their amazing dad!

Anticipation is the perfect breeding ground for beautiful dreams. It doesn’t have to deal with the complications of reality.

The Problem of Introspection

Though my family favors the kitchen table, I still have a stubborn affinity for my old sofa. Despite being outside the parameters of my plans, things have worked out fine. I love my family and it’s a blessing to have people over to our house in spite of where they choose to sit.

But that sofa holds the investment of my visions and dreams. I’ll always feel the pull to sit over there. Maybe someday, everyone else will understand how right I am. It really is the best place to sit and be together!

I suppose that same attitude is the catalyst for those disorienting evenings evaluating how I’ve served the Lord. I don’t like the way reality interrupts the visions of my mind.

I’ve been preaching for 32 years now and I’m a much better speaker today than when I began. But there are Sundays that I’ve sat on that sofa thinking it probably would have been better if I hadn’t preached at all.

In fact, for all the dreams I had of speaking to thousands, I’m not even the most gifted speaker in my own church.

People do come to me for counsel and advice. I’ve even helped a few over the years. I’ve also lost a lot of sleep over less than stellar words that have escaped my lips. What if I made someone’s life worse?

I’ve had angry words with my wife and lost my patience with my kids. Somehow they still love me, but I’m definitely not the world’s greatest husband or dad. I don’t think I’ve even made the top ten.

It’s a good thing to be self-aware; it is. But quite often our introspection is based on anticipations that never came from the God we serve. It leaves us sitting alone, half-sorry and half-full of self pity. And it’s all for nought because we’re using the wrong standard of measure.

I sit on the sofa evaluating reality from the uninformed perspective of dreams.

What Really Matters

Everyday is its own unique path that somehow ends up at the same, blatantly ordinary sofa. Yet, it never quite “sits” the same. Sometimes I rest straight and tall with satisfaction and others, I’m slumped over in meditative despair.

No, the sofa isn’t what I thought it would be. Neither is the view. Because on the opposite wall hangs a plaque that not another soul on this Earth would want hanging in their home.

It’s emblazoned with the title, “In the words of the great philosopher Faron Thebeau.” It was a pastor appreciation gift from my church a couple of years ago. Everybody from the church was invited to write one of their favorite quotes from me and add it to the plaque.

Among other stunningly brilliant observations are phrases like: “Flying wombats.” “Lemme holla at ya for a moment.” And, “I climbed a mountain once, and then fell back down.”

No other home in the world would want that plaque because they lack the context necessary to appreciate it.

I once envisioned all the wisdom I would share with the flock that God trusted to me. Instead, this is what stuck. And these silly, nonsense phrases have taught me to appreciate what really matters.

They mean something to our church because they are shared experiences. We’ve been together through many things over the years. They keep coming back, trusting me, and loving me – not because of my excellent sermons and even better advice – but because I’ve been there.

A friend, , said the other day, “Words reach people, and that matters, but there’s a particular weight to being in the room, weeping when they weep, staying when there’s nothing useful to say. I’ve come to think presence helps less because it fixes anything and more because it stops a person carrying the thing alone.”

What happens if my family finds its comfort around a table when I wanted it to be the sofa? Do I push my vision or do I lean into what the Lord has so kindly provided?

My Church and family don’t need to be impressed by my greatness. They just need to see Christ working in me.

Sitting on my sofa, my mind begins to whirl. “Did I actually help anyone?” “Did I try my best?” “Was it enough?”

Then a still small voice begins to whisper in my ear, “Were you there?”

After all, that is precisely what Jesus modeled for us. He is Immanuel. God with us.

And He is teaching me that I won’t be measured on the greatness of my gifts and abilities. As a minister, a husband, and a father, I will be weighed against faithfulness.

My sofa is starting to get old. The leather is becoming worn and cracked in a few spots. It never quite worked out the way I envisioned, but it has served its created purpose.

It speaks to those who know me. I sat there. And that gives it context.

It was rather unsettling – that long, empty hall. I was standing motionless, but still it felt like it was pulling me in.

I was attending a conference at the Lake of the Ozarks and had just arrived at the resort. It was bustling with people; so much so that I almost didn’t find a parking spot. I’m not a “big crowds” kind of person, so it was almost a relief when I stepped onto the elevator. It was empty.

My room was on the first floor. The resort was built into the hillside, so the front of my floor was underground while the back opened up out onto the lake. I was really excited to see the view; feel the breeze on the balcony.

But that hallway affected me. It was just a transition from where all the people were to the privacy of my room. Just a transition, but it was so long, so empty – so still. It made me feel like there were no other people around and that there was no sanctuary on the other side. It made me feel stuck and alone.

The Plague of Loneliness

Loneliness is a parasite. Its whisper enters our ear as it feeds on our deepest fears. Once it has secured its foothold, the voice continues to amplify, drowning out all others until we feel utterly alone.

The great contradiction is that the world is filled to overflowing with people who feel alone.

Loneliness sidles up to the elderly – those who have survived heartbreak, struggles, and tragedies. And it uses their very survival against them. A spouse dies, then a friend, and before they know it most of their generation is gone, leaving them alone with their experiences.

It enters into the home of a happily married couple of twenty years and slides in between them as their children begin to leave the nest. Insidiously, it wonders out loud if they even really know each other anymore.

It targets the young and the full of life who are interconnected in thousands of ways. It laughs as it scrolls through their social media, telling them that everyone else is experiencing the fun and joy that they are missing out on.

Yes, loneliness is a parasite. It takes the wonder and experiences of your God-given life and leeches them off through jealousy and fear. It magnifies the agony of a moment while distracting from its context. That is the one thing that it can never allow you to consider. Because, if painful moments are considered from the view of glory, even the empty spaces begin to have meaning.

It cannot allow that, because those seemingly empty, liminal spaces are its feeding ground.

The Dread of Liminal Spaces

Maybe this is the first time that you’ve heard about liminal spaces. Or maybe you’ve known about them for years. Regardless of which camp you are in, you’ve experienced them. You have felt them.

They are the transitions from one place to another. If you’ve ever gone through an airport terminal, sat in a waiting room, or even stared down a long, empty hallway, you’ve been in a liminal space.

For some people, they are beautiful. A friend of mine recently shared his experience. He told me wistfully how he missed sitting on a jetty watching the sun set over the Irish Sea. He said, “I would have the waves crashing below me, as I was neither on shore nor at sea. And it would be neither day nor night.” Beautiful. Peaceful.

It reminded me of the anticipation I would feel in my youth, driving out of a foggy river bottom in the early morning and breaking forth into a sunlit countryside.

But for many, liminal spaces have become a catchphrase for places of dread. It’s little wonder. Places of transition are unfamiliar; we’re not meant to stay there forever. So it becomes eerie.

People have always felt some discomfort with the unfamiliarity of the spaces “in-between.” A place that you’re intimately familiar with, stripped of its context, becomes just disorienting enough to make you feel alone. The space between where you were and where you are going is just long enough to make you wonder if you’ll ever truly arrive.

That’s what the last, elderly survivors of a generation feel. No one around them remembers their world.

It’s what haunts the couple who don’t remember what life was like before their children. Have they changed too much to find their way back to being at ease with just each other?

It’s the shadow over the young, worried about whether they’re missing out on what life is all about. Will they still be happy tomorrow, or 20 years from now, with the decisions they have made today?

As society has changed, apprehension has grown over these liminal spaces. It’s a part of our zeitgeist. They show up repeatedly in movies, songs and memes.

But, more tellingly, the apprehension touches us. As The Backrooms plays out on movie screens, we wander through backrooms of our own. We feel uncomfortably detached from the people around us and worry whether any sanctuary awaits on the other side. We stand in our own, private in-betweens and we feel alone.

Never Truly Alone

That feeling isn’t unique to us. We have new names for it and ways to envision it, but that feeling has been with mankind from the day we were driven from the Garden. It’s not just our spaces that are liminal, our entire history is. We stand between the loss of communion and its ultimate restoration.

At the bottom of our angst, we find a loss of communion with God. That loss robs us of our orientation. So, we stand in the in-between unable to see our destination and without any framework to understand its purpose. These walls of our confinement drip with isolation.

David felt it. The Psalms are a window into his thoughts in liminal spaces. “How long, O Lord?” “Why have you forsaken me?” And so on. They’re the very same words we say and emotions we feel.

He walked the same, sometimes lonely paths as us. But he had a powerful resilience against the parasite of loneliness that afflicted him time and again. He may have felt alone, but he knew that he was not.

The young shepherd learned that there was a greater Shepherd leading him. He learned as he walked through green pastures and lay down beside still waters. And what he learned in the times of comfort prepared him for the times of isolation.

And so thousands of years ago, he penned the words that have comforted millions when loneliness gripped them trying to drain their strength.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4, ESV)

Even at our most lonely, we’ve never been alone. God didn’t just make a sanctuary for us at the end of the hallway, He sent Jesus to walk through it with us. And He didn’t distance Himself from our pain. On the cross, He echoed the same words of David, “Why have you forsaken me?” He’s a companion in our grief. That’s both the tenderness and strength of His consolation.

Oh, we still feel the loneliness trying to drain our faith. The space is still liminal; neither here nor there. Full communion and restoration wait for us. But He is here, with us now.

Purpose in the Hallway

The feeling of loneliness never stops seeking its opportunity. Though Jesus walks with us, we’re still in that place of transition. Behind us are half-true whispers of the past. And sometimes the pull to return seems to promise more comfort than pressing forward in simple faith. That promise is a lie.

The parasite has nowhere to go. It needs us in order to survive. So it follows, whispering in our ear, hoping to dampen our faith. But its insistent voice cannot drown out the still, small voice of God. We’re not alone.

The in-between is disorienting. We know that heaven is out there ahead, but we can’t quite see it. The One Who walks with us rules from there. He is our framework for understanding there is a purpose. He is refining us as we go and step-by-step, we’re learning to trust in Him. Our relationship is deepening.

I hate that hallway; it’s still eerie. But like David, I’ve found that goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life – even when I haven’t deserved it. That’s confirmation of His promise. I will live in the house of the Lord forever.

I think that’s the secret of those that find liminal spaces to be beautiful. They live as pilgrims and strangers on the earth. And because they know their destination, they find space for worship in the in-between.

He’s building a place for me over there. But my Sanctuary is walking right beside me through the hallway.

Deep in the pages of The Two Towers and mid-way through the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy, we find the hobbits Merry and Pippin rushing away into a dark forest to escape the clutches of the Uruk-hai after having been taken captive in the first book. The forest is ancient, dark, foreboding. Its name: Fangorn Forest. They’d heard the tales before, rumors of magical stirrings and strange creatures that roamed around within. It’s said that even the trees themselves move and speak.

It is in this mystical forest that Merry and Pippin are rescued by a towering, living tree who slays the evil Uruk-hai hot on their trail. His name is Treebeard, the fabled Shepherd Ent. Treebeard befriends Merry and Pippin and takes the time to recount the story of the Ents and their fading history in Middle-Earth. Merry sees these Ents as potential allies to help them in the battle to save Middle-Earth. He takes this opportunity to incite Treebeard to declare war upon Isengard and to put a stop to the horrors of the new Two Tower regime.

