In the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing a few pieces of my own that found their way into Voices. I hope you enjoy them and I hope they make you consider what it looks like for you to fully embrace the ministry of reconciliation you’ve been given, despite everything [and you know what I mean] that would tempt you toward polarity, violence, impulse, or division. I hope they give you revelation of a Third Way.

I’ve always been drawn to literary plots – stories like Manchester By the Sea, Our Friend, or The Crucible which, being tragic in nature, expose the realities in our lives we are too afraid, or too sad, to name. I love their dissonance – their gumption to leave loose ends untied, their commitment to resist tidy bows, their courage to tell an honest story, complete in its allowance of sorrow.

I’ve found a particular sort of companionship, and consolation therein, wrapped in those poignant scenes – when Jo refuses Laurie or when Beth dies; when Sean MacGuire cradles Will and repeats to him, over and over, it’s not your fault; when Norman realizes, despite his tremendous efforts, he can’t save his addicted brother, Paul, but is riddled with guilt anyway when he dies prematurely.

Something in these scenes breaks the third wall just enough to say, I, too, have been grieved, crushed by the weight of irreparable ruptures, and for a brief moment, the whole audience, shadowed by their own versions of sorrow, finds a friend.

The value of the literary plot is its exposure of what we all inherently conclude in the face of our own suffering, the very conclusion that confirms we are image-bearers of God Himself: it’s not supposed to be this way.

An Age-Old Narrative

Perhaps this is one of the reasons I love Scripture, too. It is filled with a collection, it seems, of literary plots – stories of real people who lived real lives and themselves understood the tension between reality and hope, who towed the line between two seemingly competing refrains: “God is good”, and “This can’t be happening”.

Stories like Joseph who was, despite his early anointing, rejected by every one of his twelve brothers, falsely accused of adultery, and thrown in prison (Genesis 37-50).

Stories like Abraham and Sarah who, though promised to father many nations, both live with the grief of barrenness until their nineties (Genesis 11-21).

Like Job who, though proving himself faithful in every way, loses his wife and all his children, as well as those he called friends (Job 1-42).

Like David who, though clearly favored by God, gave into temptation and, exposing his humanity to a nation who adored him, toppled from the pedestal they’d kept him on (2 Samuel 11-12).

Like the disciples who, living in the thick of systemic oppression and longing for a deliverer, are sorely disappointed when the Conquering Victor they’d given their lives for is crucified at the hands of the same oppressors they’d hoped He’d overthrow (Matthew 26-27, Mark 15, Luke 22-23, John 19).

Of course, these are extreme examples, but surely we’ve all lived through our own series of literary plots, varying only by degrees of severity: a misunderstanding with a friend, a breach in trust, a prolonged silence with someone you once felt close, a sudden loss and it’s ravenous grief, a disagreement on something important and the inexperience to know how to remain friends despite it, a subtle betrayal, a not-so-subtle betrayal, the harboring of unforgiveness, the natural dissolve of a friendship due to time or distance, how it hurts despite its normalcy.

These stories, in Scripture, in film, in our very real lives, provide for us vivid pictures of what the breakdown of that original Edenic shalom looks like in every way: with God, with self, and especially, with others – and the immense pain that subsists in the aftermath.

To be sure, those who are in Christ are promised Certain Victory – a Final Happy Ending ( John 11:25-26, 1 Corinthians 15:57, Revelation 19-22). We await His Second Coming with unshakable confidence and ultimate hope. But until this consummation of the Kingdom of God, inaugurated at Jesus’ resurrection, our lives often look more akin to a literary plot than a fairytale ending.

Jesus Himself, the night before He was betrayed, promises us that which we wish He’d never promised: “In this world you will have trouble”, which is to say we will experience myriad sequels to that original Fall from Grace — the expected, unforeseeable imperfections of a world on fire (John 16:33a).

Even so, what is true of those who are in Christ, awaiting that long-awaited Second Coming and living their own renditions of literary genre, is that having been reconciled to Christ, we are not victims to the literary plots we find ourselves in. The reality is that regardless of the narrative, we have been given that same ministry of reconciliation – admonished with a particular vocational assignment: that of the peacemaker (2 Corinthians 5:18-19).

Ones who, despite searing disappointment, would tarry with God in the notch of the night, would put our hands to the plow with each faithful day, would actively participate in making all that is wrong in the world right again. Ones who would refuse to avoid the sadness of their stories and those of others, but who instead press into it with prophetic vision for how it might be redeemed.

Of course, before we become bewitched with cinematic vision, we’d do well to remember the old adage: peacemaker does not mean peacekeeper – which is to say, this vocation will cost us something.

An Important Distinction

Being a peacekeeper will keep you in relative safety, comfortable with your distance from pain, conflict, and the vulnerable heartbreak that reality demands. It will enable a passive posture within you, coddling you with distraction and entertainment, and affording you a blissful ignorance to all that is wrong in the world, insulated as you will be kept with toxic positivity.

At its root, peacekeeping holds that peace is really just an absence of conflict, so in the face of a rupture, it will resort to silence, avoidance, or minimization. It will justify white lies to avoid disagreement, responsibility, or ownership, and it will comfort you with one thousand justifications for why you need not take action.

Most elusively, it will try with all its might to detach you from your most vulnerable desires, that you might give up on all hope of restoration, conceding to the reality of what is today rather than pressing into the vision of what could be should you partner with the Spirit of God alive in you.

In short, peacekeeping will effectively keep you from the ministry of reconciliation you've been given by God: safe and warm and decidedly comfortable -- though entirely disconnected from the heart of God and His mission in the world.

On the other hand, to be a peacemaker, as it is biblically defined, will most certainly cost you that which you are not prepared to sacrifice.

It is, to be clear, an active and vulnerable posture: laborious, highly inefficient, and requiring genuine humility. It will require sober judgment of the reality you are living, as well as a vulnerable hope for how you might press in to participate in its redemption.

It moves toward, rather than away from, all that would surely break your heart -- whatever is broken, rejected, afflicted, despised, irreparable, and without hope. Peacemaking requires a willingness to be led, as Henri Nouwen writes, "where we would rather not go" -- into places of pain, humility, discomfort, and self-emptying love.

As you can imagine, this is terrifyingly costly, requiring tremendous effort and courage and our submission to its discipline. Nevertheless, it is the way of Jesus, who, in order to restore us to peace, became obedient unto death -- even death on a cross (Philippians 2:8).

Therein lies the disappointment of the gift of our reconciliation: it is death which accomplished it for us -- and death which will be required of us should we accept its ministry. Indeed, the reality of the gospel of Jesus reveals that in order to live into the resurrection we long for, we must first be willing to submit to death in its various forms.

We do not, for example, bear the fruit of humility without first dying to the pride of the self. We do not enjoy the gift of healing without first enduring the suffering which demanded it in the first place. The relational lives we delight in are cultivated one preference-of-another-before-ourselves at a time. The greatest enemy to the life we know we were created for in God is love of the self.

Therefore, we ought not be surprised when, in receiving this ministry of reconciliation – with its resurrection power and hope for the redemption of all things – our own deaths-to-self are required.

We ought not be surprised when the story we are living looks first like a literary plot before it looks like a triumphant, conquering victory.

It Costs to Keep Looking

Lore Wilbert, an author I’ve always loved, says that “friendship is the commitment to keep looking for the other”, and I would say peacemaking, this ministry of reconciliation, requires the same commitment.

Of course, this commitment becomes painful the moment we are wounded in any way – triggered by past pain or injured afresh. If you’re anything like me, the propensity to then withdraw into the cave of self-protection and its illusion of safety becomes entirely too enticing. Insulated by the expectation of being found, it is easy to justify one’s refusal to go looking.

I remember with blistering clarity the morning when the Lord confronted the destruction of one such decision. It was in the midst of a particularly painful season of relational discord. Feeling justified, I was convinced the command to forgive - albeit made by Jesus with no exceptions - did not apply to this particular situation, pockmarked as it was with insult, pain, and rejection. I wasn’t brave enough then to simply be sad, so I gave myself to bitterness and resentment instead. With time, they each became their own protruding maladies, pouring out of me in blind rage at the dinner table or in front of the kitchen sink or on my morning walks.

That morning in prayer, weary of being so miserable, I let down all of my defenses, and the Lord began to speak. You have to forgive, I remember Him saying. I don’t feel ready, Lord, I’d protested. He’d heard it all before, of course – He wasn’t going to budge. You have to forgive, I heard Him say again, and then, Forgiveness is made possible only by My power, not by yours.

In other words, He was asking that I keep looking for this person I was so bent on hiding away from. Peace depended upon my doing so.

I realized then the power I’d been operating under - the one who I’d really been partnering with in my refusal to forgive - and I was grieved. Following the lead of the Spirit, I began to repent for the ways I’d partnered with the enemy in sowing disunity. I broke agreement with bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness, and I declared to the Lord my desire to partner with Him in sowing love, peace, and unity.

By the blood and power of Jesus, I chose to forgive that day, and in that one step of obedience – the willingness to die to the need to be justified and to submit to the discipline of reconciliation – I was liberated into a deeper freedom and peace than I’d known before, no longer tormented by the effects of my bitterness. Further, this step of obedience moved me into a season of deep intercession for the restoration of this relationship – prayers that led to the reality of its reconciliation months later.

Surely, with every death to self, there is resurrection life that awaits.

Peacemakers Contain Worlds of Tension

Being ministers of reconciliation requires we adopt the active work of peacemaking in our lives, in our work, and in our relationships, and it looks like something particular.

Peacemakers are quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry – willing to forsake the need to be understood or justified. Peacemakers trust the sufficiency of the cross, enabling them to move in mercy toward others rather than in judgment. Peacemakers seek to understand before being understood, valuing the person in front of them above their own perspectives, opinions, and the satisfaction of being right. Peacemakers prize shalom above what is comfortable, being quick to hold conversation if ever there is a rupture in relationship – regardless of how awkward or scary it may be. Peacemakers seek the middle ground in difference without compromising their own convictions.

Distinctly, peacemakers are unafraid of the inevitable sadness this world, this side of the Second Coming, promises – even accepting that sadness is often the most appropriate first response (John 11:35).

And ultimately, peacemakers give themselves to the vulnerability of hope, never writing off something broken as too broken, regardless of how close the pain of its brokenness may be to them, but laboring always in partnership with God to bring what is dead back to life, what is fractured back to wholeness, what is in darkness back into His marvelous light.

Peacemaking requires the fullness of our participation, a posture of humble submission before God, Our Shalom, asking Him: how can I partner with you in making peace with this person or in sowing peace into this situation? Forgiveness might be in order, or a decision to forsake the bitterness you’ve been keeping in your pocket. You may need to practice honoring this person in the quiet of your heart. A vulnerable conversation may be necessary, or a sincere apology. Simply, you may be asked to sit in the sadness of others, courageous in the face of discomfort or the disparity of yours and theirs, communicating that beautiful reality afforded to us in God: never will I leave you, never will I forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:6-8, Joshua 1:9) .

There is, of course, inherent risk. So it goes with anything costly, valuable, worthwhile. Still, we can trust Him however He asks us to move toward one another. For every one thousand ways things might go wrong, we are given a promise to match that of certain trouble: “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b) There are, too, one thousand more ways things might go right.

As Adam Young says, there will be things that God doesn’t heal or reconcile this side of Christ’s second coming, but, he says, we don’t know which things. And who is to say it couldn’t be this?

So it is, despite its many risks, a worthwhile effort, for it is when we labor unto this end, as peacemakers, that we most resemble the Father, even being called sons and daughters of God (Matthew 5:9). To be sure, it is in these deaths to self, and the certain resurrections that follow, that we share in the sufferings of Christ while partnering with him in the mission of the Gospel of Peace.