But Merry and Pippin are met with a seemingly obstinate Ent. Come to find out, Ents are pretty deliberate when it comes to making decisions. Treebeard doesn’t want to be too hasty, to make any ill mistakes spurred on by zealous passion in the heat of a moment. These Ents are characterized by determined patience, wise counsel, and a deliberate lack of hastiness. The Ents would need to take counsel together, which according to Treebeard, could take a while because Entish “is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and to listen to.”  Tolkien sees the wisdom behind deliberate reflection before a call to action, especially when a great war is at stake. 

When I read this account in Tolkien’s book, I was drawn to Treebeard’s obsession with hastiness. It radiated biblical proverbial wisdom. Tolkien saw the danger of hastiness. After all, there were many sins committed in the name of haste during the World Wars of Tolkien’s youth, some that still have repercussions to this day.

Proverbs 19:2 states, “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” Similar statements are made elsewhere, such as “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty” and “A faithful man will abound with blessings, but whoever hastens to be rich will not go unpunished” (Prov. 21:5; 28:20). Although few biblical verses outright characterize hastiness as a terrible sin, its existence is a sure sign and warning of a greater sin: pride.

Whatever was sinful that was not also preceded by a “hastiness”? I don’t mean to say that acting swiftly is always a bad thing, but hastiness is rushing to act before measuring the consequences of those actions. Didn’t Adam and Eve quickly assume that the Serpent’s suspicions toward God were correct? They believed the first thing they heard from a strange, unwelcomed beast in the garden and hastily ate from the fruit of the tree. Didn’t David hastily decide to kill Uzziah to cover his sin before repenting and seeking favor with God? Perhaps if he would have stopped to consider the real cost of his actions and taken a moment to reflect on God’s mercifulness, he would have turned from his sin sooner. Or how about Esau selling his birthright at a moment’s notice before realizing the foolish trade he made with his brother? How about the hastiness of Judas to sell Jesus for thirty pieces of silver? How about Peter who hastily denied Jesus before realizing the betrayal he had committed?

Hastiness is the language of our current age. Get rich fast! Become skilled or qualified as fast as you can! Answer my text message now! Google it! Post it! We are quick to speak our opinion before listening. Despite our lack of knowledge of another’s life and circumstances, we assume things within seconds of meeting them. Even in our discussions and conversations, we are thinking of our ideas and responses, all while we attempt to appear that we are listening. Our lack of prayer life might betray our distaste for intentional reflection and patience. We claim we know what we ought to do before we count the cost, assess the situation, or contemplate the consequences.

We crave immediacy and instant gratification. Before we know it, we find the results of our actions and desires crashing upon us with horrifying weight and guilt. What greater sin was this but that Man demanded to know good and evil before he was able to handle it. Man demanded to be god-like before he knew what he was asking for. Hastiness disguises the danger of sin while godly reflection unveils its hidden lethality. In defense, we ought to practice patient reflection and prayer.

Hastiness might not only lead us into sin, but it can also lead us away from the ministry opportunities God would have us do. With the New Year, this temptation of hastiness is even stronger than usual. We rush to form resolutions; we say yes to more opportunities and responsibilities that we aren’t sure we can handle; we scratch out some nice-sounding goals for the year. I can’t begin to list the number of goals, habits, and resolutions I’ve written in haste only to see the foolishness behind most of them later on. I say yes to all the wrong things and in return, I miss out on the better opportunities God would have me undertake. We might have all the good intentions of making this next year productive, but if we forego a patient and prayerful attitude toward God, we may miss out on what he would have us do.

The ents of Tolkien’s world caution me to think and pray deeply about my efforts and decisions. Instead of rushing into the next opportunity that comes my way with zealous passion, I’m trying to temper that with an extra night of sleep, a focused time of prayer about the decision, and at least two or three voices from godly mentors in my local church. Yes, it’s against my human nature, but I know God would want me to look carefully at how I “walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15–16).

Hastiness sprouts like a diseased fungus, blossoming out of a proud heart that believes it can take care of itself. It is zeal without knowledge. It is a passionate charge into action backed by a faulty sense of security and understanding. I can think back to all the decisions I’ve made that were charged into without sound counsel and biblical wisdom. How many times did I jump into a conversation and say things I should have prayed over or sought counsel over? How many leadership decisions did I make that really produced more heartache for those under my care? If only I would have cooled myself and laid down my self-assurance and gone to God in dependent prayer. If only I would have gone to that mentor in my church and sought counsel. Sometimes I forget that decisions don’t only have immediate effects; they can produce long-lasting results for good or bad. I want to make decisions that reverberate throughout eternity. Those are the decisions God would have us make in dependence on him, not in ungodly haste.

The Ents of Tolkien’s world display a rooted nature, firm and not easily supplanted. They’ve seen the world in large spurts of time and have observed the broad scope of history and its manifestations. They’ve seen kingdoms come and go; foolish men conquer and pass away. They see the broader picture. Hastiness may be fueled by pride, but it can also be fueled by ungodly fear. It is the type of thinking that is grounded in the idea that all we have is here and now. It is devoid of an eternal perspective. It shows that we are narrow-minded and too easily short-sighted. Instead, we are called to think eternally as new creations in Christ Jesus. There is a greater narrative that eclipses our short time here. We ought to be firmly rooted in the hope of eternity, near the streams of the living water of God’s Word and bearing righteous fruit; everything displaying the vitality of a life lived in Christ. Being firmly rooted takes time. It’s not a hasty and quick thing, but it is a sure thing. And what the world desperately needs is something sure and true, something that can stand the test of time and trial. The health and vibrancy of our fruit and leaves should attract others to abandon the hastiness of restlessness and anxiety and to lay down firm roots in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Let our New Year plans and goals have that rooted and eternal perspective. Let’s make decisions and plans that will outlast this next year and echo into eternity.  

“I believe in God…I do. But I don’t know how I could ever follow Him with all of the suffering that I have seen Him allow to happen. How can He have all of that power while refusing to help the oppressed and still be a good God?”

I was sitting in a local coffee shop with my friend from another country. It was a beautiful, warm day and all around us people were engrossed in happy conversation – the kind that you have when you are safe from far-removed troubles. But his thoughts were heavy and when given voice, hung in the air like a threatening cloud.

What do you say to that? It’s a question that we often like to avoid because it seems impossible to find a good answer. I am much more at home talking about the goodness of God and His mercy than I am the matter of suffering.

But this man has seen tens of thousands mowed down in the streets of his native country. Suffering is not theoretical for him. This is not some newborn injustice; it pressed on his people long before he drew his first breath. He was still a boy when he was first exposed to the full horror of unjust death. There has never been a time when his life was free from the threat of violence.

He left his home and family out of necessity and he cannot safely return. All that he and his people have endured has coalesced into one great face of embodied evil in his mind. He sees it when he closes his eyes and it taunts him when he watches the news from back home.

We became friends in part because he was seeking God. He had met some of the young men from the church that I pastor at a local gym and had been impressed by their faith.

We’ve had many discussions about faith since then. The question has almost never been God’s existence. He accepted that as fact very early on. The persistent roadblock has been whether or not God is good.

I’ve been a minister for 32 years. I know many apologetic formulas and approaches. But how do you realistically broach God’s goodness with someone who is presently being crushed beneath the never-ending weight of agony?

The Apologetics Conundrum

One of the blessings of a relationship is the time that it affords to know someone well. My wife has known me for fourteen years now and she knows all the signs of my good days as well as my bad. In love, she has walked with me through it all and she trusts in my heart.

Now, imagine someone that crosses my path on my worst, most human day. An innocent misunderstanding augmented by frustration leads to unkind words. I could apologize profusely and try to explain that’s not how I really am – it’s not the kind of person I want to be. But they would feel completely justified in refusing to believe me.

My wife could step in and try to explain but they would discount her bias. They simply wouldn’t have a baseline relationship to measure from.

This is my fear of the current view many have of apologetics. It is an incredibly valuable tool – one that the Bible instructs us to hone. But it also requires an ear that is able to hear.

When someone’s view of the world is being filtered through tragedy and anguish, it becomes understandably difficult to see God’s goodness. Blunt insistence doesn’t change that. Apologetics must be wise to deal with that limitation.

That sensitivity too often seems to be missing. In an age of YouTube, many people cut their teeth on apologetics with snippets of debates. In that form, bold, true and compassionate words are given a distorted presentation. It begins to appear that Nabeel Qureshi or Wes Huff’s forte is “owning” the opponent instead of a desire to win souls. These truncated views frame their words without displaying their hearts.

“Owning your opponent” isn’t the right use of apologetics, it’s pride. After all, no one has ever bought a car because they enjoyed reading its owner’s manual. That manual will be essential in the days that are ahead, but it’s not where things start.

The Strongest Apologetic

I Peter 3:15-16 is the first text that comes to mind when many think about apologetics.

“...but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” (ESV).

Always be prepared to make a defense. That’s a clear-cut call to a systematic, persuasive and defensible understanding of the faith. Every single believer has a responsibility to investigate their beliefs until they can communicate them well. You must know why you believe.

This is where people like Nabeel Qureshi and Wes Huff are so important. They have a unique talent for organizing and presenting information in digestible bites. By all means, learn from them.

But notice the context in I Peter that surrounds this defense of the faith. It talks about the way that you live: “Honor the Lord as holy.” It talks about the way that you defend the faith: “...with gentleness and respect.” And these two things create an environment that can call to the unbeliever. They are attracted to “the hope that is in you.”

There is no stronger apologetic than the genuine Christian life.

Its strength is that it clearly displays that truth and love aren’t enemies. A holy but loving character puts the mockers to shame, but even more importantly offers something the seeker has been missing.

My friend is disillusioned with the God that I and the people at our church love and serve. In truth, he is bitterly angry with Him. Yet, he still comes to us. He wants to believe because he sees something in us that’s desperately missing in him.

It’s not some perfection. It’s not an abundance of knowledge. It’s hope. And that hope has left a door cracked open to his heart.

Hope Prepares the Way

A lot of people came and left while my friend and I sat talking in that coffee shop. The subject wasn’t an easy one; it’s uncomfortable.

It’s the kind of thing that we usually avoid in our thoughts. After all, the things that pass for tragedies in my life aren’t remotely close to the things he has endured. I have the luxury of groaning at my small misfortune for a moment, then whispering, “God is good!” and continuing on with my life.

Others are not so fortunate. Hope opened the door – he wants to believe. He’s bitter with God but still seeking Him.

“How can I follow a God with all the suffering I have seen Him allow to happen?”

“If He’s so powerful, why doesn’t He do something?”

And I have to be honest. I don’t know. I mean I know the arguments for dealing with the problem of evil. But sometimes feelings drown out the voice of reason. Something has to open the door.

There are so many things I don’t understand; answers that I don’t have.

“Why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?” – I don’t know.

“Why do some people lead a charmed life while others seem to be eternally snakebitten?” – I don’t know.

I wish that I did.

I don’t know, but I have found that the more I know about Christ, the better I understand.

I know Who I trust. He’s the only One that I’ve ever found Who came down and experienced all of this for Himself.

That’s the root of hope, and hope opens the door for knowledge. Apologetics, done right, makes a powerful argument. But it finds its full strength in the open display of a life resting in that knowledge.

We love crowns that recognize our accomplishments and work. But Psalm 103 speaks of a different crown.

This is a crown we receive for our failures.

It is a crown only the humble wear.

This is the crown God bestows on us not because we are worthy but because he is worthy. In Psalm 103, the psalmist describes the gift God bestows on us, a reward of forgiveness and redemption - a crown of steadfast love and mercy.