Therefore, we keep hope always alive for every lost and broken thing we see, for every literary plot we find ourselves living, stewarding as best we can this peace we’ve been given.

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If you enjoyed this essay and want to read more like it, there’s still time to order your own copy of Voices Magazine! We have just a few copies left & I’d love to send one your way :)

Despite its gloom, March was a month for sharing some big news that we’ve held close to our chests for a long time.

First, of course, there was the news of our pregnancy which we are continually growing in joy over as we feel the baby’s movements and receive tiny hand-me-downs and read up on all the things-we-should-know. A friend wrote to me last week, asking me how motherhood is settling over me, and the first word that came to mind was peace, shortly followed by with some complications. I have no doubt that this is the Lord’s timing for us to start our family and I get teary just thinking about the kind of dad Brody is going to be and most nights I have trouble falling asleep with excitement and little dreams for our growing family.

Still, if I’m honest, I worry time-to-time about what kind of mom I’ll be: if I’ll lose myself within motherhood, if I’ll mess up in some catastrophic way, if I’ll have what it takes. All of these things, I hear, are “normal” anxieties approaching motherhood – though most days I’m stubbornly trying to resist their normalcy for the sake of keeping my peace. It’s an ongoing practice: I question my sufficiency, I hold it up to the light of His love, I trust in His instead. Repeat. Like preparing my body for birth, I suppose I’m also preparing my heart for motherhood.

Brody tells me all our kids will need from me is for me to be myself, which has been his encouragement to me from the beginning – in everything. (Like I said, he is going to be the very best dad.) I’m trying on this truth until it fits me and leaning daily into the sufficiency of God’s grace and love, which faithfully covers a multitude of short-comings – praise be to God. More on this, I’m sure, later.

Second, at long-last, there was the news sharing the release of a very special project I’ve been working on with a team of other female writers and artists: Voices Magazine, a print publication. (If you’re an email subscriber, you’ve already heard!)

When I first left teaching, I dreamed of pioneering a collaborative print publication that would feature the work of writers and artists in our community – ordinary, faithful believers stewarding their own craft to magnify the reality of God in the world. As it turned out, twenty other women were looking for a place to use their gifts and talents in a tangible, meaningful way. Voices Magazine became the fruit of this dream – and it’s open for pre-order now!

Voices is a work of unity, featuring pieces from women across a spectrum of demographics and generations, existing to prepare the way of the Lord by ushering in the truth, beauty, and goodness of the age to come today. It seamlessly weaves together essay, poetry, story, art, photography, and design to edify the Body of Christ and to magnify His glory, His Kingdom, and His Way.

If you want to learn more about this project or to snag a copy of your own, visit this link! Pre-orders will close on April 27th, and after that, there will only be a limited supply available. So don’t miss out – order yours today! You won’t be disappointed, I promise.

If you’re relatively new here, you’ll remember that at the end of each month, I like to engage in a little bit of reflection. I heartily agree with Kierkegaard when he said that “life is lived forward but understood backward”. I’ll ask questions like, “what stirred my affections for Jesus this month?” and “what were the richest lessons” and “am I still in the middle of them or have they worked themselves all the way through?” and “what questions am I carrying with me?” Somehow I’ve found these questions offer me a sense of orientation to the work of God in my life - the joy, the wisdom, the inclinations toward beauty - and how I can partner with that work more fully. If you have a little stretch of time today, care to join me?

Three things I read, watched, or listened to that stirred my affections for Jesus…

This sermon on worry by Megan Fate Marshman. Brody and I went to Park City last week for a work trip for him, and we listened to this podcast while driving. There were several moments that we played back and listened to again. For me, it’s given me a new sort of authentic permission in my prayer life and has revived me in some places I felt dry. Be refreshed!

The At Home with the Beveres podcast. Addison and Juli Bevere are coming to our church in May for a marriage and family mini-conference, so out of curiosity, I started listening to their podcast during my workouts this month. So far, I’ve especially liked this episode and this one and this one. They are deeply honest when talking about family dynamics and their wisdom is practical and applicable! The best.

Voices Magazine. I promise I’m not biased! (Well, maybe a little.) I’m including this, however, out of genuine conviction that those who read this will encounter God and be edified toward greater depth in their spiritual lives. I’ve spent hours and hours with the pieces in this magazine, and I mean it when I say there is tremendous substance and wisdom to be found here. A true gold mine! I’ve often been weary of Christian cliche and kitsch within the creative realm, and this, to be sure, is not that. You’ll be encouraged, challenged, inspired – not to mention, the art and design is gorgeous all the way through.

Two things I’ve learned or am still learning…

1. Memorizing scripture is not a juvenile practice, but a powerful one. I’ve wrestled on and off with an internal soundtrack of anxiety, most often coming upon me before I fall asleep and as I’m waking up – those thin spaces of routine transition. Recently, a mentor of mine mentioned that one of Dallas Willard’s daily practices was to repeat Psalm 23 before he got out of bed each morning, and she suggested I give it a try any time I felt anxious thoughts creep in to steal my peace. I was skeptical at first, believing Scripture memorization to be a religious practice more than a deeply spiritual one. But then I remembered that it was memorized Scripture that caused Satan to flee Jesus in the wilderness, and the Word of God as one of two offensive weapons given to the believer in Ephesians 6. Not surprisingly then, it was this practice that began paying dividends toward my peace. It was as though Scripture became an offensive weapon to fortify the boundaries of my morning and evening, taking back territory that the enemy desired to steal for his purposes and consecrating them anew to the Lord. It’s clear to me that we don’t always need new and better practices or disciplines. The old ones have done the trick for generations and will still do the trick now.

2. God is my defender, so I don’t have to be. Recently, the Lord has been exposing various areas in which I operate out of self-protection. Often, it’s micro-moments where I hold internal judgment instead of honor or I choose to withdraw rather than reach across. Other times, it’s been an outburst of anger toward my husband or an unwillingness to share the real contents of my heart with a friend. All of this keeps others at a distance. Gently He’s been teaching me that when I take up the space as my own defender, He can’t be that for me – I’ve left Him no room. I’m learning how to leave that space open, regardless of the vulnerability I may feel in the meantime. (To be clear: this is descriptive of my own relational experience, and does not apply to cases in which someone may be in actual danger of harm.)

A few questions to consider as we head into April…

• Are there any spiritual rhythms or disciplines that have become rote in your life? Is the Lord perhaps inviting you into something new for the sake of intimacy with Him in this season?

• What is the intention you’d like to set for this new season? Do you desire to have more fun? Do you desire to simplify your life – your home, your soul, or your schedule? Do you desire to incorporate more intentional time with friends into your week? Do you desire to create more space for peace? Or perhaps for creativity? You have the power to choose!

• What dreams are you stewarding in your heart? What does that stewardship look like in this season?

As always, I’m so grateful you’re here. Thank you, thank you for reading and supporting this work I do in my little corner of the internet. If you’re into that kinda thing, I’d love to hear what you’re processing in your own spiritual life as we head into April. Drop it below in the comments or shoot me an email response - I always try to write back :)

In winter, the world falls asleep for a little while and, despite our reluctance, sometimes encourages us to do the same. The ground frosts over, the plants lay dormant, the days run shorter. Things are a little bleak. All of it is an invitation to rest, to cease, to tuck ourselves away a bit. If we have eyes to see it, much good is happening despite the look of things.

As a writer, winter seasons – when there is little to say – can feel disorienting at best, anxious at worst. I’m still learning in my own formation to resist the fear of insignificance that rears its head when I feel as though I have nothing to offer, nothing to produce, nothing to put my hands to. Glennon Doyle once offered a message to worried artists, saying there are times for creating and times for becoming the person who will create the next thing. “Rest and become,” she’d said. I’ve clung to that.

Recently, I saw a picture of a woman I didn’t know who was, from the looks of it, nearly full-term in her pregnancy. “I’ve been busy,” the caption read. It was funny to me in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way. We all know growing a baby is difficult work, all of it having nothing to do with ourselves. The entirety of gestation happens beneath the surface, invisible (mostly) to the eye. Still, apart from our own volition, life comes from us.

Likewise, without fail and any will of our own, winter - Earth’s gestation period - always, always becomes spring.

Perhaps you know where this is going. I suppose now is as good a time as any to announce that Brody and I are expecting a BABY this August! In November I took a pregnancy test, and then another one for good measure, then wrapped them both and put the gift under the Christmas tree for Brody to find. He was over the moon like I haven’t seen anyone before and we laughed at the hilarity of everything we knew would change for us but couldn’t yet fathom. We still can’t.

We are humbled by the tremendous gift of a child. How could we not be? It has blown my mind that though I’ve spent most days bent over the toilet or canceling my best laid plans for a nap on the couch, the Spirit of God has been resting on my womb in such a way as to form every vital organ and sustain a beating heart. Though you haven’t seen much of the work of my hands here, like the kindred female in the photo, I’ve been busy. There has been something of profound importance taking place within me.

I can’t say we have any idea what we are doing. To be sure, there are still stacks of books we should read and about one hundred decisions we are told we should make. For today, all we know is that we’ve been made absolutely rich in love and we simply can’t wait to share its abundant overflow with someone else. That’s enough for now, I think. We trust that winter will do its blessed work in us, and eventually we’ll grow into our new shoes. Life will emerge from us, entirely apart from our own volition.

Some thoughts for the end of your February…

What is the important work winter is doing - or has done - in you this year? Have you leaned into it or away from it? What are some things you need to surrender in order to partner with the purpose of this season?

As we press into spring, what new fruit do you see in yourself, your life, or your family that required the dormancy of winter to bloom? How can you mark this new thing the Lord has done in a meaningful way?

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:19

As always, it means the world to me that you’re here, especially despite my prolonged absence. Thank you, truly. Your presence here is never lost on me! If you have a minute, I’d love to hear from you: what is the work winter has done in your heart this year? What fruit do you notice in your life as we head into spring?

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I told her she was doing the work of the gospel - that blessed good news which, in essence, brings all unlike things, unlike people, together in perfect unity. She’s standing in that crucible of tension, pulled in multitudes of directions, so many real human people that she loves on all sides of the undercurrent of political conversation. 

She lamented, only briefly and with humor, the nature of her work which places her in rooms mediating conversations with as many varied perspectives and histories as there are shades of blue and red. Though I did not envy her on Wednesday, expected to have important, wise things to say at 7:00am the morning after to a room of people who hardly agree on any one thing, this Monday morning as I consider her again, I find myself hoping she is not the outlier - only one among a rare few who are engaging in civil discourse with those along a continuum of difference.

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I’ve sifted through a cocktail of thoughts and feelings the last few days. I haven’t reached any particular sort of resolution. I’m disheartened by many competing messages I’ve seen and heard: 

by those who are championing the new presidency without acknowledging what it may mean for thousands of marginalized demographics; 

by those who are riddled with anxiety and despair, failing to acknowledge that justice and mercy, while we have responsibility in their fruition, do still ultimately belong to God; 

by those who remain comfortable in their privilege and mostly ignorant to it, who are glad the election is over so they can get on with their lives, yet unaware of those who won’t be able to without some reality of heartache, tragedy, or loss. 

I’ve seen it all come across my feed the last few days, in varied forms, and none of it sits well with me for reasons you can read about here and here and here and here.  

To be sure, I’m not the only one who has come across a post or an opinion which has pricked me or stirred up an angst I was surprised by. We are all responding differently to the events of last week, all of us speculating, though in reality all of us entirely uncertain, of what this will really mean for us in the days to come. As it usually goes, we’ll look back thinking we couldn’t have anticipated things playing out the way they did and wish we would’ve dropped our swords earlier, wish we would’ve never picked them up at all. 

I’m convinced more than ever that we must make unity our supreme desire, and we are fools if we think unity means sameness. Unity, as the gospel defines it, is exactly what my friend is accomplishing in her classroom: finding ways to reach across all divides, to honor difference rather than to despise it, to pull taut the tent pegs of our dissimilarity so that we can find our refuge in a God who contains multitudes: who Himself holds all mercy and justice in perfect harmony. 