Some our greatest failures and shortcomings are painfully embarrassing. I can tell you story after story of me coming to my father as a teenager and repenting of yet another moral lapse in lust. Or of the time I faced serious ministry burnout and felt horrible anger and bitterness to everyone around me. I had harshly spoken to my wife and spoke ill of others. I’d even become paranoid that everyone was after me in some way. My pride was eating away at me. I remember going to a man in my church and laying it out to him - all of it.

Yet after each of those self-crucifying moments of confession, I walked away with an unshakeable hope. You see, these men had shown me their own crowns of God’s steadfast love and mercy. They leveled with me about how they were recipients of this grace that I longed to have. I am thankful they disclosed their own failures and shortcomings.

You see it is through humble transparency that we testify to the real hope of redemption. After all, we show that we are living proof about what God can do.

Yet many of us are hiding these crowns under robes of self-righteousness.

That’s the issue isn’t it? Crowns are very public. They draw others’ attentions. To wear them means to publicly proclaim we are unworthy. It’s a far cry from what we imagine a crown to be - a celebration of our victories. Instead it celebrates God’s victory over our failures.

Only those who acknowledge their failures are allowed to wear these diadems.

It is not that we don’t enjoy the benefits of forgiveness, but we don’t like others to think we need forgiveness in the first place. We prefer to look impressive even if it means bearing burdens of guilt. We prefer to put our best foot forward, not show our helplessness.

Instead, we would prefer to wear the crowns of hard-earned effort and carefully crafted, curated reputations.

But God’s crowning is meant to showcase the forgiveness, healing, and redemption God has bestowed on the church.

Our failures and spiritual poverty become canvases for God’s grace and mercy.

But that’s what makes it so uncomfortable. Grace implies need. Mercy implies failure. When we hide our sins, we also end up resisting the very grace and mercy God intended for us to receive. So what if we are hiding away our greatest treasure and honor? You think you are evading shame. Instead, you are practically preaching a Gospel in which confession is never rewarded and repentance is never exchanged for grace and mercy.

By hiding your crowns, you are casting doubt on God’s offer of forgiveness. If God’s forgiveness is true, then why are you hiding like you don’t need it in the first place?

I’ve been sorely convicted over this. I shy away from pronouncing my own failures and sins before my brothers and sisters. I often like to make my track record look perfect as though I hardly had any sin issues to deal with. Transparency is not about self-esteem or self-acceptance. It’s not to benefit you so much as it is to proclaim the efficacy of God’s grace. It’s not about me and it’s not about you.

In Psalm 51, David explains the reason behind his repentance and God’s forgiveness. He writes, “Restore to me the joy of my salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.”

The failure becomes a teaching moment about God’s grace and mercy. His pain and failure becomes an opportunity to show off God’s redemptive potential.

I often need to ask myself these questions. Where do I need to allow God to exercise his grace toward me? What crowns am I hiding for fear of personal shame? Where can I openly confess my shortcomings and allow God to crown me with the honor of his grace and mercy?

As a chaplain, I have been able to sit with the dying who bear their darkest secrets - the sins no one else knows. They confess them to me and in their eyes they long for the mercy and the grace of Christ. They need to know if Christ’s grace is sufficient for them.

I give them the words of Jesus - he is faithful and just to forgive our sins if we confess. I also show them the crown of mercy and grace that I wear on my head - living proof that I myself have received this redemption. This means I need to level with them. I have to be honest about my shortcomings and failures.

My failures become a teaching moment. The Apostle Paul had the same mentality toward young Timothy.

Paul writes, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost." But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1 Timothy 1:16).

Paul explains that the testimony of God’s offer for peace through Christ is real. It is trustworthy. Why? Because he himself was forgiven and he was a murderer and persecutor of the church! He explains that he received this mercy so that others can see that the offer of forgiveness is real.

Paul proudly wears the crown. It testifies to the patience and grace of Christ! His failure is a canvas of Christ’ amazing patience and grace!

If we are to showcase God’s incredible mercy then we must be willing to openly confess our short comings and failures. This open transparency encourages the humbled sinner to likewise come bearing their burdens and handing them over to Christ. It emboldens them to come with faith-filled expectation that He likewise will give them grace.

I encourage you today:

Wear those crowns of steadfast love.

Sing those songs of mercy.

Every Sunday I stand in front of the church and look out at the crowd, wondering, “What am I doing here?” I imagine that they are thinking the same thing. It’s not that I’m not a good speaker or that I haven’t prepared well for the sermon. I’ve been pastoring for 32 years and speaking is second nature by now.

But I was born in 1974, and nearly everyone else in the church is under 30. We’re living in the same moment but we come from different worlds.

Everything about me is Gen X. I would wake up in the morning, walk out the front door of our trailer and be gone all day. My parents never knew exactly where I was; nobody’s parents did. Yes, I drank from a water hose.

My mortgage rate is much lower than anything that you are looking at today. I had both Democrats and Republicans in my family and we still sat down at the dinner table in love.

The world is different now; I often don’t even recognize it anymore. You were born into this world, and it is hard. So, what do I have to say to you? Why would Z ever listen to X?

The Problems Are Real

I feel a heaviness in my soul when I look out on the world with a pang of nostalgia and the sense of something lost. (Although the glasses through which I look at the past do have a rose-colored hue.) My generation wasn’t superior; we had mountains of problems.

But in a larger sense, I ache for those living now in a world that I helped create.

On the one hand, this is an incredibly exciting time of technological advancement and scientific breakthroughs. But for all the promise, the world you have inherited is a turbulent and stressful place.

The Greeks once imagined that all of the world’s maladies sprang from Pandora’s curiosity over a mysterious box. In striking similarity, we have chased every invention of our imagination. We believed that mastery over Creation would create our utopia, but mastery detached from wisdom created new forms of dependence.

In a reversal of the Cultural Mandate of Genesis 1 to fill and subdue the Earth, the things that we have invented have subdued our societies. In many ways, this has left us chasing promises that always remain just beyond our grasp.

Many technological advancements became essential to modern life, making that life more expensive than ever before. The cost of necessities like housing has far outpaced income, making the crush of debt seem inevitable.

The political world has embraced extreme polarization while trust in those who hold political power continues to sink. And the venom has crept into every corner of society, driving wedges between families, neighbors, and generations.

Perhaps the saddest reality of all is that a society that prides itself on its interconnectivity feels increasingly isolated and alone. What keeps hope alive when it seems the whole world is telling you that there is no hope?

Grappling With Reality

This isn’t the first time that society has found itself pushed to reconsider its worldview. As time advances, old problems are “solved.” This leads to the formation of new hopes, or just as often, new problems.

This phenomenon became particularly notable with the dawn of modernism. A renewed value of science and knowledge swiftly opened new frontiers. The Industrial Revolution helped to give that confidence in reason a visible momentum.

People had been locked into a largely agrarian society that rarely allowed them to move beyond their station in life. The change came rapidly and people moved to urban centers with new-found hopes of wealth and opportunity. The world brimmed with optimism that knowledge would finally bring them utopia. Disease would be cured, poverty would disappear, and wars would cease.

Looking back, it’s hard not to notice that those promises were never quite fulfilled. The people back then began to notice it too and they became increasingly suspicious of those making the promises.

Then came the World Wars, the Great Depression, and the Spanish Flu giving form to the growing disillusionment. Poverty, death, and war choked out hope and cynicism stood waiting to take its place.

Postmodernism noticed that for all the advancements of reason and knowledge, the same problems still plagued the world: racism, poverty, climate change, and many more. Trust became an increasingly rare commodity.

But something has begun to shift in the world. A new sensibility is taking shape and becoming increasingly visible in Generation Z. Many are calling this change metamodernism.

This shift is different. It hasn’t happened because something materially changed. The world still feels hopeless; sometimes even more so than ever before. But we also have to live out our lives here and life longs for hope.

You, Gen Z, are fighting to throw off cynicism. It’s not easy when the news feeds off the lowest common denominator and harsh reality rises up in your face. That’s why metamodernism has been tagged as a constant swing back and forth between the extremes of despair and hope.

I admire your fight for hope so much and I believe in it deeply. In your struggle you’ve chosen to rise above the previous tyranny of pessimism. You face the spectre of anxiety with realism while still clinging to a dream of a better day. But a dream cannot sustain itself. You need a framework strong enough to support that hope.

Hope For Hope

Your aim is noble. You don’t want to be so naive as to believe every promise, but you don’t want to be so cynical as to believe that hope is a lie.

How do you thread that needle? Because in human understanding, hope feels vulnerable while cynicism feels prudent. We have been lied to – over and over again. We have been let down just as often. Sometimes we fail ourselves. How does hope withstand a reality that constantly threatens to crush our soul?

What if I told you there is stronger ground for hope than there is for doubt? Would that surprise you?

Mankind has often had good intentions. It wants the world to be a better place, but its attempts have been derailed by a stubbornly persistent blindspot. The world feels unstable because it has tried to distance itself from its Creator. Modernism was right to walk the path of reason and science. God created them. It failed by trying to walk it alone without the leadership of the One Who holds reality in His hands.

That allowed space for its idealism to become tainted by greed. Jesus cares for the poorest, the forsaken. He can do that because He never operates from a place of want. He is the source of all good things and He is more than enough for every human need.

Man doesn’t have that power on his own. He may begin with the best of intentions but corruption lurks in each human soul. We cannot sustain ourselves.

Postmodernism realized that, but the blindspot remained. Man was still walking apart from his God. This hindered him from being able to truly see and cling to hope. Where there is no hope, despair fills the void.

So, here you stand. My generation is leaving the scene one by one just as others did before us. They take with them their ideals. I want to point you to hope for yours.

You can believe because the One Who sustains belief cares about you. The Apostle Peter gave that message to the far-flung persecuted believers of the first century. Persecution and isolation hung over their heads. Many would die for their beliefs in the days ahead. And Peter still said to them, “cast all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.”

He often doesn’t choose the route we think is the easiest. That’s what we desire – the instant fix. Lessons are seldom learned there and we quickly find new ways to make a mess.

But He does choose to walk through it with us. He loves us; He cares. That allows us the room to make mistakes and still survive with hope intact. That allows us to grow in genuine knowledge and joy as our faith in Him is rewarded by His faithfulness time and time again.

Yours is a generation fighting to hold on to hope. Keep fighting by bringing it to the only foundation strong enough to sustain it. Jesus Christ.

Every Sunday I stand in front of the church and look out at the crowd, wondering, “What am I doing here?” I imagine that they are thinking the same thing. After all, they’re half my age.

But I return every week believing because Jesus Christ is standing right there with us. He is the line of communication between us. And it gives this Gen X heart hope as I look out at Gen Z. No matter how out of place I am, God can speak to them, even through me.

That’s wonderful, because I know He will speak through them to help teach my Gen Alpha kids. I’m counting on it.

I’ve been convicted that my morning needs to be less about preparing for the plan I’ve laid out for the day and more so about surrendering to however God will direct my day.

God taught me this lesson one morning in the hospital.

8:00 AM in the closet office, two floors below the ICU. I begin my sacred liturgy of email checking, time blocking, patient census scanning, and to-do list updates. There’s something comforting about these tools - a sense of control. It’s the only sense of certainty I’ll probably have for the day. Being a hospital chaplain means being available for whatever crises might pop up between now and end of shift.

And you can’t time block a crisis in your calendar.