In these inaugural days, we all have to do the work that our conviction requires of us - to celebrate or to grieve, to clean the house and greet our neighbors and go to the grocery store. And then, regardless of where we find ourselves, we must make unity our supreme desire and commit ourselves to the work of it. The Spirit’s work in the world rests on a unified people, and we are desperate for the Spirit’s work in the world - accomplishing the redemption and shalom of all things. 

In the days to come, I hope we find ourselves as I’ve found my teacher friend: in many rooms, among many conversations which all press us and pull us and challenge us and expect of us. I hope we refuse to glide blissfully along in the echo chambers of our choosing. I hope we catch ourselves before we share our opinions in such a way that assumes all must surely agree with us. I hope we ask questions and remain genuinely curious and assume that everyone is simply doing and deciding and opinionating the best they can with the information they have now. I hope this posture doesn’t keep us from our own convictions, but rather makes us more charitable, more hospitable to the souls and stories behind all the chatter.

Rather than dig in our heels further into the sand of our political ideologies, let’s choose to plant ourselves more firmly on the Rock of Ages, surrendering more deeply to His Spirit as He leads us in seeking the welfare of the places to which we’ve been called. Surely political engagement is part of this work, and surely it is only part. 

Church, we have work to do. 

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We’re all making big decisions, testing our own convictions up against the ballot box, prioritizing them along the spectrum of importance, weighing each decision and discerning their predicted effects. 

We’re navigating the discipline of unity, this blessed fruit of the gospel, which requires difference and certainly also disagreement, and we’re finding it always more difficult than we’d have hoped to remain connected to those which we find so opposite of ourselves. We’re reaching across anyway.

We’re bracing ourselves for the future aftermath of which we cannot rightly predict or prepare for but is certainly coming, and we’re grappling with the reality that whether or not the votes are cast in our favor, it won’t solve all of our problems and will likely create new ones.

These are not small things, and we are not immune to their effects.

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People often say that when a person is squeezed, we can see their true colors – that what is really inside of a person reveals itself when we’re faced with moments of challenge, stress, heartache, disappointment, or loss of control. More than what’s inside of us however, I think a good, hearty squeezing ultimately reveals where we’ve established our refuge, and where we’ve established our refuge is of supreme importance.

In Matthew 7: 24-27, Jesus says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mind and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mind and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on the house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” 

On Tuesday, or likely Wednesday, we’ll receive the general election results, and in the days following, regardless of the result, there’s sure to be consequences, both personal and societal, we couldn’t have predicted or saved ourselves from, but which we find ourselves contending with anyway. We’ll be squeezed. And whether we stand or fall in the coming days will be determined chiefly by where we establish our refuge. 

It’s important to note that “building our house on the rock” is both a one-time decision – a surrendering of one’s life to the Lordship of Jesus – and an every-day, every-moment decision, choosing to be led rather than to lead. 

Here are some practices that may be helpful to consider in the coming days  to ensure your body, mind, soul, spirit remains steadfast and unmoving upon the Rock of our refuge. 

Start and end each day with worship and praise

Before you consume any media or say any words, give the first fruits of your attention to God. Fix your eyes securely upon this slain but standing Lamb, who reigns forevermore from a posture of humility, self-emptying servanthood, and victory. Rest in the sufficiency of His authority, His mercy, His faithfulness. Praise Him for who He is. Use your words. Repent, when necessary, for giving your affections and loyalties to the idol of politics and parties, and set them, again and again, upon the One who is worthy. 

Create space for silence and solitude

This is the surest antidote I know of to anxiety: to be alone with God. When all around us is frenzy, we must discipline ourselves with silence: an active decision to preserve a void – to protect the quiet from noise, opinions, distraction. It’s only in silence and solitude which we will learn to discern the voice of God, and it’s His voice we need most – in any season, but especially this one.

Pray for those you disagree with

I don’t mean pray that God would change their minds to agree with you. No, instead pray that God would richly bless them. Pray that He’d leave no area of their lives - their relationships, their finances, their vocational work, their families and homes - untouched by His goodness. Pray that you might grow in love toward them. 

Remember the faithfulness of God

Though you may find yourself in some sort of surprised shock by Wednesday, God will surely not be surprised. Nor will He be worried or anxious. He has full confidence in His faithfulness toward humanity, to each one of His children, and so should we be confident. Take some time to remember the goodness of God manifest throughout your life – moments when He proved Himself faithful to you in both seen and unseen ways. Then, acknowledge the smallness of your life in reference to the story of God – take time to wonder at His steadfast, evergreen faithfulness to His people from the beginning of time till now. Rest knowing that His character won’t soon (ever) change. 

Take heart, brothers and sisters. Find your refuge in God. When the rain falls, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon your house, you will not fall, because you have established yourself firmly upon the Rock.

I adopted all of their rhythms and routines. Every morning, we’d wake around 7:00, and put a fresh bakery loaf in the oven to toast. We’d smear it with butter and ripe avocado, pour ourselves a cup of Nescafe, and we’d watch the news together on a small television set propped on the corner shelf.

In the evening, just before bed, we’d gather again for a near-identical meal, only this time in the living room: another toasted bakery loaf, some white, mild cheese, and a night cap of Nescafe. We’d watch the evening news this time, and depending on what we saw, we’d share a few jovial stories, or I’d question the grim looks on their faces, and they’d explain what the events of that day meant for them or the people they loved.

I didn’t fully understand the complexities of their government, but I do remember being suddenly sobered when a riot broke out near the university I’d been attending. I remember running across the square, covering my face with my elbow as gas bombs were lit off, recognizing there was corruption at play that I’d never had to worry about at home. 

No wonder we watched the news every morning and evening like clockwork: they would always experience the effects close to home of every government ruling, every enacted policy, every civil rebellion.

Six months later, I’d be in a literature class back in Montana, and a friend of mine would be monologuing about the brilliance of American democracy, how every day decisions are made and policies are legislated and all of this happens with little to none of our awareness. It’s pretty remarkable, he’d said, that we could live the near-entirety of our lives with relative ignorance to the government and its workings simply because the checks and balances are sufficient enough to ensure that we are rarely affected by its power.  

I know many people who would agree with this friend simply because it confirms their own experience – and for a long time, I agreed with him, too. We never had to do the deep work to educate ourselves on various policies or the far-reaching effects of them because whether or not they were legislated would change very little of our day-to-day lives. Certainly this was true of my white, heterosexual male friend living in small-town Montana. Certainly this is true of every person who finds themselves a member of a majority. 

In retrospect, I recognize the glaring privilege such a posture represents. We can choose to engage or not engage, to vote or not to vote - all because whether or not we do or don’t matters little to us and those we love.

It’s the same posture I’ve run into in handfuls of tired conversations around the state of American politics. Many well-meaning people I know are genuinely entertaining withdrawing their vote on the basis of moral obligation: they can’t, in good conscience, support either candidate, so they’ve considered non-participation in an attempt to keep their hands clean. They are sorely mistaken.

While this is overwhelmingly convenient for those who are safely insulated within the confines of a majority, it is overwhelmingly disheartening for anyone who finds themselves deviating from it - by their own volition or not - for those whose everyday lives will most certainly be significantly altered whether the ballot casts red or blue.

Ultimately and most grievously, this posture reflects a certain magnitude of distance from the marginalized, the minority, and the culturally oppressed that Jesus never kept.

For He is gentle & lowly of heart

Last week, I wrote an appeal of sorts for civic engagement. I am deeply convinced that as believers our call is “to seek the welfare of the city to which we’ve been called”, and in large part, this involves political concern and participation. 

But participation is only half of the call; the posture from which we engage is of equal, if not more, importance. 

Recently, a respected elder at our church shared a gripping question to ask ourselves as we engage politically: what political matters are important to God on a spiritual and moral basis? 

To answer this question judiciously requires a wariness of syncretism and a total severing of absolute allegiance to any single political party. It requires a sober recognition that democracy actually functions best when there are equal players on both the republican and democratic sides of the aisle. And it requires we honor the image of God as we engage politically by orienting our justice, as God does, toward the marginalized, the minority, the outcast, the poor, and the oppressed.

All throughout Scripture, God positions Himself toward the vulnerable, advocating for their cause and standing in their defense. 

In fact, the first time God is named in Scripture is in Genesis 16, when He appears to Hagar, an Egyptian slave pregnant with her master’s son. She calls him, El-Roi, “the God who sees” (Genesis 16:13). 

Then of course, God appoints a barren couple to lead the Israelites and father the people of God (Genesis 12:1-3). He handpicks a murderer and a refugee to deliver His people out of slavery (Exodus 3). He selects the rejected, the youngest, the smallest, the weakest to accomplish His highest purposes (1 Samuel 16). Indeed, he chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27). 

Later, Scripture admonishes a particular flavor of justice, saying, “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3-4). 

And again in Isaiah: “learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (1:17). 

Of course, we have New Testament examples as well. Jesus is always intentionally moving toward, rather than away from, the cultural outcast: dignifying the adulterer (John 8:1-11), touching the leper (Matthew 8:1-4), welcoming the tax collector (Matthew 9:9-13), befriending the enemy foreigner (John 4:1-42), naming women among His disciples (Mark 16:9-11). Calling Himself lowly among them despite His divinity (Philippians 2: 1-11). 

Our call is therefore not to any particular political party, but rather, in bearing the very image of God, to a particular kind of people: the vulnerable. The undignified. The invalid. The impoverished. The foreigner. The widow. The orphan. The marginalized. The minority. The outcast. 

James makes it clear: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (1:27). 

In other words, defense of the vulnerable and the lowly is of utmost importance to God. 

Do your politics reflect this? 

Taking inventory

At the risk of soliciting offense, it is important to name that Evangelical Christians are not in the cultural minority in America. They are neither marginalized or oppressed, and this sober reality ought to afford us the perspective we need to see clearly those who actually are. Instead, as Election Day approaches and we explore what it looks like to orient ourselves and our politics toward the truly vulnerable, we might honestly consider: 

Is my movement always toward or always away from? 

How many real relationships do I have with those beneath the poverty line? 

How often do I spend time with the elderly? 

How many members of the LGBTQ+ community do I call friend and neighbor? 

How often do I rub shoulders with refugee families or with those whose lives are at risk of deportation? Have I considered that it was unimaginable heartbreak, not admiration for America, which brought them here? 

Do I know any single parents? Any teen parents? Any rape victims? Anyone whose pregnancy suddenly and devastatingly became complicated and unviable? 

Alternatively, have I known the delight of a grown child who was the product of an unsuccessful abortion? 

How do the policies I support create ripple effects for the members of these communities? Do I know what those ripple effects are? 

Have I given myself enough proximity to allow the perspectives of these important others to bring nuance to my political identity? 

Most important of all: have I considered the lowly?

By the next July however, more tears than I ever thought possible had been cried in that house. We had each loved and lost. We had each grown bitter of those green walls. We’d said, “we need a fresh start somewhere new”, had dreamed of an escape to a different, far away dreamland of met expectations and happy endings. Enough with all this reality, we’d said. The idea of temporality was the lifeboat we clung to. 

Still, for a mystery unbeknownst to me, despite the zeal I’d nursed to leave the place of my deepest grief, I re-signed the lease. I don’t know what made me do it, apart from the hope that maybe I could do a little reimagining, write a different kind of story. 

The next week, I planted an herb garden and spaced the rows with marigolds for some color. I rearranged the furniture and had some overgrown trees removed. I made plans with my neighbor, recluse artist that he was, and we became great friends – exchanging books and music, watering each other’s flowers and dreams, talking about God over beers beneath porch lights. I decidedly spent some evenings at home, listening to records all the way through. I hung some art. I made homemade bread. I chose to stick around a while. 

When I’d first moved in, I was signing a temporary lease, staying only until my “real life”, made of dreams, began. I wasn’t inclined to till the ground or remove the overgrown trees. It had never occurred to me to knock on my neighbor’s door. It made no sense to me to rearrange the furniture or decorate the walls or plant the flowers. This place wasn’t mine, but someone else’s. 

I wouldn’t be here long. 

Called to ownership

I’ve heard of many people who experience this phenomenon once they buy a house. Whereas while they rented, they viewed the caretaking of their home as someone else’s problem, all of a sudden, they’re invested. They take ownership. They learn their neighbors’ names and start doing yard work. They repaint the house. They hang Christmas lights. They clean the baseboards. They make a house a home.

Sadly, many Christians view politics and their engagement with the very real, practical problems of their specific locale as though they were renters, not owners. Given to the belief that they’ll be swept up with the Lord in glory – taken to some distant eternity of perfection and leaving behind this world with all its disappointment, grief, brokenness, and conflict – they are convinced they won’t be staying long. What reasons have we to engage when we know this world is not our home? they say. When it is our temporary dwelling place? When we are awaiting life eternal, a reality beyond our wildest imaginations? 

What they see in the news and the conversations they’ve had around the dinner table have persuaded them to believe that civic engagement causes more harm than good, creates more conflict than unity, so they have opted out of the conversation, taking with them the Spirit of God alive in them. 

I’m reminded of the bystander effect, a theory based on the idea that the more people present to an injustice of any kind, the less likely it is that someone will step in to help. No one takes action because everyone simply assumes someone else will.

In much the same way, we confidently declare the sovereignty of God, waiting for Him to come back to restore all things to shalom, and therefore, we eschew our own responsibility as ministers of reconciliation - the very ones chosen by God to partner with Him in bringing this work of shalom to our communities, families, and neighborhoods. 

We are positioned intentionally - where we are, when we are, with whom we are - not just to endure our present reality, to suffer quietly, but to cultivate the Kingdom of Heaven on earth as image bearers of our Redeemer God. 

Seek the welfare of the city 

Consider the Israelites upon their exile to Babylon. Banished from their homeland, they were living as expatriates in a city not their own, under the oppressive rule of a government not their own. We simply cannot imagine the horrors and injustices they faced daily as refugees. We cannot sympathize with the certain grief, cannot feel the depth of their longing to return home. They cried out for God to deliver them from the hands of their enemies, to make a way where there was no way to return to their native country, to rescue them from corrupt rulers and governments and set them free forever. 

God does not indulge, however, their urgency for deliverance. His heart isn’t to rescue, but to redeem, and His response offers us a compelling framework of our own for civic engagement today. He says this through the prophet Jeremiah: 

“This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says to all the exiles I deported from Jerusalem to Babylon: ‘Build houses and live in them. Plant gardens and eat their produce. Find wives for yourselves and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and give your daughters to men in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters. Multiply there; do not decrease. Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the Lord on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive’” (Jeremiah 29: 5-7). 

Surely you can see the parallel. Just as the nature of their exiled identity didn’t excuse the Israelites from seeking the welfare of Babylon, neither does the reality of our citizenship in the Kingdom of God excuse us from seeking the welfare of the cities and the communities to which we’ve been called. 

We’ve been made One with a God whose heart is bent on restoration and redemption, who refuses to look away from the brokenness of the world, but in love, presses in. God’s charge to the Israelites in Babylon radically upends our paradigm of civic engagement because He doesn’t call them to cultivate goodness in Babylon despite their identity as children of God, but because of it. 

Engaging in the political landscape is one of those ways we “seek the welfare of the city”. It makes us aware of the policies governing our locale and the people and lives those policies affect. By choosing to press in, we demonstrate a heart of love for “the place we’ve been called to” and the people therein. 

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that we place all our hope in a political party to bring about the restoration and redemption of the world. In fact, I would discourage you from giving your total allegiance to anyone or anything but Christ, and would advise you to be wary of those who would persuade you to adopt their political agenda by way of “Christian” language and values. Scripture makes it abundantly clear that the Kingdom will not come by way of power, force, or political platforms.

Still, there’s a reason God admonishes the Israelites to promote the well-being of Babylon. He does not desire they keep to themselves until their deliverance is accomplished by God. He charges them to move toward the culture of their enemies, to consider how they might benefit the ones ruling over them, to be generous with their time, hope, gifts, creativity, resources, and love.

This is the same charge I believe God is giving us today.

Keep your saltiness

Jesus says in Matthew 5, “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its taste, how can it be made salty? It’s no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet” (v.13). 

In other words, part of our priestly vocation as children of God is to preserve the truth, beauty, and goodness of the cultures we find ourselves in. Preservation is intimate work. Just as salt, in order to be tasted, must be worked into the food being eaten, so too must we work ourselves into the fabric of our culture in order to redeem it. 

It’s the deception of the enemy that would convince you otherwise: to stow away your salt that it might not be snatched, to put your light under a bushel that it might not be blown out. Yet consider the Dead Sea. No life can exist in its ocean for lack of an outlet; it is simply too salty. 

So it has become with the Christian cultures of our day: so convinced are we of the dangers of “worldliness” as we’d describe it, so sequestered are we with one another, so persuaded are we to keep quiet on political fronts despite their far-reaching effects on the very real lives of others. In effectively removing ourselves from the landscape to which we’ve been called, the possibility of Kingdom redemption and restoration has gone with us and we’ve forsaken our vocation to re-establish His Kingdom wherever we are. 

We must adopt a new mindset, which is that of Christ’s: to consider the landscape to which we’ve been called – its fallibility, its many needs, its insufficiency, as well as its beauty, glory, and flourishing – and to seek the Spirit of God for the ways He is longing to revive it all – our communities, our neighborhoods, our families, and ourselves. The ways He likely already is. 

What’s in your hands?

Recently, writer and spiritual director Emily P. Freeman wrote, “I know my job is not to do nothing, but neither is it to do everything.”

When we consider civic engagement, this is a great mantra. Of course, we must do something, engage somehow, out of love for our communities and a desire to see God’s redemption touch every square foot. But, in turn, we cannot do everything, cannot indulge for a second the arrogance that would entertain that possibility. It is, to be sure, God’s Spirit alive in the world which will accomplish this work; we are simply invited to participate. 

We’ve been studying the idea of good stewardship in our local church over the last few weeks, and the most compelling question we’ve been taught to start with is, “what is in your hands?” In the realm of civic engagement, this is a great place to begin, too. 

Where has God placed you? What issues and policies matter to the community around you? What minorities are most vulnerable in your community? What has God made you passionate about? What mission in the world has He sowed in your heart? What time do you have? What ways are you best equipped to engage? 

Then, seek the Lord. What is His heart burning for in this season? What prayers is He praying over your community and city? What redemption is He wanting to accomplish now? How is He inviting you in? 

We are in anticipation not of a Great Escape, but of a Great Wedding Feast - the perfect union of Christ and His bride, of Heaven and Earth. And we are the ministers of such a glorious reconciliation, preparing the way of the Lord as we partner with the Spirit - today - in His redeeming work. 

We simply cannot afford to opt out.

There were some, of course, who extended condolences, who recognized the grave need to bridge the chasm between right and left and make commitments to unity. 

And there were others who let the event further stoke the fire of their hatred.

The next morning, I swept the kitchen, collected remnants of the previous day’s celebration, and cried.

I was straightening desks at the end of the school day on January 6th, 2021, watching the news I’d projected onto the screen, entirely ill-prepared for what I’d see. You remember, I’m sure. Perhaps even the mention of this day brings with it a sudden impulse - a quick, averted glance or an involuntary shift in your seat. 

A crowd violently storms the nation’s Capitol, intending to interrupt a joint session of Congress from certifying the electoral votes to confirm the 2020 election, and wounds hundreds - kills several - in the process. The loss of life was devastating, and the normalization of the event was disturbing - hundreds justifying the violence, the lack of integrity, the upheaval of democracy - so convinced were they of their own perception, so set were they on exacting their own justice. 

And many of these Christians.

I sat down in one of the desks I’d been straightening, breath taut, and as with any train wreck, unable to look away.

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The State of the Nation (& the Church)

The word on the street is that we are as divided as we have ever been, and that might be the case, but these are not isolated incidents (is anything, ever?). These are the full-grown atrocities of small seeds sown into the fabric of our culture for generations. We’ve simply grown desensitized by breakdowns in unity of all kinds.

For example, no longer are we surprised by statistics of divorce - more rare is it to see a couple still together, still in love, after decades. 

We are quick to justify the end of a friendship over a disagreement on *fill in the blank*, unable are we to tolerate the tension of difference between us. (No matter that it is this tension that brings strength and fortitude to our character.)

We seek out communities that perfectly mirror our own perspectives and convictions, and when they do not (because they cannot), we justify our leaving, our arrogance unbeknownst to us1.

We’ve adopted, without question or scrutiny, the cancel culture of our generation, completely blind to its effects on our character or capacity to love - which, according to Jesus, is the mark of our faith (John 13:35, 1 Corinthians 13, etc, etc, etc). 

Alternatively, we’ve given ourselves to the echo chambers of our choosing, lowering the bar of our discourse to only include those who think similarly. We’ve conveniently excused ourselves from the standard of love to which Jesus held his followers - loving only those who agree with us, only those who reflect back to us our own image (Luke 6:32-36).

In the same vein, we’ve seen and liked articles or social media posts that, though slanderous or disrespectful in nature, confirm our own convictions, so we share them anyway - amused at best, satisfied at worst. 

Further, to add insult to injury, we’ve overlooked a host of unspeakable horrors, conceding to accept them only because we don’t know what else to do: things like pride, disrespect, hateful rhetoric, dishonesty, and slander - just to name a few. 

This list could go on, but what remains most disheartening is this: many of the planters and harvesters of these small seeds are Christians. 

Friends, this should not be.

Unity As Our Supreme Desire

To be clear, I am not lobbying for you to forsake your convictions. It is good and right for you to care deeply about the state of our nation and the policies that govern it. Not only are we called by God to “hold fast to our conviction” (1 Corinthians 16:13), but to do so would be to forsake an intrinsic element of your own personhood - that which beautifully and necessarily separates you from others - on the basis of conflict avoidance. As I’m sure you’ve learned, this is not a worthy calling, or even an honest one. We are called to be peace-makers, not peace-keepers, but that is a topic for another day. 

Rather, I am lobbying for you to submit your convictions to the work of unity - the ministry of reconciliation which we’ve been given in Christ Jesus. It is this work which we have, as the Western church, largely forsaken, and it is this which is of paramount concern.

Unity Begins with Repentance

When I was in elementary school, I remember playing a particular game with friends on the school playground: we’d grasp each other’s forearms so that another friend could sit on our arms, and we’d carry her around, giggling at the throne we’d created for each of us “queens”. We’d run and jump and bump into other friends, seeing what exactly would cause the one upon our throne to fall. As it would turn out, it wasn’t the running or the jumping or the bumping. What caused the fall was always when the ones carrying our “queen” would break their grasp of one another - when their hands would become sweaty or they’d grow weary of holding the weight or the force of a collision would snap their grip. 

Last October, I was in prayer and the Lord gave me a vision, reminding me of this silly game I used to play: two sets of arms, grasped at the forearms - only in the vision, it was the Holy Spirit, not a classmate, who took the “throne” we’d created. He began to speak to me: when My people are unified, He’d said, I am able to rest upon them in greater measure. It is when there is a breakdown in unity when My felt presence is no longer able to abide in the same way.

I was marked that morning in prayer, subsequently thrown into a season of fresh revelation, understanding the burning desire of the Father to see His Bride unified. John 17 became for me my own prayer language: 

“May they [those who believe in Him] all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me” (v.21-23).  