But the hands-on administration helps curb the anxiety.

Two spiritual care consults, 13 new patients on the oncology floor, a few follow-ups with families and patients, and a spirituality group in the psych unit at 10:30 AM. This is my strategy for the day.

I hit the floor at 9:30 AM.

I start with the two consults. Usually, I make those visits right at 9:30 AM. I have two so I typically like to make sure they at least get 30 minutes with me before group starts. But the visits fall through. One was not capable of having a coherent discussion and the other asked for prayer, not a conversation.

The trip lasted 15 minutes, but I still had another 45 minutes before group. So much for planning this out.

I decided to swing by the oncology unit on the same floor. There were few patients I could see before group. I turn the corner before nearly running over our Nurse Practitioner for Palliative Care.

She stops me.

One of the patients I’d been seeing is now on comfort care measures. There is no family in the state. The woman is actively transitioning, she tells me. There is a patient sitter in the room. Our Nurse Practitioner asks that I make some time to drop in.

I say I would.

I thought about seeing a couple of the other patients before swinging by, but her room was the closest. I might as well check on her now. I knock on the room and enter. The patient sitter is at bedside holding her hand.

The woman’s eyes are glazed over and her breaths are ragged - labored. She cannot talk, but I know she can hear me. This patient had been in and out of this hospital quite a bit. We’d prayed together and talked about walking with Jesus in this life many times before. Now she was here - near the end.

I stooped down and knelt on the cold floor before grabbing her hand. I told her it was Chaplain Nick and that I wanted to come and offer her a prayer and some encouragement about her spiritual inheritance in Christ. We’d talked before about this inheritance and assurance. The patient sitter and I knelt there together and I said one last prayer for her.

Then she breathed her last.

The Nurse Practitioner and RN came in to confirm the time of death. The patient sitter and I knelt there stunned. It was as if she needed that prayer in that very moment. She needed one last reminder that she can entrust herself to God.

Then she let go.

You might be surprised to learn that this isn’t the first time I’ve prayed and someone breathed their last.

It’s happened three times. I’ve only been in chaplaincy for two and half years.

In my commonplace book, I now have a verse scribbled for my morning liturgy as I ‘prepare’ for my day.

Next to this verse is a prayer I’ve written, “This morning, I come to prepare my life as a sacrifice. I come to lay down my desires, ambitions, and plans for the upcoming day. I surrender y body, mind, and spirit to your will today. I surrender control and I surrender my will this morning. I prepare this sacrifice to you and I stand watchfully for your direction and guidance.”

Sometimes - actually, nearly every day - I can err on the side of thinking that all I need for a successful day is preparation and planning.

Mornings become a sacred liturgy of email checking, time-blocking, checklist evaluations, and administrative tasks.

But being a chaplain and minister means being available for situations that you cannot foresee. Serving as a hospital chaplain is about being spiritually and emotionally ready for whatever might happen that day.

Like I said, you cannot time block a crises. Come to find out, you also cannot time block God’s providence.

I had a plan for how I was going to make my visits that day; yet those two visits lasted as long as they did, my minute reaction to go to the next unit - that precise unit, the second I so happened to pass by the Nurse Practitioner, and the moment I decided to walk in her room were decisions that I made but with consequences I simply could not have foreseen. Somehow, in all those decisions and circumstances, God was preparing the right moment to minister to this women before her final breath.

Some people call these “divine appointments” and for a long time, I imagined they were spiritualized ways to view conveniences, but I don’t believe that anymore. I do believe God orchestrates our days. God has providential control over our lives more often than we realize.

In fact, I started to wonder how much of my ‘planning’ was getting in the way of God’s providence. I might be booked where I needed to be available. This is why I started to pray differently in the morning. Isn’t this true though for any servant of Christ? Maybe we need to be less concerned about planning out our day and more concerned about being spiritually and emotionally ready for what God would have for us.

I realized maybe I need to start surrendering to whatever God would have for me that day. Instead of planning very step, I should pray that he directs my steps.

Planning, scheduling, and preparation are all important. We need to be shrewd, wise, and respectful of others’ times, but some of you are like me, trying to pinpoint success and productivity by the minute details of our schedules and task lists.

If we are honest with ourselves, we may be more interested in productivity than we are in fruitfulness.

A servant of Christ is called to be available for God. This means being available in the moments and minutes of the day. “Make me know the way I should go.” As chaplain, it is as simple as being available by walking the floors, checking in with the staff, looking for needs, and making my presence known. I plan diligently, but I also remember that there is a providence that trumps my plans.

A respected pastor and friend of mine posted this quote the other day:

“The belief that God guides us rests upon the assurance that God has an all-embracing plan by which and according to which he guides us.”

We call this God’s providence.

I am learning to surrender to his providence - to be flexible with my schedule and plans. For someone as organized and analytical as me, this is a challenge. I like certainty. I like structure.

But serving God is less about planning and more about availability, less about preparing and more about surrendering.

It’s the kind of story that you would think would never happen…

The day is perfect for an afternoon drive. The trees are showing all of their glory before settling in for a long winter’s nap. Their leaves are dancing on the cool evening breeze. I turn off the air conditioner and roll down the window for a breath of fresh air. Then, there in the distance, I see a car parked alongside the road with a man standing outside.

I’m really in a hurry. It’s getting late and my wife has supper cooking on the stove. Reluctantly, I pull up beside him to see what’s the matter.

He points toward the flat tire and regretfully tells me that he doesn’t have a jack. I have one in the trunk of my car, but it’s the kind that you have to remove the spare tire before you can get to it. It’s quite a bit of effort and I am tired and hungry.

He asks if I have a jack that he can borrow and slowly looks back towards the trunk of my car. But my wife is cooking supper and I promised her I’d be home soon. So I offer him some helpful advice instead. Then, I pull the car back onto the road and head home.

As I drive around the curve, I take one last look back towards the man. He’s still staring at me. “I hope he takes my advice,” I think; then, I drive on home.

Real Life is More Subtle

It’s the kind of story that you’d think would never happen because you’re a decent human being. We have been trained to help people that are in need – even when it’s inconvenient. The evidence of that decency is all around our life.

We would never leave someone sitting on the side of the road with a flat tire. We wouldn’t dream of ignoring someone lying in a ditch injured. That would be inhumane. We even take time in the small things; like helping mom and dad figure out how to “fix their phone” for the hundredth time without a complaint.

That’s what good people do. It’s what godly people do.

Yet, time and again, when we find ourselves uncomfortable with someone else’s pain, we reach for the escape hatch of advice instead of offering the uncomfortably costly comfort of our presence. Listening seems passive and effortless on the surface, but it challenges the endurance of our soul.

Advice is not evil. In fact it’s very good. But it requires compassion and presence in order to have its full effect. People listen to those whom they know genuinely care.

There is a deeper complication with advice. It serves as a protective buffer. We can offer it from a safe distance. It doesn’t cost us anything and we don’t have to stick around to see if it works. It’s a much kinder-sounding way of saying, “good luck with all of that!” It leaves room for us to feel good about having done the bare minimum.

We’re so happy when we can offer “good advice”, a well-crafted phrase wrapped in a pretty bow. Listening isn’t nearly as glamorous, but it is much more highly prized since it costs us so much more. We have to care.

Maybe that’s why we offer it so much less.

Words Aren’t Always the Answer

Technology has made it easier to avoid discomfort. Smartphones have made us more interconnected than we have ever been, but the connection is superficial. We are never truly out of sight.

But, instead of being deeply entwined, we can check-in as needed. I don’t have to go hang out with my friends or sit at a dinner table with my family. They’re within reach when I need them. That’s a subtle drift from mutual compassion and concern. Rather than “bearing one another’s burdens”, I begin to demand people’s presence when I need them but become seriously uncomfortable when they need me.

It’s hard to reconcile the feeling that we love these other people and know we should help while also not having the bandwidth to sit with them while they suffer. So, we develop handy, portable phrases that fit the occasion. “I’m so sorry! Call me if you need me.” (“But please don’t!”)

We can walk away satisfied that we did our part and not give another thought to their misery. As it turns out, the words that make us feel so much better when we say them, do almost nothing to relieve their pain. Then, when the tables have turned and we are the ones in anguish, we wonder why we cannot find a friend to sit with us.

There has to be a better way.

Presence Speaks More Clearly Than Words

As in every other aspect of His ministry, Jesus’ approach to comfort was completely counterintuitive to our nature. Often, His first reach wasn’t for words. In fact, He sometimes refused to give a direct answer when asked. It’s almost as if He realized words weren’t what were needed in the moment.

When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha could not understand it. They believed in Jesus as the Messiah and could not reconcile that with allowing their brother to die. First Martha and then Mary said, “Lord, if you had been here…” The words hung heavy in the air, half lament and half accusation.

Jesus didn’t explain why He had waited four days to come. He didn’t rebuke them for lacking faith. He saw them weeping, and He wept.

He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. He knew that this was not the end. He wasn’t weeping from despair. He wept because He cared. He heard them beyond their words – He heard their hearts. And His heart joined theirs in their lament.

The words weren’t the point; His presence was. And when they had felt His compassion, they were ready to receive what He had to say.

What’s the Goal?

If Jesus’ goal had been expediency, He could have easily offered a platitude and moved on. He had already told Martha to remember Lazarus would live again in the resurrection. She understood that within a biblical framework. Lazarus would come to life at the Last Day.

Jesus could walk away from that conversation justified without any further concern. He had visited them in their grief and pointed them to Scripture. But expediency wasn’t His goal. He came to bear our burdens. And so, He joined them in their pain.

What is our goal as believers when those around us are in anguish? Do we reach out only to give surface affirmation that we are a friend? Do we want to help, but only if that help is in our time frame? Then the tools that we are searching for are advice and counsel from a distance.

But, if we are members of one body, then we are joined in each other’s experiences. We weep when they weep and rejoice when they rejoice. We offer the advice and comfort of Scripture, but we do it from the posture of quiet presence. We listen, we love and we stay.

It’s uncomfortable and it’s costly. But as we sit with them, the Savior has already joined us.

We would never dream of leaving someone stranded on the side of the road. They don’t need to know how far it is to the nearest store, they need someone to drive them there.

It is no different with the people around us in pain. God has chosen to place us in their path. Listening and sitting are often difficult, but we don’t even have to do it out of our own reserve. We freely offer to them what He has freely offered to us. Presence.

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With shoulders slumped and head resting in my hands, I drew slow, shallow breaths. The same old doubts had found me again. And somehow, the weight that had always seemed unbearable was now even worse than it had been before.

I could tell you all about it, but truthfully, it doesn’t even matter what it was. That weight was mine and there isn’t a way that I could ever make you feel it. Nor could I ever fully understand yours.

Under the carefully tended surface of every life, we each carry our own unseen burdens. We have no idea how to resolve them, so there we stand, bearing them alone. “It’s too personal.” “It’s too embarrassing.” “No one will care.”

It’s oppressive.

Weight of the World

We call that feeling, “bearing the weight of the world on our shoulders.” We say that because it’s precisely what we feel like. We can try to move forward, but our cares are always there pushing down against us.

That phrase, “weight of the world on our shoulders,” comes from the Greek myth of Atlas. He was one of the Titans, the previous generation of gods who had lost their war against Zeus and the Olympians. His punishment was to eternally bear the weight of the heavens on his neck.