This perfect unity was the final request of Jesus before He was arrested and crucified: the chief desire of His heart and the fruit of His mission. I had to consider whether or not I thought His prayer had been answered - and more specifically, whether or not it was being answered in me. 

Was unity the supreme desire of my heart, as it was - as it is - His? Did my heart posture reflect this desire? Or was it instead consumed by a propensity toward self-preservation? A habit of withdrawal upon feeling wronged? Did my behavior reflect a need to be right, or a freedom to admit when I am wrong, to change my mind, to honor the genius of others? How quick was I to give grace? How slow was I to anger? Was there a well of mercy within me, or was I prone to offense, nursing instead a well of angst and bitterness and self-justification? 

In other words, did my behavior reflect allegiance to the God who desired at His death, above all other desires, unity among His people? Or was I merely paying lip-service to that God while continuing to live for myself? 

In those first few weeks after I received that vision of the playground game, I read this passage over and over again, and I was struck: If I desire to be a resting place for the Spirit of God, I concluded, unity must become the supreme desire of my heart. 

Of course, with that conclusion, I had to first face the fact that it was not, and if you are like me, perhaps you do, too. 

Unity Requires Our Partnership

I once had a friend who used to say, “awareness is the important first step!”, whenever one of his own failures was exposed. It always used to make me laugh, encouraged as I was not to torment myself, as I often would, over any of my own misgivings. Amidst the legalism of my youth, I cherished the freedom to fail this adage afforded me.

When I think of it now, in the context of unity within the church, I can’t help but see its insufficiency. While it is good to be aware of the ways in which we have fallen short of the unity Jesus pleaded for before His crucifixion, we must not be satisfied with our awareness. 

Instead, we must partner with Him by aligning the supreme desire of our hearts with the supreme desire of His. We must submit to the ministry of reconciliation we’ve inherited, willingly participating in the work of unity, regardless of the deaths-to-self it may require of us. We must position ourselves beneath the scalpel of the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to prune that which is squelching our fruitfulness, and so form in us the fullness of the Body of Christ. 

In my own life, I knew I had some work to do - some time to spend in prayer, gazing at the One who is Himself unity, the One who gave His life, even while we were still His enemies, to draw us near (Romans 5:8). I had some people to forgive, and some people of whom I had to ask forgiveness. I had to have some difficult conversations. I had to recognize the bitterness and resentment that had taken root, and I had to let go of the justification I felt toward nursing it. I had to let go of some other things, too, things I’d grown familiar with - like pride, self-protection, criticism, and past offenses.

In other words, I had to die to myself in myriad ways in order to achieve peace with God and others, which is, of course, the way of Christ, who died once for all to reconcile us to Himself.

We are His children who go and do likewise.

Unity For the Sake of the World

These days, what strikes me most in the John 17 passage is what Jesus notes our Christian unity is unto: “so that the world may believe you sent me” (v. 21), and again: “that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me” (v. 23). 

They are reflective of Jesus’ earlier statements to his disciples in John 13: “I give you a new command”, he’d said. “Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.” And then the kicker: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (v. 34-35). 

According to Jesus, it was impossible to draw the world unto Himself if His followers were not first unified in love. 

When I look at the state of our unity, it is no surprise to me that there are people leaving the Church in droves. We bless those who bless us, we curse those who curse us, we retreat from those who retreat from us, we make friends with those who agree with us, and as soon as they don’t, we leave them behind us.

We have forsaken our standard of unity, and there is now nothing that sets us apart. Nothing that reflects the power of a Greater Love at work in our lives.  

Our light stays hidden under a bushel in the name of syncretism. Our salt has lost its saltiness in the name of civil religion. 

We’ve settled for a powerless gospel out of an unwillingness to fight for unity, and our Christian witness is suffering because of it. 

What a shame, too, given that the whole of the biblical narrative - the whole of the gospel - centers around God bringing unlike things together in unity to reveal His glory: Male and female. Jew and Gentile. Slave and free. Rich and poor. Oppressed and oppressor. Every nation, tribe, and tongue. And of course, the ultimate union of unlike things - God and man.  

When we shirk our responsibility to remain unified with one another, obsessed as we are with ourselves, we forsake the mission of God in the world, betraying the gospel as we’ve received it: an impossible, mysterious gift of grace. 

Though the work of reconciliation is difficult, often requiring of us that which we think should never be required, it is not in vain. Because of the resurrection of Jesus, with every death to self, as with Christ, there is certain resurrection life on the other side - and not just life, but life abundant: abundant love, abundant joy, abundant peace. 

And certainly, abundant unity.

I shared recently that this summer was full (FULL!) for us in all the ways we hoped it would be. We hosted out-of-town family, we took road trips, we climbed lots of mountains, we ran the river, we camped under the stars, we encountered God next to 50 teenagers at summer camp, we spent time with friends, we ate delicious food. We played. We delighted. We ran out of fingers to count all the blessings.

September, it seems - in classic Idaho fashion - has only been a continuation of all the fullness. It took us beach camping in San Diego with all of Brody’s favorite people from college. It took me backpacking up Jug Mountain with my mom. It gave me post-work trail runs and one precious weekend of writing. And to cap it all off, as I write this, I’m on a plane headed to Wisconsin for a family vacation with my parents, siblings, and nephew. The joy!!!

There is, of course, tragedy at every turn. But you know the Scripture: there is a time to weep and a time to laugh, and a time for just about every other thing (Eccl. 3). We aren’t doing anyone any favors by keeping ourselves from joy, maintaining staunch “commitments to sorrow”, as Andy Squyres would say. I have been in a season of abundance, and for that I praise God. Surely I will face again a season of drought, and for that I will praise God, too.

Open your hands and give thanks.

At the end of each month, I gather a collection of things I learned, things I loved, and some questions I’m carrying into the next month. Take this as your invitation to do the same.

Three (3) things I read, watched, or listened to that stirred my affections for Jesus…

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. Transparently, I’m still making my way through this one, but it has nonetheless made a mark on me. I’ve often despised my tendency toward quiet. I felt it was a tremendous social liability in grade school, so I tried my hardest to distance myself from that which would make me un-likable. It took a devastating season of heartbreak, in which I simply could no longer perform any sort of extroversion, to bring me back to myself. The severe mercy of God. I’ve slowly made peace with my mostly-introspective nature, seeing the many gifts I have to offer because of it. Still, this book has been a breath of fresh air, unveiling even more of the beauty of reservation. It has helped me see myself in a new light, as well as those I love who are more reserved in nature. I would highly recommend this book if you are an introvert, and would recommend this even more highly if you love an introvert.

“The Many Disappointments of Andy Squyres”, a short film. It’s no secret that I love Andy. I’ve read nearly everything he’s written, poured over his two volumes of Poet Priest (I still do on occasional Saturday mornings), and I walked down the aisle to his song, “Oh Love Supreme”. He’s a poet in every sense of the word: taking seemingly unrelated ideas and making them like. He’s honest even when he’s at risk of being misunderstood. He is a whole-hearted lover of God. He situates himself in reality, unafraid of the cost, unwilling to avoid. I could go on, but I won’t. You can imagine my elation when I discovered he has produced a short film! Please watch it. I won’t let on to my conclusions here to preserve your own unadulterated responses :)

This poem by Roy Croft, titled “Love”. It will take you just a minute or two to read, so stop what you’re doing now and enjoy this feast of words. The first time I read it, it gave me great pause, and had to read it several times over, thinking, of course, of my own life’s love, Brody. It’s a ridiculous gift to know this kind of love, in friendship or marriage, and it reminds me of this clip from Tim Keller, which I also ran across this week and was moved. I guess this one’s what they call a two-fer.

Two (2) things I learned or am learning…

God wants to know the desires of my heart, and He wants me to know them, too. If you’ve been with me for a while, you know that I’ve been in a season of discernment around my next steps vocationally. It’s been long and arduous. One surprising thing that I’ve heard the Lord asking me is, “What do you want? Put your desire on your lips.” Strangely, I haven’t known how to answer that question. I’ve told God plainly that if He would just tell me what to do, I would do it, but He hasn’t wanted such transactions; He seems set on knowing my heart. While this has been ambiguous work, it has also been deeply formational, producing both intimacy with God and peace in my heart. Also, joy - lots of joy.

A gentle answer turns away wrath. Brody and I are committed to growing in our ability to navigate conflict in a healthy way, but we are nothing if not clunky. We both have veiled tendencies toward passion - which is both a blessing and a curse that you likely know well if you carry an ounce of passion, too. I’ve started to take this Scripture at face value, however, and I’ve already seen the fruit of it. (As you can imagine if you know Brody, he is much better at this than I am.) Giving a gentle answer requires we set aside our pride, our defenses, our need to be understood, etc - and we offer humility in its stead: believing the best of the other, quickly taking ownership of our own sides of the street, acknowledging our own perceptions might be wrong, and staying curious about what’s happening inside each other’s hearts. It’s keeping us care-full with each other, and that’s a really good thing.

One (1) question I am carrying into the next month…

Our pastor posed several questions regarding stewardship last week, and I’m continuing to ponder the first few in my heart: What’s in my hands? How would God steward what’s in my hands if it were in His hands?

A few days prior, I was at a fundraising dinner event and a friend leans over and says, “Okay, so - Till We Have Faces”. She’s all starry-eyed over the ending, as she should be, and we start combing through all the scenes preceding the last, now imbued with richer meaning, alight with the same sort of wonder as when we might have seen The Sixth Sense or A Beautiful Mind for the first time.

There was also, of course, that birthday party on Monday night when another friend caught my attention and rambled off all the themes and motifs which particularly struck him, just as many which still remained a mystery. We chewed on the feast of it all for a while that evening, and then again the next day at work, considering all the angles and possibilities - all the people we’d want to share the joy with. 

I told my dad this morning that I love this book not for its writing, although it’s gorgeous in many parts:  “It was when I was happiest that I longed the most.” And, “Who can feel ugly when the heart meets delight?” Or, “You won’t understand the wonder and glory of my adventure unless you listen to the bad part”. To be sure, Lewis’ writing gives us all pause with its brilliance, humanity, and emotion. 

But what I love most about this story is its profound depth and many layers (of which I don’t even pretend to know all). It’s that there’s so much to say of it all once you’ve read it, more still once you’ve read it again. It’s as my dear friend, Nan, told me when she first gifted me this book: “I’ve read it several times over and still find myself thinking about it, even when I’m not reading it”. 

Yes. That’s the joy of it, isn’t it? 

Proverbs 25:2 says: “It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search it out.” As a means of marking the end of this summer book club, I’ve  “searched out” its riches, as best I can, sharing what I’ve found to be its most poignant wisdom, in brief. My hope is that my own offerings here would be a meager means by which your own curiosity and intrigue would be piqued. Below you’ll find 15 of the most compelling lessons I learned from Till We Have Faces, and don’t worry - no spoilers :) Enjoy!

15 Lessons I Learned from Till We Have Faces 

1. To grow in spiritual maturity is also to grow in our capacity for mystery.

2. We cannot know the glory of God without also knowing the pain of suffering.

3. We are far from understanding the holiness of God, and once we think we are close, we are further still. 

4. Drawing near to holiness requires significant cost. Read that again. Remember you are but dust. 

5. It is impossible to love someone and possess them at the same time. You either let them be free, even if they choose apart from you, and so love them, or you cling to them, loving your security such that you will them to stay, and so strangle any love you may have shared to start.

6. The keys to the kingdom of heaven are not found in logic or reason; they are found in Jesus. 

7. An encounter with the Lord will be impossible to put into words and may seem foolishness to others, but infinitely more important than that, it will be the singular thing which transforms a life.