Days cycled through nights. Years stretched into millennia without any hint of relief. Then, one day, Hercules came looking for a favor. He needed the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides and only Atlas could tell him how to get them.

For the first time in ages, Atlas caught a glimpse of hope. He asked Hercules to shoulder the heavens for a while so that he could go get the apples for him. Of course, he had no intention to resume the weight again. He wasn’t settling for momentary relief – he was longing for genuine freedom.

When he returned, he made his intentions clear. Curiously enough, Hercules didn’t argue with him. He merely asked that Atlas take the weight back for a moment so that he could better position his cloak as a cushion for his neck.

It seemed reasonable enough to Atlas. After all, he knew how miserable that weight could be. He gladly resumed it for a moment.

How much heavier it must have pressed on him when he finally realized the ruse. Once again he bowed beneath the familiar, crushing weight as Hercules freely walked away.

The Myth Reflects Reality

We no longer gaze toward Mount Olympus with fear of how the whim of some far-removed god may affect our lives. Yet, those stories continue to resonate with us. We may laugh that people ever believed that a Titan literally bore the heavens on his shoulders, but we feel the weight of his curse just the same.

The people of that time composed those stories in an attempt to grapple with their reality. Their gods were immensely powerful, but they still staggered under familiar struggles and consequences.

Atlas was an enemy of the gods. The heavens he desired to possess became the weight that relentlessly crushed him.

There is a very real curse that poisons our world today. It is born of the desire to be our own god. It all began with a whisper that a taste of forbidden fruit would make us like Him. That same instinct still demands to be heard in every human soul today.

The whisper never calls itself rebellion. It prefers the pseudonym “autonomy.” After all – who knows more about our situation than us? It tells us that we can follow God, honor Him as our Lord, and still maintain a tight control on our decisions just in case the circumstance calls for a change. And it sells itself so urgently that no time is left for considering the price tag.

If Atlas’ curse was to bear the weight of the sky, ours is to taste what it’s actually like to be our own god. We become hyper-aware of our problems without any power to solve them.

It doesn’t even matter how real or exaggerated the pressure may be. Some burdens are undeniable. Financial pressures choke out our joy and dominate our waking thoughts. Shame and guilt over poor decisions from our past haunt our dreams at night. We worry about the world our children will grow up in. That’s real.

Still other times what crushes us is nothing more than a self-inflicted wound of our own imagination. Or, at the very least, actual problems are exaggerated beyond recognition.

But here’s the thing – real or imagined – we feel its soul-crushing weight just the same. We can’t think of anything else. Sometimes it robs us of our appetite. Other times, we can’t stop eating, clinging to any sensation that might drown out the doubts, fear and dread.

We know that we can’t bear this alone; we need help. Yet, in the cruelest irony, it drives us into isolation. The voice in our head insists that no one else cares. The truth is, we’re all occupied bearing our own piece of the sky.

We cannot let it go. The weight of the world may be unbearable, but the fear of what would happen if we just walked away is so much worse.

We end up operating from desperation. That’s the cost of being our own god.

A Cushion Won’t Lighten the Load

When you’ve suffered under the tyranny of your own problems for so long, you become more vulnerable to false hope. There’s something so sadly simple in Hercules’ ruse. Atlas knew the misery and its inescapability. How could he not see that Hercules was going to walk away leaving him alone with his misery once again?

It worked precisely because Atlas was so well acquainted with that misery. He had been under that sky for so long that he was sympathetic to the pain. How often he had stood there, neck stiffening and aching, unable to move. So many times he had an itch that he simply could not scratch. A request for a cushion seemed perfectly reasonable to him because he had probably longed for one many times himself.

Haven’t we done the same? When desperation crushes us, anxiety and dread compel us to reach for any promise of relief. So many of our problems are born out of and compounded by our desperation.

We become prisoners of our thoughts. It wakes us up in the morning long before we are ready and denies us the sleep that we desperately need. If ever it seems to lessen in the slightest, the same foreboding voice is always there whispering that it will be back soon and even worse than before. The effort required to ignore it only adds to the weight.

Troubled marriages sometimes shatter when, in a moment of miserable dissatisfaction, one partner reaches for the fool’s gold of temptation. Many addictions are rooted in the futile attempt to escape what seems inescapable. And, more commonly, bitterness and distancing are our attempts at keeping any more pain from entering our lives.

Why do we keep desperately reaching for these same cushions? It’s not that we’re merely foolish. We understand that none of these things are the solution. We keep grasping for cushions because we are tired. Anything that promises relief – if even for just a minute – looks like mercy; until it’s not. A cushion can momentarily shift the pressure, but it can never remove the sky.

Atlas needed more than a cushion and so do we. We need something greater than mere relief. We need someone who is willing to bear what we cannot without using our weakness for His own gain.

Hercules offered momentary relief only because he had an ulterior motive. The cushion seemed appealing but it offered no long-term solution.

Jesus is different.

He saw all of our pain and chose to enter it personally to reach us. He allowed Himself to experience all of the hardships and disappointments of life. He knew what it felt like to be abandoned by friends and not have a place to lay His head. He labored under the weight of caring for others while no one cared for Him. He was crushed in our place.

As Peter would say, we can cast all of our anxieties on Him because He truly does care for us.

He rarely chooses to remove the struggle completely. Yet, neither does He offer the temporary relief of a cushion that will only result in greater misery. Instead, He chooses to walk through these things with us.

He offers the miraculous endurance of the hope of His presence. Paul would describe it this way:

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies.”

What we carry is real. It threatens to grind us into the ground beneath its heel. It isolates us until we feel utterly abandoned. But in Jesus, we don’t have to look wistfully at another, wishing that we had their strength. He enters into our misery right beside us and promises that He will continue with us until the end of the world.

We know what it feels like to have the weight of the world on our shoulders. We have felt the disappointing sting of another cushion filled with empty promises. But what happens when Jesus chooses to bear that weight with us?

The hardship doesn’t simply disappear, but it is outweighed by the hope that lives within us. Atlas staggered under the punishing weight of the sky. But we look into the heavens and see our hope. And a new voice whispers inside of our soul.

It tells us that true relief doesn’t look like autonomy. It looks like rest in the One who will walk through it all with us.

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This last week I took my 4 year old daughter and 2 year old son to the Green Acres park before taking a nice long trek to Taco Bell or what my kids have recently dubbed, “Cheesy Bells”. They love outdoor adventures and anytime spent with mom and dad is a total win for them. At the massive jungle gym that towers higher than I’m comfortable with, my two kiddos swung on the bars, conquered the rock climbing wall, jumped up and down the platforms, and raced down the two slides opposite each other.

They asked more times than I can count.

You know the question.

It is built into every toddler.

“Daddy, watch me!” “Daddy, look at this!”

My daughter is insistent that I need to witness, from beginning to end, her entire trampoline routine complete with her spin, bounce, and clap combos. If my gaze turns away for just a second, she clamors to get it back.

She does not want me to miss anything she does.

I love this even if the fifty ninth demand for my attention is overstimulating. On my end, I’m learning to stop being so distracted because this is a stage that will not last forever

But for now, they long for their mom and dad’s attention and ours alone.

As a father, I’m learning to value and cherish these innocent moments where all that matters to my young kids is the gaze of their father. They want to see my look of admiration at all the little things they attempt for fun.

Seeing their innocent desire convicts me though.

I’m not quite sure I have the same innocence when it comes to serving God.

I attempt many great things for God and I tell him it’s for him, but my eyes are on the periphery. I’m less interested in his gaze than I let on. I’m really glancing to the side to see who else notices what I am doing.

When it comes to doing things for God, the tragedy is that we need Jesus to correct our motives. As Jesus states in the Sermon on the Mount, the Pharisees were praying, fasting, and giving to receive the wrong attention. They could care less about whether God saw them or not. They wanted others to see their good works.

Our hearts are not naturally inclined to desire God’s gaze. We may perform for God but always with a glance or two reserved for what other’s might see of our ‘noble’ and ‘good’ works.

My kids’ innocent desire for my attention convicts me once again that my desire for God must be child-like and innocent. Too often my desire to serve God is riddled with ulterior, mercenary motives.

Yet, there is a certain freedom in desiring God’s attention over everyone else’s. My kids trust that when I see them do something exciting and cool on the gym set, that daddy will be supportive and affectionate. There is a safety and security in striving for daddy’s affection alone.

I’m all too aware though that this desire will eventually shift to their peers and the broader world around them. The older they get, the more they will look for approval in places less forgiving and loving, less truthful and more deceptive.

That is where the danger lurks.

Likewise, we strive for the attention of others’ less capable of desiring our best. We end up burned out and bitter when our affection for the world is less willing to give it back. Perhaps we were striving for others to look at our great ministry feats all while neglecting the perfect gaze of God our father.

In these moments of disillusionment and loneliness, we realize the tragedy of our neglect of God. We feel conviction and sadness because God’s attention was pure and unconditional unlike the world’s. He alone was worthy of our attention because of His pure, genuine character. How could we have neglected the gaze of a loving Father who knows best and is the best?

My ministry work likewise needs to be fueled by that innocent desire for God’s attention and his attention alone.

This verse in Matthew has everything to do with the discipline of obscurity, practicing righteousness in secret in order to avoid the idolatry of others’ affections. But obscurity is not so much about hiding what we do for God. It is more about being blind to what other’s might notice or not notice about our good works. All we care about is that God the Father sees what we might attempt for him. And these attempts are done in a spirit of joy and delight in who God is.

A mark of spiritual maturity is an increasing lack of self-awareness and a decrease in self-absorption.

No, you cannot just will this sort of desire into existence. You cannot engineer this affection for God otherwise it’s no longer true affection. It requires the Holy Spirit to open our eyes up to taste and see the goodness of God. This lingering gaze on God’s glory and beauty will inspire natural affection. In this beholding of God’s goodness, the natural response of a renewed heart is desire and excitement - a clamor for His attention alone. The very fact that God sees me is eclipsed by any awareness that man is also looking at me. At the end of the day, God’s judgement and evaluation of me is what matters.

Good works are fueled by a desire for God’s approval, not man’s. God’s opinion of me ultimately matters because my salvation is based on his opinion, not others’. But neither is the solution valuing my opinion over others’. The solution is valuing God’s opinion over all others, including my own.

This is Paul’s point in this passage where his ministry work is scrutinized by public eyes. Without Paul’s singular desire for God’s gaze, he would have been swept up in all manner of idolatry and power struggles. He may be imperfect and far from sinless, but he kept on track because God’s gaze mattered most to him.

I look at my kids with a deep affection and love. They may attempt their gymnastic feats with weakness and stumbling, but I love them. They will learn in time. But the sad part is that the more skilled and able they become and the older they get, they will be less interested my attention than others.

I face that temptation too. The more experienced and skilled I become in ministry, the more I’m tempted to pine for others’ attention and not God’s. The more public my ministry becomes, the more I salivate for others’ attentions.

But there has to be a better way. How can I cultivate that innocent desire for God’s attention alone?

I believe it’s remembering that no one can look on you with the same unconditional love and objectivity like God can. He can see you for all your flaws and imperfections and mistakes and still love you. He can correct you with a precision and accuracy unlike anyone else. He alone can judge you far more fairly and truthfully than anyone else and do it out of a true, unbreakable affection - with a desire for your best because He is the best.

This next week, before you start doing any sort of ministry or spiritual discipline, just ask that God look upon you. Ask him for his attention and spurn all others.