8. You will know a tree by its fruit.

9. God welcomes our protests: He is in both the questions and the answers equally.

10. Any goodness we experience on earth - any beauty or joy or kindness or comfort - is but a foretaste of the age to come, only a fraction of its splendor, and any suffering we experience likewise produces in us an eternal weight of glory we cannot now imagine.

11. That which man does not understand or cannot make sense of, he villainizes.

12. Grief, when it goes ignored, only grows larger and larger, until eventually, out of neglect, it engulfs us. (We might conclude, then, that grief - yours, mine, everyone’s - is of invaluable worth to God. He does, in fact, keep all of our tears.)

13. “Holy places are dark places.” 

14. Self-protection is deceptive: though in doing so we think we are preserving ourselves, we are really diminishing ourselves. 

15. He Himself is the answer.

What about you? What wisdom did you feast on when reading through this book, if you have? I’d love to hear in the comments!

There have been some seasons when what I really craved was margin or slowness or ample time for reflection, and there have been some seasons where I felt freedom to say yes to all the things that came across my plate. This summer of 2024 was a season of the latter, and we are feeling unreasonably blessed.

One of my favorite verses in Scripture is Luke 2:19 which says, “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart”. I’m not naturally inclined to gratitude for what is in front of me; instead, I’m inclined, unfortunately, to consider what is not. This verse moves me in the particular direction of wholeness which is most necessary for me to tell a complete story about my life. 

So, rather than engaging in my regular 3-2-1 practice for reflection that I’ve usually done to mark the end of each month (see previous month in review posts), at the end of this summer, I’m inclined to “treasure up all these things” and “ponder them in my heart”. Consider this list a means of doing just that, and to serve as inspiration for you to make your own list of treasured things. Let’s not let this summer go by without considering first its many gifts.

An abridged list of treasures

In June, my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew came to Idaho for ten days, and it was, in my opinion, the best family time we’ve had to date: losing all track of time at Pettit Lake, several shower-less days in a row in the mountains, celebrations ranging from birthdays to Father’s Day, and lots of excitement around our nephew: the first grandson and the center of all our attention.

On top of that, Brody and I spent a week in Montana for our anniversary. We saw old college friends in Bozeman, then drove up to Glacier National Park for a week of camping and hiking and a half marathon race. It was magical. The views were incredible, the air was fresh. I brought a film camera for the trip and we hardly stopped taking photos. On our drive home, I kept thinking to myself what a lavish gift Brody is to me, what a rich gift is our marriage. 

In July, we took to the Salmon for our annual extended river trip with my parents and a handful of friends - easily one of my favorite weeks of the summer. We spend all of three days on the river, take boat naps and swim eddy lines and hoot and holler through whitewater. We play games, eat fire-cooked meals, and tell stories late into the night. It’s the perfect quintessence of what an Idaho summer should be, and only made better shared with so many people I love.

I went to Denver for my nephew’s birthday later that month, too - watched him turn one and pick at his cake. True to form, my sister-in-law threw the best party, and we all enjoyed more family time together - rich conversations and house projects and croissants, plus a visit from another sister-in-law and  time spent gawking over all the new things Levi is doing on a daily basis. Time, stop! I also got to catch up over coffee with a best gal pal, swapping updates and hugs and old stories. I left wishing Denver was closer. 

We ended the month in the mountains at a summer camp with 50+ high school students. The Lord’s presence was thick and merciful. Students gave their lives to Jesus for the first time or rededicated their lives to him wholly, or moved closer to Him than they’d been before. It was a precious, intimate week, and we both feel so immensely privileged to serve alongside dear friends in this ministry. God is raising up powerful youth in this next generation! It is a holy gift to witness it.

August slowed down, but only by degree. I gave myself to a lot more writing time, read a few books (namely, Quiet by Susan Cain, which has been so exceedingly rich that I’ve recommended it to nearly every friend I have), and mostly stayed inside due to all the smoke from forest fires in our region. Some highlights included: a candlelight concert with our parents listening to a string quartet play a set-list of classic Beatles music. Buying my first hardshell kayak. A dinner date with my favorite little girls to hear about their first week of school. High-tea with friends. The Western Idaho Fair: a real Idaho experience. Camping with four of our dearest friends. A weekend at home.

Funny - it seems now I’ve begun, I can’t stop…

An invitation: What about you?

 When you look back on the last three months, what memories do you want to be sure not to forget? What moments stand out to you as particularly good? When did you most feel like yourself and who were you with? Where did you see the goodness of God present in your life? 

Treasure up all these things; ponder them in your heart; offer back to God the goodness which He has so lavishly offered to you.

One thing before you go…

Thanks so much for being here. I know it has been a while since you’ve heard from me in this capacity. Not only have I been putting my hand to the grindstone working on a creative project that I hope to share with you soon, this weekend also marks the end of our summer book club reading Till We Have Faces. It was an unbelievably rich time. My hands are ridiculously full with the wisdom gleaned from this work - and I know I haven’t even yet reached the end of it! It was a gift to share with those of you who gave your time to it - I’m counting our conversations among my list of treasures this summer. 

Though it was good and right to take some steps back from this substack space for the season, I am excited to be coming back in greater fullness with the fall. There are some exciting changes in store that I can’t wait to roll out. Stay tuned!!

For all the moving around I did in my twenties, all the moving around I thought I’d always do, I’ve reached the contented conclusion that my favorite place in all the world is this home we’ve built together. We bought it with blank walls and weeds everywhere and visions of where we’d put the flower beds. There is lots of restoration we’ve already done (painting, installing fence, laying sod, planting flowers, hanging pictures) and still more that we want to do, but we are in no rush. All good things take time - “take the time they take”, as some surrendered persons like to say.

For all the envisioning of what we want this place to look and feel like, however, our favorite dreams have always included a house full of people - not the rooms themselves per say, but the ones who’d inhabit them. This last month has been a month of celebrating (see last week’s post), and the best parts of our dreams were poking all of their tendrils out from underground: so much time around our kitchen table and tucked in our living room, lingering on our back patio and front porch. It is the picture I am carrying with me into these longer days of summer. 

If you’ve been around for any length of time, you know that at the end of each month I write a reflection piece. I ask questions like, “what stirred my affections for Jesus this month?” and “what were the richest lessons?’ and “am I still in the middle of them or have they worked themselves all the way through?” and “what questions am I carrying?” Somehow I’ve found these questions offer me a sense of orientation to the work of God in my life - the joy, the wisdom, the inclinations toward beauty - and how I can partner with that work more fully. If you have a little stretch of time today, would you join me? 

Three (3) things I read, watched, or listened to that stirred my affections for Jesus…

• This interview with Josh Garrels on Preston Sprinkle’s podcast, Theology in the Raw. Josh and Preston are two of my favorite contemporary voices, and I never thought they’d ever have any reason to sit in a room together. Josh Garrels is a songwriter and musician; Preston Sprinkle is a theologian and author. Their conversation was as rich as I hoped it would be. They talk about the theological depth of Garrels’ songs, the creative process, the importance of testimony to strengthen our faith, keeping art pure from self-promotion, and more. It is well worth your time.

• This episode of the Deep Waters podcast, hosted by two of my in-real-life friends. I listened to this while I was out running errands one morning and found myself emotional with conviction sitting at a stoplight. They interview an integral member of our church around his testimony. They explore our culture’s obsession with finding our vocation, the importance of serving wherever is needed rather than where we feel called, feeling like a failure, and more. In the interview with Josh Garrels (above), he says he reads Christian biographies mostly because “they are stories of real life people who have put the promises of God to the test and found him faithful”. As I listened to this interview with Jacob Bottles, I was similarly inspired: in all of these areas, he has put the promises of God to the test and found him faithful.

• Is it entirely unspiritual if I also list this episode of Bob Ross? I think not. I had a little backyard paint-and-sip party this month (one of my spring bucket list items). We pulled our television monitor outside and streamed this episode of Bob Ross, painted along with him, and sipped on homemade cucumber-jalapeno margaritas. I think God loves to find his people expressing their own creativity. Flip this episode on and paint your own rendition!

Two (2) things I have learned or am still learning…

• God has put more joy in my heart. We know this from the Westminster Catechism: “the chief end of man is to know God and enjoy Him forever”. I’ve been holding this sentiment for a while now as I’ve felt in some moments (many moments) disappointed by the direction of my vocational life and am doing the hard work of cultivating contentment despite that. In April, we all fell captivated by the solar eclipse, and I wrote this from the belly of the wrestle: Today, as you witness the solar eclipse from wherever you are, consider that someday there will be a total eclipse of heaven and earth, a full consummation of their union. Consider too, how your priorities would be radically upended, how everything you might prize today - your job, your finances, your scholarship, even your family and friends - would pale in comparison to the weight of the glory of God, how all that would be left would be to simply enjoy Him. Then, live today accordingly. 

  I’m learning more and more what it looks like to simply enjoy God as my chief purpose each day (turns out, a lot of daily surrender, a lot of stripping). I read Psalm 4 last week and was caught by verse 7: “You have put more joy in my heart than when grain and new wine abound”. I began praying this verse back to God with all of my current sticking points: YOU have put more joy in my heart than when I am seen by others, or set in community, or moved into significant work, or provided for, or healed or *fill in the blank*. This is my daily liberation: that God is truly the inheritance I seek, and that to simply enjoy Him is my eternal purpose. I don’t need to wait for that purpose to come to me in some far off distance - I can enjoy Him right here today. 

• “All great spirituality has to do with letting go.” In her monthly newsletter this month, Emily P. Freeman quotes Richard Rohr: “Each time I learn to let go of what I thought was necessary for my own happiness, I invariably find myself in a larger place, a larger space, a deeper union, a greater joy. I’m sorry I can’t prove that to you ahead of time. We only know it after the fact.” Elsewhere, he says, “All great spirituality has to do with letting go.” She concedes that while this is true, sometimes we have to know things about God and His character before we are able to really let go. I’ve begun asking God in prayer the question, “what do I need to release to You today?” and then asking myself, “what do I need to believe about God - with my head and my heart - in order to release it?” I’m new to this practice, so I’m not entirely sure, but I think there will be times when God will let me touch His side - to see and then believe - and other times when he will push me to come out to Him on the water - to believe and then see. Regardless, I’m recognizing the connection between my inability to let go of something good and my limited perspective of the bigness of God and the strength of His promises. Often we just need a greater vision of Him.

One (1) question I am carrying into next month…

Where can I create more space to turn my attention toward God more often this month?

May has been the month of celebrations for us: friends’ birthdays, family birthdays (nearly half of our local family was born in May), Mother’s Day, etc. We are not casual celebrators either - we like to make whole deal of it, whatever it is. And let me just say that we are all better for it. We have Lewis to thank for all this madness: “joy is the serious business of heaven” or whatever — so we take it seriously, as we should. We know there are years which make birthdays hard, for myriad reasons, but this is not one of those years - thanks be to God - so we took full advantage, ate lots of cookies, drank lots of coffee, threw all moderation to the wind.

May has also been the month of saying “yes” to a small handful of things to which I probably should have said “no”. Don’t you hate that feeling? Maybe you are someone who has a strong “no” muscle and can flex it with admirable ease. You are the better half of humanity in my opinion. For those of us who struggle with the word (when to use it, how to use it, why we should use it, etc), we are familiar with that sinking, heavy feeling that immediately follows when we commit to the very thing we know we don’t have time, capacity, or desire for. I’ll admit, in most instances I’ve grown tremendously in my ability to discern necessary boundaries for myself and then set them - without needing to offer justification. In weaker moments, however, I’d be remiss to say the struggle didn’t find a way to surface.

On a more subtle note, May has been the month of realizing that some of the routines which have held me in past seasons - late-night comedy and bed-time snacks, for example - are no longer serving me in this season I find myself in now. This routine was the biggest gift when Brody worked long and late shifts because it afforded us some time together at the end of the day and kept our spirits light. But now, we are enjoying more flexible schedules and the freedom to set some goals that are important to us, and the late nights are often keeping us from the value of an early morning.