I’m praying for that innocent-like desire. I’m praying my heart becomes more child-like. I want to be free. I want God to look at me and that alone will be enough for me.

God, watch me!

GOSPEL CONVERSATIONS AREN’T LIKE COLD CALLS

My stomach tightened into a knot as I fought the feeling that I was just wasting my time. I had been building to this conversation for quite a while – I just didn’t fully believe that it would work.

My friend had come to the United States from a country closed to the Gospel eight years before. Neither he nor his wife were particularly interested in religion, but they had found churches to be the easiest place to make friends.

As time passed, his wife decided that Christian men made better husbands. She still did not believe, but she wanted him to attend all the Bible studies he could find.

That’s how he came to me. Some weeks the discussion would run deep. Just as often, he would veer off topic or seem completely disinterested. Was I wasting my time?

On that day, I felt compelled to press the point. After all of these studies, I asked him, “Do you believe?”

He drew a pensive breath and looked me directly in the eye. He told me that he was a scientist and that he saw too much order in the universe to not believe in God. A Creator must exist. But then his gaze hardened.

“However, I cannot believe that this God cares anything about me. I can believe that He exists but I cannot believe that there is a Jesus Who loves me and came to die for me.”

There it was; my worst fears realized. He grew up in a culture that forbade talking about God. How could I ever hope to bridge that gap?

Then I felt the Spirit of God stirring within me, coaxing me to try one more time. “Let me make sure that I understand; you believe that there is a God but you cannot believe in His Son Jesus?” He met my gaze with a look of determination and said, “Yes, I have tried and I cannot believe in Jesus.” Suddenly, his head lowered. When he looked back up there was a tear in his eye. Softly, he whispered, “Would you help me to believe?”

Where Did The Conversation Begin?

The conversation didn’t begin when I asked him if he believed.

It began in the order that he saw in creation. It continued in the character that he saw in the believers that God had carefully placed around him. His wife’s half-formed notion that she wanted him to act more like Christian husbands – whether he believed or not – carried the momentum forward. And, it developed through weekly Bible studies.

None of these things happened in a vacuum. Providence had quietly arranged the pieces of his life to lead him to that moment.

I didn’t begin the conversation. I merely stepped into the one that God was already having with him.

We Never Start At Zero

That’s one of the greatest paradoxes for the believer. We absolutely believe God is in control and at work in the world. We also constantly forget that in practice. Countless hours of sleep are lost every night by believers worrying about things that God has already taken care of.

It is no different when we approach sharing the Gospel. Theologically, we know all of the talking points. God created man in His image. We fell into sin. Jesus came into the world as a human to purchase our salvation. We have been sent as the ambassadors of this good news.

All of this tells us that God is already at work in the world. But each time we approach a Gospel conversation, our inner voice acts as if we are starting from ground zero. We feel like the cold callers that annoy us so much. “How do I start the conversations?”, we wonder. It’s as if we are looking for the magic words that they cannot resist. And, that betrays a lack of confidence in the work of the Spirit of God.

My friend did not know that he was looking for God. He thought he was looking for friendship and seeking to become a better husband for his wife. But he was already grappling with spiritual questions that were pointing to God long before I ever came along.

People are not spiritually neutral. We live in a physical world that deals with spiritual realities. Life and death are physical but we wrestle with the question of their meaning and that is spiritual. Loneliness looks like it begins in isolation but it often isn’t solved by being around more people. The solution must go deeper.

Behind every one of these inner turmoils the voice of God is whispering: “I am here. Come to me.”

God doesn’t need our voice. We are just privileged that He chooses to use it.

The Inescapable Questions Of Life

F. Leroy Forlines dealt with this innate spiritual search of the soul in his book, The Quest For Truth. He says, “One of the products of divine design is what I call the inescapable questions of life. Every human being as he or she develops into adulthood is faced with questions such as: Is there a God? If so, what is He like? How do I know what is right and what is wrong? Is there life after death? And other such questions. What is the meaning of life? How can I have a meaningful life?”1

God uses these questions to pull their soul towards a readiness for the Gospel. Asking someone what they think the meaning of life is taps into something they already long to discuss. It’s a question that haunts their existence: Is there more than this? These questions about mortality, fairness, and origin exist inside of us and they long for resolution.

They bubble to the surface every time that they face tragedy, hardship and loneliness. And they are the same in every corner of the world. They are present in every single culture. This stands to reason if we are all the handiwork of the same Creator. We were made to be in relationship with Him. If that relationship is missing, then it will manifest itself the same way across cultures.

These inescapable questions are inherent to our character. They are where God is already speaking. And they are where we find entrance into the conversation.

Listening For The Conversation That God Has Already Started

The Christian world has long felt the pressure of evangelism. We feel that our efforts are inadequate. So, we have done what we always do – we have created systems.

The Church has tried knocking on doors, handing out tracts, and countless other approaches to sharing the Good News. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being trained or having a plan, but our starting point has to be with the conversation that God is already having with them.

This requires something that our plans and training too often overlook: relationships. We are not simply presenters of information. That’s what cold calls are and it is why they annoy us so much. They are information that arrives to us from out of the blue that we were never seeking for in the first place.

That is the way that many of our evangelistic efforts present themselves. People know why you are trying to speak with them and they are looking for a way out before you have ever started.

Effective Gospel conversations don’t despise techniques and training. But they do listen and watch for the entry points that God has already provided. True evangelism doesn’t begin by trying to force spiritual questions into ordinary conversations. It begins by recognizing the fact that ordinary conversations are already full of spiritual questions.

Everybody has scars and hurts. Everybody has fears and worries. If you talk to someone long enough and take the time to care, you will begin to see these burdens that they carry. If God is working in your life, they will notice your approach to these same questions is giving you a peace that they lack.

This is the opportunity referred to in I Peter 3:15 when it says, “but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”

Our defense isn’t a never-ending stream of talking points and counter-arguments. It’s that in our life, God has satisfied the doubts and questions that they are still struggling with today.

Believers Don’t Make Cold Calls

There is a reason that cold calls rank so high on our list of annoyances. They come from people who don’t know us and don’t care anything about us. They’re not concerned about improving our lives; they’re trying to make a sale. If playing on our doubts and insecurities is what it takes, then that is what they do.

The Bible says that when Jesus looked on the multitudes, He had compassion on them. He calls us to have that same compassion. That requires us to do more than memorize a method. It requires more than boldness. It calls for relationships.

I didn’t discover my friend. God carefully placed him into my path. I didn’t make him think about God for the very first time. He had been looking into the heavens and wondering about God his whole life. He may not have realized it or articulated it that way, but he had.

I didn’t create in him a desire to believe. It was already there. He wanted to believe in Jesus; he just didn’t know how. I could speak to him because he was dealing with the same things through which God had spoken to me.

The question isn’t whether we can talk to someone about Jesus. It isn’t even a question about how. It is whether we are willing to care enough to watch and listen for what God is doing in someone’s life. It’s a question of whether we’re willing to be honest and vulnerable enough about how He answered those questions for us. Do we care enough to listen for the conversation that He has started without us and then allow Him to speak through us? Cold calls never come from warm hearts.

I feel my throat tighten and I start to fidget. Maybe it’s something off-key about how they describe God. Or maybe they start explaining how they are good enough for heaven. Maybe I hear their objections about whether or not the Bible can be trusted. “It’s been re-written too many times - can’t trust it.” “Religion is the source of all evil in this world.” “Jesus is a good moral teacher.”

I automatically begin running through my mind all the types of evidence I could use to win them over to Christianity. I’m thinking about the best line of evidence to argue. How can I convince them? What argument can I use to get them to see.

I value apologetics. I like researching, reading, studying, and honing in on how best to defend and articulate the doctrines of biblical Christianity. I spend a lot of time making sure I know how to give a reason for the hope that is in me. There’s always some question to be prepared to address. I’m often ready to go with my explanations, chomping at the bit to use my latest research and insights.

But to be honest, sometimes the reason starts to take precedence over the hope I should consistently have on display. This is the question I have had to ask myself. What if evangelism was less about defending the faith and more so about praising the God of my faith?

The point of this passage in 1 Peter 3:15 is that our hope and our attitude in life will prompt others to ask for the reason for that hope. Our demeanor and attitude is the first line of apologetic defense for our faith, not reason. That comes afterwards.

In other words, our joy and hope in God’s works is key to effective evangelism.

When we approach sharing our faith as a defense, we are not putting forward the joy of the Lord as our true source of strength and comfort. When we emphasize the rational arguments over the joy of the Lord, we are removing the persuasive power of our faith. That power lies in displaying the goodness of God.

After all, saving faith is not only a mental acceptance of Christ but an affectionate trust in Christ.

If our faith is only persuasive so much as we defend and argue for it, we are not showing that it is anything more attractive or meaningful than that it must be defended simply because it is right. It is not only right, it is superior and more glorious than anything else we could trust in!

We are not only advocates for the Gospel because it is right, but because it is good and beautiful! We exult in the glory of God and his perfect character, especially as displayed in His sacrificial love on the cross.

Apologetic defenses of the Bible are essential, but it is one side of the coin. As ambassadors of Christ, we need to show how satisfying it is to be part of the Kingdom of God. That praise needs to be public.

Psalm 145 promotes public praise as evangelism.

How we speak about our faith can be just as important as the content of our speech. It is easy to approach evangelism as duty and necessity. It should be the overflow of joy in God. Oftentimes, we have to be pulled into the act of sharing our faith rather than pushed by a propulsive urge to share about the satisfaction of our faith.

This is a far better posture for evangelism. The efficacy of the truth is lit on fire by a genuine desire for God Himself. We testify as those who have seen God work instead of arguing for him as an abstract concept.

Unfortunately, we (and myself included) see ourselves as logic warriors tasked with fighting off false teaching through the rigors and discipline of intellect and reason. But if personal praise for God and his works are not present in our evangelism, then the apologetics and defense of the faith could be propelled by something more devious. Idolatry can sneak in behind well-oiled and valid arguments.

If we are not careful, argumentation can sometimes become a defense not just of doctrine but of our identity. We begin to care about the belief not because we value it in and of itself, but because it is foundational to our fragile self-image.

The belief matters so far as it exists to bolster my self-image, not that it stands apart from me as something true and beautiful in and of itself.

For example, we may consider a piece of art beautiful not because of its quality and the artist’s skill, but because it is part of our collection. We value the piece only because of what it says about me and not because it is valuable in and of itself. For some of us, Christ is a piece in our collection. He is the savior of our self-esteem but not the Lord over our lives. What may appear as a concern for his reputation is actually a preoccupation with our self-preservation.

But there is a better way.

True, holy evangelism is always the overflow of joy in Christ alone. It is not restless, fretful, and anxious to prove itself. It has no insecurity. Regardless of how it is received, it knows with certainty that it has tasted and seen its goodness.

I am in no way rejecting apologetics or a robust defense of the faith, but I am questioning the foundation of any defense of the Christian faith. What is it rooted in? The defense can not stand alone from the spirit-filled and word-directed spiritual formation of the defender.

The shield of apologetics is only as useful as the soldier behind it and the soldier must be formed by a sincere drive and a spiritual strength. Their evangelism will be the overflow of public praise.

The Apostle Peter exhorts the believer to share the reason for the hope that is in them. The hope inside of us is the icebreaker for sharing the Gospel. And true hope is usually seen in and through the public praise of God and his good works.

We often hear the question: when was the last time you shared the Gospel?

Here’s my question to you: when was the last time you were public about your praise of God?

Perhaps if we were more public with our praise there would be more people asking about the reason for the hope we have inside of us.

Evangelism begins with adoration, not argumentation.

I couldn’t help smiling.

I had just picked up my preteen daughter from school. She bounced into the truck with an extra spring in her step and asked me to turn up the radio. Outside it was still 2026. But inside, the calendar had rolled back to 1979. ELO was singing “Don’t Bring Me Down” and my little girl and I were supplying the back-up vocals.

ELO is her favorite band although they fell out of their prime 30 years before she was born. She proudly wears their t-shirt to school once a week and she thinks it’s hilarious that none of her friends know who they are.

How did she wind up having the same taste in music as me anyway? Her friends have no reason to know a band from the 70’s. Those songs entered the oldies playlists decades before they were born. Why does she know every word?

Formed Without Trying

She really is a lot like me. Genetics are funny like that. She entered into the world a brand new creature. But for all of her newness, she’s made up of bits and pieces of her mother and me. I didn’t choose to give her my face or my hair – those features just came standard issue.

My wife and I had so much fun looking for reflections of ourselves in her when she was born. We’d sit there staring at her, saying, “She’s got your nose!” Or, “that crying came from you!”

But there’s another kind of transmission of characteristics from one generation to the next that is more like osmosis. We see it most readily in the influence of their friends. It’s summed up in the old adage, “show me who your friends are and I’ll show you who you are.” And, it usually carries a negative connotation when we say it. There’s always a “wrong crowd” out there influencing our “good kid.”

The truth is, parents have an even deeper influence. Our habits, attitudes and tendencies make their home inside of them as they’re beginning to form their character. After all, they are with us 24 hours a day.

I didn’t set out to teach my daughter to love ELO. But when you’re riding in the car with me, you have a front row seat to the karaoke show. She heard those songs a lot growing up. Even more importantly, she saw me having a good time while she heard it. She loved me and wanted to be a part of enjoying what I enjoyed.

So, without any thought or intention, I curated a lifetime playlist for her.

That’s what happens in shared lives, we influence each other. Sometimes it’s beautiful and cute like a shared love of music. Just as often, we accidentally pass along the worst parts of our character.

Formed With Purpose

She’s watching me every day. And when your lives are that deeply entwined, you can’t watch without being affected. For her, twelve years of my influence have already passed and the current weight of my influence grows a little less each year. She’s gaining opinions as fast as she’s gaining friends.

I’m shocked at how fast she’s grown and how fast she is changing. I’m even more shocked to realize that I formed her into the person that she is without realizing it.

I fell into the trap that so many other parents walk into. I had the list of things I wanted to teach her; especially the things that pertain to faith. But I never considered that passive parenting was just as influential as my plans.

I take her to Church. But what she learns at Church falls under the shadow of the attitude that she sees in me before and after. I read Bible stories to her. She was watching to see if my life matched the things that I was talking about. I prayed with her every night. She could see if I was talking to God or just saying some words.

We would like to think of spiritual formation as being led on purpose. I had rules for her to follow. I had a church for her to attend. Her bookshelf was filled with Bible stories. All of those things have their place, but they do not determine the quality of her spiritual formation.

I am responsible for her discipleship. That takes place in what she sees and experiences of my unconscious actions even more than the ones I plan. What her spiritual maturity requires is my presence every day in her life. Not just a haphazard presence, but one that embodies submission to Jesus Christ. When I fail, she needs a front row seat to see what repentance and forgiveness look like.

She needs the same thing I gave her riding together in the car for all of those years. She needs to witness the contagious joy of serving the Lord.

Incarnated Discipleship

Jesus didn’t train His disciples from a distance. He lived among them.

To be sure, they had already memorized the Ten Commandments and heard His messages long before. But He didn’t leave it at that. He came to them personally. As the writer of Hebrews says, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.”

Those disciples had been shaped by the religious leaders of their day. Those Scribes and Pharisees were the religious authority. They knew the words of the Law inside and out. And they certainly had no problem wielding that law against the people. But they were hypocrites and everyone could see it. When Jesus embodied the heart of God before them, they could not recognize it. In fact, they were offended!

That’s the problem with discipling by words instead of presence. Words don’t always land the way we want them to. Jesus took the teaching of the Word and He lived it before their eyes.

He had committed Himself to always “do those things that please the Father.” The religious leaders had their teachings but they did not have that kind of commitment. That’s why they used the law as a weapon. Applying it to others kept it from biting them. But they had no power to change lives like Jesus did.

Tomorrow is another day with my daughter. I have no idea how many more there will be. My words don’t capture her attention as easily as they did when she was little. But she still sees me.

I can’t plan the foundational moments; which ones will stick. We both love 70s rock but she does not share my love for country. When it comes to her formation, my pattern has to be the path of Jesus, not the Scribes and Pharisees. My heart must be formed by being habitually in His presence. In that way, He is influencing me while I try to influence her.

I’m still her dad. I pray that while she watches me, she sees Him.

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I stood there staring at it with equal parts doubt and embarrassment. But, I tried to maintain the illusion that things were going exactly to plan. After all, my sons were watching me.

It had seemed like such a great plan. Our kitchen chairs were becoming a bit rickety and my wife wanted to buy a new set. I immediately and confidently declared that I could build them for half the price.

A few days later, I saw a smile ripple across my wife’s face as she was scrolling through her tablet. “This is the one!”, she exclaimed. “Could you make me chairs like this one?” I hesitated, but finally looked at it. It seemed like a fairly straightforward design.

There were no instructions, just a picture. But, how hard could it be? It’s just a couple pieces of lumber, some screws and wood glue. I owned all of the necessary tools and they were still in pristine condition due to a remarkable lack of use.

My wife also remarked that it would be a great father-son time to spend with my boys. They could learn how carpentry works.

We bought the lumber and set to work. I took measurements and cut the wood. Then, I began to piece it together. It seemed to start well, but when I picked up the back to fix it to the seat, the legs fell off.

“It’s all part of the learning curve,” I told myself. Then, it happened three more times. I finally got all the pieces together, but it seemed dangerously unstable.

My sons wanted to sit in it. That’s what chairs are made for; sitting! But those are chairs formed with a practiced hand. This chair was cobbled together from an uninformed idea.

Pinterest is full of beautiful ideas. It is a catalogue full of only the most desirable results. There is no category for disasters. But it cannot account for how the pictures are interpreted and used. In the hands of the confidently unskilled, an idea is a dangerous illusion.

Unstable Discipleship

The problem wasn’t with the materials. All of the elements for a positive outcome seemed to be present. I had the tools that I needed and I certainly poured a lot of effort into it. I even had a good picture of what the finished product should look like.

What was lacking was the slow, steady process of formation. I assembled the correct elements into something resembling what I wanted. I just didn’t have the ability to bring it all together. When it began to fail, I tried to fix it with a few screws, a little more glue and an increasing sense of frustration.

Frustration. That’s a good word for the discipleship efforts of many churches and families today. We have developed systems to streamline the formation process. But we end up with lives propped up with a patchwork of scaffolding, ignoring their lack of developed roots.

We make sure they attend Church. We give them a Bible. But for many, faith becomes something to manage rather than something to live. Attendance drifts. Identity splits. One version of life for Church, another for everything else.

Much of our outreach revolves around children ministries. There are youth groups, vacation bible schools and summer camps. But many disappear as they begin to leave home.

It hurts. The Church pours serious effort into maintaining these programs because we genuinely care. It’s not a question of caring. It’s a matter of examining our approach.

Spiritual formation is suffering from the Pinterest mentality. It appeals to an eye for the aesthetic with little consideration of how it is formed. Likewise, our attention is drawn to the outer beauty of how things look. Baptisms make beautiful pictures and wonderful celebrations. Long, patient investment in discipleship does not. So, we expose people to Church without a transformation of life. They imitate what they see in spiritual leaders without any real understanding of what it all means. Faith by proxy isn’t faith, it’s just a game.

Formation That Holds Up Under Pressure

The problem of how to build things that will carry weight is not new. In fact, there was a time when things were built differently.

Today, ancient Rome looms large in the cultural imagination. Buildings like the Colosseum are iconic. It’s magnificent. People travel from all around the world just to see it. But the Romans who built it had fewer tools than we have today. Their technology, while certainly impressive, did not reach present standards. And, they had limited design access – they certainly couldn’t find a picture from Pinterest for inspiration.
Yet, it has endured for millenia. It’s not just because of its aesthetic appeal. It truly is an engineering marvel. When it was constructed, it was able to accommodate and sustain the weight of 65,000 people. That strength didn’t come from their resources; it came from their formation.

The Colosseum was not propped up by outer scaffolding. It found its strength in the vaulted arch. An arch is not achieved by simply stacking material on top of each other. Every stone was chosen and shaped intentionally with an eye of how it would fit into the whole. Each piece depended on the other.

The arch can sustain an incredible amount of weight due to its formation. It resists compression, spreading the load through its structure towards the abutments. Due to the way it is assembled, pressure actually strengthens its stability by locking the stones more tightly in place.

That’s very revealing. In an improper formation, pressure exposes weakness as anyone that attempted to sit on my chair would find out. But, the arch is formed to carry the load.

It’s all made possible by the keystone. Scaffolding was used to erect the arch, but the keystone completed it. As its unique shape slid into place, it locked the other stones in position and the scaffolding wasn’t needed anymore.

It was the determining factor of whether the arch would stand or fall. Without it, the arch would collapse every time. If its shape was even a little off, the structure may stand for a while, but it could not bear up under pressure. Everything hinged on the right centerpiece.

A structure can look stable. It can function for a time and even appear strong. But if the keystone is wrong, collapse is inevitable.

Scaffolding Isn’t Formation

We would like to blame the woes of modern discipleship on the difficulty of our day. We’re fighting social media, 24-hour entertainment and convenient opportunities for sin. But it isn’t any of these things. It’s our insistence on erecting scaffolding to shore up what spiritual formation was meant to maintain.

That’s not new. It has been a human tendency throughout the ages. II Chronicles 24 gives us an overview of the life of Joash. He was a godly king when godly kings were hard to come by. He was especially influenced by the High Priest Jehoiada. That influence was so pervasive, that 24:2 says, “and Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the days of Jehoiada the priest.”

Indeed, Joash did do right. He made many reformations to restore proper worship in Judah. But for all his outward obedience and apparent strength, his faith relied on someone else. He was stable in the moment, but that stability was only borrowed.

Jehoiada was the scaffolding that held Joash up. He instructed him and corrected him, just as a good parent should do for their child. But over time, Jehoiada ceased to be a contributing piece of Joash’s faith and became the keystone instead of God.

Joash’s faith was built around the wrong center. Jehoiada was never meant to bear that weight.

Joash never internalized the formation of a relationship with God in his heart. When Jehoiada died, all of his godliness came to an abrupt and tragic end. Joash fell under the ungodly influence of the princes of Judah. His entire moral center shifted and he served God no more.

Why did this happen? It wasn’t a lack of exposure to God and His Word. It certainly wasn’t for a lack of instruction. He had all the proper resources. His failure was in having the wrong keystone. Jehoiada was not God and when he was gone, Joash’s faith went to the grave with him.