The thing is, these shifts happen in various forms throughout our lives, and it’s best to recognize them, resist the urge to moralize them, and determine which changes are most urgent to make. The best place to start is always to discern the season you are in with the Lord, and build the routines that will best support His work in your life at this particular time. Well friends, I’m doing some of this work now.

There are some exciting new things on the horizon (three, to be exact) - for myself, as well as for this Substack community - that I am itching to share with you, and given that you have been such a network of support for me and for my writing, I decided I would like to :)

1. To start, after a whole year+ of writing on the Stack, I’ve spent the last several weeks refining who my intended audience is, the mission and vision I have for this space, and the messaging and positioning of my work in the world. It has been a clarifying process, a necessary process, and it has energized a new thing in me. Over the next several weeks, I’ll be launching a “rebrand” campaign of sorts (are you tired of hearing that phrase yet? Everyone and their dogs are rebranding. Here we are anyway.) that will invite you into more clarity of what you’ll find here. If you’ve followed me for a long time, there won’t be much of a cosmic shift apart from the title of this newsletter, and perhaps some new offerings. And if you’ve just recently started following me, well, I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for. Stay tuned!

2. Secondly, I’m not entirely at liberty to share the fullness of this opportunity just yet, but I’ve been giving myself to a side-project which has afforded me time to write elsewhere, but has kept me from writing consistently here. (No, this is not one of those things I wish I’d said no to, but thank you for asking.) In many ways, this is a project I only ever dreamed of, and I wish I could share more now. Still, I am human which means I am limited in my ratio of input to output. Though it is largely hidden, I am in a season of outputting much, and therefore, what you see here has been limited. My goal has always been to offer something of substance here - heaven help me if I only contribute to the incessant noise! No one needs that. So while what I will offer over the next several months may take a different shape or form or frequency, my goal will still be the same: you’ll find something of value here.

3. And last but not least: I’m launching a summer book club!!!! One of the things I’ve loved about Substack is that it so community-oriented. Since my earliest days in this space, I’ve wanted to find creative ways to connect with my readers in a more personal way, and after my local book club dissolved due to babies and moving and LIFE, I thought to myself, it’s time. I’ll be offering this summer book club to both free and paid subscribers, so there’s no reason to miss out! I’ll be hosting weekly discussion threads, providing intermittent reflection questions, offering a few related essays of my own, hosting monthly Zoom calls for some real-time interaction (one in June, July, + August), and maybe hosting a local meet-up if we’re all really eager. The best part is that we’ll be reading my favorite book of all time, C. S. Lewis’ final work - largely considered to be his magnum opus - Till We Have Faces. I simply can’t wait. It will be rich, friends. There’s not a book that has made me think and consider and reconsider more than this one. Will you join us?! Fill out this quick (less than 30 seconds) Google Form if you’re at all interested. We’ll be starting June 1st, so order your copy soon!

Well friends, I just have to say I am grateful you are here. Overwhelmingly so. This space was initially such a risk, and has become a sweet gift to me. I hope it has for you, too!

I’d love to hear from you: What type of content are you yearning for here? Any topics you’re burning to read more of? Anything you wished I offered here but don’t? Let me know in the comments!

Peace,

Molly

It’s a difficult question for any writer to answer, I think. Writing is intrinsically vulnerable, and it is much easier to be vulnerable from behind a screen in the privacy of our own homes than it is to be vulnerable when I bump into so-and-so in the produce section of the grocery store. 

Do I share what I’m actually writing about, or what I’m thinking about writing about, or the several ideas I am only politely entertaining? 

Or, if I’m caught in a particular drought of inspiration, do I nod to that? That I desperately want to write, but everything I am reading is dull, and I hate all my ideas, and I dread the writing session almost as much as I dread avoiding it? 

Or, worse, what if, on this particular grocery store day, the writing work I am doing looks more like going for walks and drinking water and looking my husband (and dog) in the eyes when they walk into the room? What if the greatest contribution I could make to this work of writing today is simply to pay attention, and I have nothing real to show for all the long days spent hovered over my laptop, nothing to flash like a badge to the person who asks? 

Well, here’s some wisdom from some longtime writers: Ernest Hemingway said that in order to write about life you must live it first, and Glennon Doyle said there is a time for making beautiful things and a time for becoming the person who will make the next beautiful thing. I love both of those sentiments and agree wholeheartedly. 

All of this to say, writing is complicated work to talk about, mostly because it is absolutely inextricable from the very real life a writer has. We move weekly, daily, hourly between these states of impossible creativity and impossible doom, all the while continually surrendering to the whole living bit, which is slow and requires slowness.

As it is now, I am in a particularly saturated season of living. The pen-to-paper work is happening, albeit admittedly only in the margins. I’m giving myself to many things that matter: springtime in Idaho and the nurturing of our home and the celebrating of friends’ birthdays and the making of summer plans; sleeping and drinking coffee and prayer and making time for good conversation. Still, I would be remiss if I didn’t consider all of these things as equally important contributions to the work of writing as the writing itself. 

So, perhaps for the writer, a better question is simply: what is feeding your writing life right now? Or better yet, what is feeding your soul? 

Then, consider the seeds of equal value as the grown thing itself.

It’s absurd, but already another month has come to a close. If you’ve been here for a minute, you know I like to end each month with some reflection. Reflection allows us the opportunity to orient ourselves to the life we have now - which, as Emily P. Freeman says, “is the only life we have”. 

If you care to join me, I’d love to have you. Our month-end reflection questions are: 

1. What are three things you read, watched, or listened to that stirred your affections for Jesus?

2. What are two things you learned or are learning?

3. What is one question you’re carrying into this next month?

Three (3) things I read, watched, or listened to that stirred my affections for Jesus…

• Ivan Theva’s title track on his album “Gardens”. A friend invited me to a Chris Renzema concert last week and Ivan Theva was the opener. He was phenomenal, but this song especially rocked me. I have hardly stopped listening to it since. Give it a listen and be supremely blessed.

• This interview with Hans Zimmer about his process in scoring Dune (and also Part II). Brody and I watched it together one evening, and I was struck by Zimmer’s demeanor, his candor, his complete celebration of others. He was adamant that he has never scored a film, but it’s always been a team who has scored a film. The way he champions the musicians he works with will make you love him, and his infatuation with the art of music will make you infatuated too.

• Dan Allender’s To Be Told, and his accompanying workbook. I started this last year and eventually set it to the side, only to pick it up again at the start of this month for another go. Essentially, Allender posits that God is writing a story with all of our lives, weaving themes in and through us, and once we recognize what those through-line themes are, we can then partner with Him in co-authoring our future. He guides readers through the process of “writing the stories of their lives”, so I’ve been spending time each week sifting through mine. It’s given me new eyes for my own experiences, and as someone who primarily thinks in themes, it has just made sense.

Two (2) things I learned or am still learning…

• Turn off the tapes. Get with God. I call it the “shame reel”. For a very long time, I’d wake in the morning immediately beset with memories of things I’d done wrong, or thought I’d done wrong, or had been done wrong to me, and it would feel very much like fear - this sense of being surely abandoned by my own self and by God. As I write this, it’s not difficult to see how clearly this is an attack from the enemy; when you’re in the middle of a shame reel, however, it is very easy to become convinced of your badness. I’m learning in this season to simply turn the tapes off and get with God. What does he have to say about my shame? Well, usually that He’s already absolved it. What is his posture toward me today? Well, usually one of deeper delight than I could imagine. What are his thoughts toward me? Infinitely kind and generous, and always, always drawing me back to my true self. I’m learning that listening to His voice is the fastest way to silence the enemy’s and the quickest way to know the truth for myself.

• Perhaps it was His kindness that brought me to this spacious place. Earlier this month I was questioning my decision to leave teaching. Not because I was considering going back - I’m not - but out of a need for reassurance that I am where I am supposed to be now. Have you ever been there? I have more often than I’d care to admit. It’s an Israelite request: why did I leave Egypt for this wilderness? - but I’m realizing when I share my needs with the Lord (like, I need reassurance this morning, or I need some encouragement in this area today), He is quick to meet them. It’s as if He’s waiting for me to share what is actually on my heart because it’s the intimacy He cares mostly about. Throughout this month, in response to my request for reassurance, the Lord frequently brought to mind one of my favorite Scriptures: “He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me” (Ps 18:19). Mmm. His delight and kindness brought me to this place today; not any singular failure of my own, but simply His delight and kindness. This truth carried me this month.

One (1) question I am carrying into this next month - 

Where can I create extra margin in my life - or as Emily P. Freeman like to say, “Where can I plan my absence?” - in this next month?

For example, sometimes our own imaginations get the best of us and fabricate narratives that we presume will lead us into some future delight, but leave us in the present moment feeling discontent or beset with unshakable longing. 

Other times, we give ourselves over to the steady flood of entertainment, which is ever at our fingertips, and we are at first pleasantly preoccupied, only to find ourselves angsty and unsettled hours later when we realize we are yet insatiable.

Still other times, our calendars are energetic with activity - things and people we said ‘yes’ to out of obligation, fear of boredom, or even pure desire. Yet, running at one hundred miles an hour, we are confused when we hit the mid-week mark and recognize a low-grade anxiety we can’t extinguish. At the expense of being connected in every other way, we are disconnected from ourselves - too busy even to notice, and therefore enjoy, the many delights of our daily lives.

Surprisingly, there are as many obstructions to the delight we aim to cultivate as there are ways to put ourselves in the way of it. 

When Brody and I were first married, we went in and out of conversations around arduous goods. In seeking healthy rhythms for our life together, we realized it was much easier to fall into the sofa after dinner, mindlessly decompressing to Friends or Parenthood, than to go for a walk around the neighborhood and process our separate days together. To skip the television and to instead stand face-to-face or hand-in-hand required a front-end investment of energy, but yielded deeper connection and greater presence to our lives. Though it was “more difficult”, it was in every way the better good.

Practicing delight, as it turns out, is an arduous good. That which fills us and keeps us full (read: God Himself) will require something of us - a front end investment, you might say. We’ll need to reframe what is actually delightful and we’ll need to begin noticing all that keeps us from being filled with it.

Here is one such list - not an exhaustive list, of course, but in my opinion, a good one. Depending on your individual personalities and persuasions, you might add or subtract from this list, but the idea remains the same: joy is something to be intentionally sowed into a life - not always a feeling naturally elicited in response to joyful experiences. Of course it is also that, but it is absolutely not less than that. We are wise to clear out the weeds that squelch the seeds we sow. Join me?

1. Busyness

Around the same time I began an intentional practice of enjoying God, my calendar filled to the brim. Our evenings, Monday through Friday, were booked out for several weeks straight, and our weekends were no different. Only a handful of pockets of time found their way into the margins of my schedule, and I juiced them for all they were worth. There was once a time in my life in which I much preferred this pace, but I hardly recognize that version of myself now. I know myself well enough to know that the best version of myself shows up when she has enough blank space in her week. 

What I noticed most in this last season, however,  is how impossible it is to really enjoy much of anything at break-neck speed. It reminds me of Dallas Willard’s advice to John Mark Comer which birthed his bestseller: “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life”. This, he said, in all his wisdom, is the secret to a healthy and fruitful spiritual life. Quite baffling is this advice in the face of a culture marked by unmatched productivity and self-help. We simply cannot fathom a spirituality that needs us to be more than it needs us to do.

If we are to really discipline ourselves in delight, it will require we learn the art of swimming upstream - which is to say, we’ll need to opt out of the narrative that a busy life is an important life. We must be choosy with our yes and our no. We must divorce our sense of worth from activity and accomplishment. We must trust that our people will still love us even if we don’t show up to *every* *single* *thing*. And by “we”, of course I really mean “I”. 