When we perform the autopsy of the Church’s discipleship efforts, we will find the same thing. We had a Pinterest-style idea of what a disciple should look like. We show them the picture but fail to walk with them as a model of how to develop an actual relationship with God. We never stopped to make sure the Keystone of their faith was in place.

Effort, even from noble intentions, cannot replace what only God can do. He has appointed us as ministers to our families and our churches. We teach them to read the Word, memorize Scripture and to pray. But we cannot make these efforts outward scaffolding. They are components that must be governed by Jesus, the Keystone.

The Pinterest approach to discipleship feels right. It gives us exactly the picture that we want. But we cannot reverse engineer results from a picture. The final structure will not be graded for good intentions. It will be judged by its integrity. Integrity demands that Jesus be at the center – not us.

You know the feeling. One minute you feel as though someone is genuinely interested in you. It seems like they are. After all, they are asking questions about your work, family, and interests; but then there’s the pitch. All the questions were a build up to what they really wanted to talk about. The interest wasn’t genuine. They wanted something. Their intentional questions and interest at the beginning of the conversation start to look a little less sincere. You start to realize you were a project to them, nothing else. And whenever they get what they want, the interest goes away.

It’s nice to meet those who genuinely care about us. If you look at the Apostle Paul’s ministry to the Thessalonians, you see that he came not only to share the message of the Gospel and then leave. He also came to share himself in real relationship. Part of his job in sharing the Gospel included sharing himself too.

The people were his mission. After all, Christ came to save sinners - people in crisis.

Relationships and community were a repeated pattern in Paul’s ministry. He showed up for them like a mother who shows up to nurture her children, like a father to teach and warn. Paul treasured the church because they were Christ’s inheritance.

How can we as ambassadors of Jesus Christ remember to be genuinely interested in others’ spiritual well-being? How can we learn to show up not just for our agendas, but because we really want others to experience peace with God through the Gospel of Christ? How can we share ourselves?

The most effective outreach will be accomplished through relationship, not arguments; through presence, not disembodied platforms.

But we first have to recognize the problem. We live in a world in which everyone shows up when a controversy explodes across social media. We are timid and disembodied in our own communities, churches, and families; but we flock to heated debates and hot takes like moths to a flame.

Yet, we stand amazed when no one wants to listen to our take. We shout into a maelstrom of sound and fury, but are silent in our own local communities. We show up for the controversies, but are absent from peoples’ dinner tables, the workplaces, the hospital rooms, and the ordinary spaces where relationships are built over time. We feel more energized to show up and speak our two-cents in heated debates than to first build a genuine relationship. Our culture is a culture of outrage. And like the salesman more eager to make his pitch than build a relationship, evangelism becomes a mercenary endeavor, not a genuine desire to share the joy of the Lord with others. We only care to get our point across without the sacrifice and forbearance of long-term relationship.

This does not mean there is no time for division and confrontation. Prizing the truth will require discernment and thus division. In fact, God commands us to speak the truth; but as ambassadors of Jesus Christ, we need to endeavor to foster an environment that allows us the well-timed opportunities to do so. Truth is more than just content. It is also tone, timing, and intention. There is a danger in rushing into controversy without having established ourselves as a consistent and faithful presence in our community and spheres of influence. The truth does not change, but the rightly motivated saint will do whatever they can to make their words count.

Where does the world see the follower of Christ showing up day in and day out? Do they see us as only showing up for the controversies, but not for the personal crisis they face? Are we disembodied enough to be acquaintances—visible enough to have a platform—but not personally reliable enough to speak into their lives? It may not be that people are unwilling to listen, only that they struggle to trust us with something as serious as eternal salvation, especially if we are not present and attentive enough to understand who and where they are.

As a chaplain, I find often find myself present with people in their most terrible crises. It is in these times that I have the power to convey true compassion for who they are. And by being present without strings attached, I earn the right to speak into their life. My credibility hinges on me being present. So when there are questions about truth, they are more willing to ask and listen. The opportunity to have genuine conversations about the Christian faith is now grounded in a real relationship - one that will last outside of my one-time “pitch.”

As followers of Christ, we need to be present in other’s lives, not just exposed on social media. We need to be present in the darkness of peoples’ crises, not comfortably distant in our own curated domains. Anyone can have the “courage” to fight from the comfort of an armchair and keyboard. It takes courage to show up for the moments of crisis in other’s lives.

The love of Christ will enter into peoples’ difficult moments in the same way that Jesus Christ showed up in real time and space for humanity’s crisis in sin. In fact, the very message of the Gospel is about a God who not only revealed his will by word but showed up in real time and space, built real relationships, died on the cross, and laid down his life. The incarnation is God practicing a ministry of presence!

Perhaps people will be willing to hear about the reason for the hope you have if you are present enough for them to see that hope in you. Show up for those in need. Spend time with them. You cannot proclaim the hope of the Gospel to those whom you are not present with.

There are far more Christians vocal online for something that happens hundreds of miles away than they are for the actual needs in their own community.

Showing up only for the debates and controversies shows others you only care about your agenda.

Showing up for the crisis shows you care about the person.

And last I checked, the Gospel mission is the person. They need the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Go find them.

I fought to keep a reassuring smile on my face, while I silently screamed at myself. I couldn’t believe what I had done.

There, before me, was this man who I counted as a friend. He was a new believer who had recently begun coming to our Church. And I wasn’t just his friend, I was his pastor.

He had spoken to me the Sunday before about a decision he had to make. I was in a hurry and barely listened.

He was considering leaving his job with benefits and good pay to try to live the dream of starting his own business. In my hurry to get on with my day, I told him I believed he could do it.

I forgot about the conversation immediately. But he continued to dwell on it, and the next day, he quit his job. He had a wife and two young children. Now their future hung in the balance.

My words carried weight that I had not counted as weight.

Words That Unleash Desire

I was responsible for something that I never intended. My words were based on what I wanted instead of concern for my brother. He desired counsel but already knew what he wanted to do. I desired to be finished with the conversation and get on with my day. A few quick words satisfied both moments. Their long-term effects would remain to be seen.

We often choose to mortgage wisdom for convenience. It’s all based on expediency. We say the things that people want to hear in order to move on more quickly. Flattery, untrue rumors, and agreement in spite of the facts all play on immediate satisfaction. But for all the promise of the moment, careless words leave a whirlwind to reap.

The Greeks recognized this and masterfully illustrated it in their mythology. Eris was the goddess of discord. She was denied an invitation to a wedding of her fellow gods and bitterness raged in her soul.

In her rejection, she desired to visit misery upon those who had snubbed her, and settled on an ingenious plan. She plucked a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides. She carefully engraved it with three words, “for the fairest.” Then, she snuck into the wedding and tossed it upon the table where Hera, Aphrodite and Athena were seated.

The apple of gold was already desirable, but it was the words that introduced uncontrollable chaos. Each goddess insisted that the apple was intended for her. The vanity of the inscription stoked their desire and they could not be placated. Vague, flattering words became the incubator for the suffering of all around them.

This chaos, once unleashed, only continued to grow. It eventually ended in the Trojan War. And how many wars have begun over careless words?

Words demand an anchor; formation by thought. Otherwise, the meaning is filled in by whoever wants it the most. And, they always choose to interpret by selfish desire.

Words That Order Desire

Desire was tightly interwoven with language in the story of Eris. Ancient societies had noticed that skill in communication did not always produce beauty and peace. They had seen speech abused and the long-reaching damage it caused. Skill did not equate wisdom.

Augustine of Hippo knew this. He said, “beware of the man who abounds in eloquent nonsense,” because, “eloquence without wisdom is frequently a positive injury, and is of service never.”1

The Bible points to the true potential of words as God created them. Proverbs 25:11 says, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.” It maintains the same imagery as the apples of discord, but employs it for a more noble purpose. The picture is not of unordered chaos, but beauty strategically employed in the right place and time.

In the biblical use, the value isn’t just the apple’s golden nature, it is also the setting. Profitable words are shaped by their environment. Timing, relationship, intent and authority all lend their weight to the words that are spoken. These are all considerations; they require thought and purpose.

In the story of Eris the words were tossed into the crowd and left to their own interpretation. Their selfish desire allowed her to manipulate the pleasant words for purposes of malice. In Proverbs, the words are carefully placed. And it is of little wonder because God personally places value on words. He used them purposefully to create the universe. He worked through the authors of the books of the Bible to reveal Himself and His character.

The difference between these two cultural lenses is not the words themselves. It is whether they are responsibly formed before being released. The proverb is not divorcing words from the effect of selfish desires. Far from it. It is placing the desire under the governor of formation. Unformed desire creates conflict while formed desire creates beauty. The world continues to suffer under the former while rejecting the latter.

Why This Keeps Happening

Thousands of generations have suffered under speech formed by a desire for self-preservation. Yet, we continue to speak words carelessly at the cost of genuine peace. We do it because we are addicted to the moment. It is a form of addiction where desire overrules reason. We have been burned by flattering speech and empty promises. We have felt the guilt when we see the hurt in someone else’s eyes. But in that moment, we want something more than we care. It is self-preservation above all else.

Carelessness presents itself in two forms.

Most commonly, it is sourced in a lack of concern. The priority is placed on the moment. We despise tension and long for peace so we reach for comfort instead of truth. That was the attitude that informed my thoughtless advice to my friend. I was in a hurry and I could end the conversation and make him happy at the same time. So, I encouraged him without caring for him.

Other times we do this under the guise of “being a good friend.” We may see problems on the horizon, but if we disagree it may harm the friendship. And so we affirm everything they say. We care more for how the friendship benefits us than how our advice may affect them.

But the second form of carelessness is even more insidious. It is political. Everybody knows that politicians make promises with no intention to pay. That is part of the reason they are universally despised. But we are not immune. We say things in a way that will benefit us without worrying about the long-term effects on us and those around us. As a result, we speak carefully in a way that is careless.

It does not go unnoticed by God. Matthew 12:36,37 says, “I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

We treat words so carelessly that it almost shocks us to read these verses. Why would God care so much about them when there are bigger problems to deal with? Wars. Hunger. Disease.

He cares. Not just because of the value He places on truth, but because He cares for people. Eris threw three little words into a party that she wasn’t invited to because she was bitter. It led the whole known world into war.

We’ve experienced that same chaos on a more personal scale. Who hasn’t been hurt by a careless word from someone that we love? Who hasn’t clung to a promise that the other person never intended to pay?

When we speak, we do it by the breath that God has granted us from His own store. He will not idly sit by while we pervert it with careless desire.

We Need A Governor

Desire will never sit quietly in the corner for as long as we live in the flesh. It doesn’t speak. It screams, demanding to be heard. It must be forcefully submitted to control.

The untethered nature of our speech when we are operating from self-preservation is dangerous. When our desires are at stake, anything becomes fair game. Speech begins to move faster than wisdom.
James 3:6 speaks of the tongue as staining the whole body and setting fire to the whole course of life. It will sacrifice anything to preserve itself.

That is not fitting for a life that has been surrendered to God. He has chosen our lives, and our words to be His testimony to the world. We have been called to proclaim the Good News. We speak underneath the authority of God, not borrowing it for our own pleasure.

Proclamation is not simply speaking truth. It takes responsibility for how truth will be understood. In care, we inform our life with Scripture and prayer until what pours out of us has actually come from Him.

God cares about the things we say. Someone who loves me might feel the pull to assuage my guilt over the careless advice I offered my friend. “It’s alright.” “You were busy.” But I will not answer to my friends. I will answer to God.