2. Distraction

In her essay, “Upstream”, Mary Oliver ends with this line: “Attention is the beginning of devotion” - and if this is so, isn’t there ever a competition for our devotion? We can’t enjoy anything that we don’t give our attention to, so it goes without saying that if my aim is to enjoy God and delight in the life in front of me, I sabotage my efforts when I remove myself from the present moment by way of social media, the perpetual noise of podcasts, playlists, and news, and keeping up with the latest television and literature. 

I participated in a week-long writing challenge recently organized by a friend’s sister. She gathered a ragtag group of creatives from all over the world, most of whom I’d never met. Each day we were given a prompt requiring some variation of a silent practice upon beginning. It struck me how even just several moments of quiet and disciplined attention could elicit such beauty. In those moments, I noticed the world in front of me, felt it with my senses, breathed it all in. I delighted in that which I hardly give notice otherwise. 

More than that, I heard that still, small voice I love so much with greater clarity and purity, and I understood the gravity of my friend’s wisdom: attention is the currency of heaven. God is here, always. Will I give him my attention? Will I enjoy the gifts He embeds in the cracks and crevices of my life? The raven’s song in the morning, the light breaking through the curtains, the man in the corner chair each morning - there’s much to notice everywhere.

3. Rehashing the past and ideating the future.

I’m a recovering ruminator. My mind can easily become entirely too active - either playing some kind of sick highlight reel of past regrets, or getting lost daydreaming about some future day when I will have finally achieved unadulterated contentment. In my experience, both practices undermine the delight of today. God is, of course, outside of time, but He is also the most real Person in the world; therefore, he can only really interact with that which is also real. If I am constantly escaping to some past or future day, I miss out on the intimacy with God I am afforded today. It only takes a moment to draw myself back into the present: I begin to count the beauty I see, feel, hear, touch around me. He doesn’t play tricks then, or keep Himself hidden, but comes into focus almost as quickly as I begin to look for Him.

4. Comparison.

Does this one go without saying? Don’t we all do it still? We are ever our own worst enemies. At its core, comparison is a matter of attention (see above). Am I paying attention to my own life? Or that of others? Am I embracing the gifts I’ve been given? Or am I believing the lie that if only I had what they had, then I could be delighted.

My boss makes his kids repeat to him, “Comparison is always, always, always from the enemy” in stereo, and I think that’s just brilliant. We all need someone reminding us of this when we forget. I don’t think anyone is immune to comparison, but I do think some of us have trained longer in resisting it - taking comparative thoughts captive, speaking the truth in its stead, rehearsing our identities kept secure in God.

As the old adage goes, “comparison is the thief of joy”. The good news is, we have the agency to protect ourselves from its thievery if we only give ourselves to the enjoyment of each day. Of course there will be days and weeks and entire seasons where this feels impossible, but I think God loves to answer the prayer of the one that asks for the capacity to enjoy Him more. It’s not cliche - don’t believe that for a second.

5. Gluttony.

It is the paradox of our culture, but gluttony, or the overconsumption of delightful things, does not lead us to satisfaction. Rather, as we consume (and consume and consume and consume) our many varied pleasures, we are left perpetually hungry, burdened by our endless stomachs. It should be noted that gluttony usually alludes to binging on food, but it doesn’t always mean that. It also includes anything we use to numb ourselves: overconsumption of media or clothes or home goods or time with friends or even exercise. Gluttony is merely a symptom of a soul that has not found its satisfaction in Living Water. 

Recently, while I was on a run, I listened to this sermon on gluttony given by Suzy Silk from Church of the City in New York. She says our insatiability is actually placed inside of us intentionally by a God who desires to fill us to running over with Himself (John 4:13-14). Scripture is full of God speaking to His people with the language of abundance: we are filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:31), filled with His praises (Psalm 71:8), ever followed by His goodness and mercy (Psalm 23:6) , filled with the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:21). Over and over, He promises to satisfy the hunger and thirst of our souls (Hosea 13:6, Matthew 5:6, Psalm 107:9, etc). 

The dark side of gluttony is that when we have already filled ourselves full with the pleasures of our choosing - cheap wine or fast fashion or social media or what-have-you - we leave no room for the fullness of God Himself. It is really a question of our trust: do we believe that God can really fill us the way He promised to fill the Samaritan woman at the well - that we would never be thirsty again when we thirst for Him? Or do we think that we know better how to fill our insatiable appetites? Has anything else actually filled us? I’d argue a disappointing track record.

If we are to be filled by God, if we are to enjoy the fullness of Him, we have to leave Him room. 

I’ll leave you with this excerpt, which I love, from Ruth Haley Barton’s book, Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest:

”There have to be times when you light a candle and find the tender place inside you that loves or sorrows or sings and you pray from that place. Times when you let yourself feel, when you allow the tears to come rather than blinking them back because you don’t have time to cry. There have to be times to sink into the soft body of yourself and love what you love simply because love itself is a grace. Times when you sit with gratitude for the good gifts of your life that get lost and forgotten in the rush of things. Times to celebrate and play, to roll down hills, to splash in water or make leaf piles, to spread paint on paper or walls or each other. There have to be times to sit and wait for the fullness of God that replenishes body, mind, and soul. If you can even stand to be so full. There has to be time for the fullness of time or time is meaningless.”

Yes. If we can even stand to be so full.

See all these easy delights? I list them only to receive them fully, to squeeze the ecstasy out of them, to offer them back to God with my sheer enjoyment of them. 

It’s true that I’ve often been fickle in my practice of delight, moving in and out of joy only as my natural response elicits: when my flowers begin to bud in the spring, or I taste something magnificent, or after an afternoon spent with someone I love. I don’t discount these manifestations of joy in the least. It is good and right to give yourself to joy when joy is appropriate. In these instances, joy makes sense - it is the most honest response. 

For a large portion of my twenties, however, after a handful of sad, hard things dominoed in life, I held to a certain culturally fashionable cynicism which simultaneously satisfied my bent toward telling the truth about things. It seemed to me that there were certain instances - entire seasons of life at times - when the expectation to “rejoice always” was entirely insensitive and ignorant to the reality of life as it is. I’ve always prized honesty above other virtues, especially when it comes to being honest about my feelings, and in the face of terrible things, joy seemed to me to be avoidant at best, dishonest at worst. I maintained a suspicion of eternal optimism, deemed gratitude cliche, believed that to orient my heart toward what was good, true, noble, right, pure, or lovely would somehow discount my own sorrow or that of others, and thus resign us all to some kind of utopian unreality. 

It turns out, however, that swinging all the way left only because we are afraid to swing all the way right keeps us from telling the whole truth of our stories, too. In its own way, to remain steeped in sorrow is avoidant at best, dishonest at worst - ignorant to the reality of life as it is.

I love what Andy Squyres writes in his essay, “Be Unfaithful to Your Commitments to Sorrow”:

“I have often made a public case for telling the whole story, but if I’m really going to be a faithful adherent to my own rule, then I cannot be ashamed of testifying to the whole story: oftentimes miracles do happen and God does intervene. To only say otherwise would be dishonest. Christ has come to set us free from the fear of being happy. He is calling us to be unfaithful to the vows we have made to sadness, to betray our perpetual loyalty to sorrow, and to enter into the great vulnerability of joy.” 

Lately, I’ve sensed the Lord asking me to learn what it means to feast on Him. If you’ve been around for a while, you know that I’ve been in a transition season vocationally - doing now what I hope to not be doing forever. I’ve asked and asked and asked for a next step, and mostly, God has remained silent on that front, except to say that He wants me to learn to enjoy Him. 

In full transparency, I haven’t quite known what it looks like to simply enjoy God. To not use Him as a means to my own personal growth. To spend time with Him and not have a “takeaway” apart from deeper love. I’ve been fumbling my way forward anyway, asking Him like a child to teach me just to enjoy Him for enjoyment’s sake. 

For now, I’m gleaning from passages like Proverbs 8: “Daily I was His delight as I rejoiced at the work of His hands” - entirely betraying my twenty-something cynicist self to give myself fully to wonder at the goodness around me and to delight in its Maker. 

And I’m intentionally putting myself in the way of joy - disciplining myself, if you will, in celebration. Joy is, as we know, a fruit of the Spirit - evidence His work, not ours. Yet even our own sanctification requires our partnership and willingness to be molded and shaped by Him with whatever means He chooses. 

It’s His kindness that chooses to use celebration to make us people of joy despite all the sorrow.

Spring Bucket List

In the spirit of joy, I’ve created a bucket list for this spring season in Boise. My hope is that I wouldn’t mindlessly move through this season with my eyes on the next one, but that I’d be intentionally putting myself in the way of joy here and now - on the lookout for God’s goodness and mercy surely following me.

1. Have a JanJou pastry on a Saturday morning. I have lost count the number of times this little French patisserie has been recommended to me. Apparently it’s so busy in the mornings, if you want to guarantee you’ll get one of their fresh pastries, you have to plan to arrive right at opening (6:00am). I’m told it’s worth the early morning…but as someone who loves to sleep in, we’ll see.

2. Deep clean our house for spring. One of my friends told me recently that one of her love languages is to clean the house, then light a candle, and that sentiment resonated with me on a deep level.

3. Finish the front porch of our dreams. When Brody and I bought our house, one of the features I loved most was the enclosed porch. We (mostly I) have been dreaming about how I might furnish the patio since we got it, and I think we’ve finally nailed down our hopes.

4. Host a backyard paint and sip party. You know: paint a picture, sip a cocktail. The best time for our lengthening, warmer evenings :)

5. Check off some trail runs: Sweet Connie, Polecat, Around the Mountain, Stack Rock. We are currently training for the Glacier Half Marathon which we’ll run this summer. The race is at much higher elevation than our valley, so we’re getting creative with our training, finding more hilly runs and

6. Make a large spring bouquet for our table. There’s something about bringing the outside inside that marks spring for me. My mom always makes bouquets from her own garden, and I love that. I didn’t quite inherit her green thumb, so I’ll just be looking out for bright colors and unique shapes among the grocery store selections…

7. Go to trivia night @ Roosevelt Market with friends. I loved the Roosevelt Market before it was bought out by the new owners, but haven’t been there since. Trivia is the perfect reason to check it out!

8. Complete the Grand Slam hike series: Cervidae, Kepros Mountain, Shaw Mountain, and Mount Heinen. A classic Boise bucket list item.

9. Read Mary Oliver’s A Thousand Mornings. I don’t read enough for pleasure, and poetry is something I especially enjoy. Especially hers, right?

10. Write letters to all of my out-of-town friends. April is letter-writing month, but even so, it’s been while since I’ve sent out a handful of letters. I had a mentor once tell me to write a card to someone who isn’t expecting it at least once a month, and I love that.

What about you? What are your spring bucket list items? Tell me in the comments!

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Surely, I’ll write more about this cosmic shift inside of me later, but today I’m simply practicing the discipline of enjoyment as my utmost, eternal purpose - living as though I really believe my chief end is to know God and enjoy Him forever.  So I’m asking, where do I see beauty today? And how might I delight in the beauty I see, as though it is my singular reason for being? 

As I write this, I’m sitting at my favorite Boise coffee shop with the man I love most. We enjoyed a brisk morning walk to get here. I’m writing and he is studying for his next patient which he’ll take over a telehealth call. Up to this point, our vocational work has been marked with a particular angst, so this morning, it is not lost on us that there was once a season in which this scenario felt impossibly far-off.

Treefort is over but all windows everywhere are still painted, and the color makes me happy. People are chatting as if they don’t have anywhere to be even though it is a Friday morning and our corporate world has stopped for nothing. I smile at their general notion of ease despite all things.There has been wind and rain moving through our valley this last week, but the trees continue to blossom in whites and pinks, confident in spring despite the bluster. 

On top of all of this, I have a handful of things to look forward to: afternoon runs with Eddy, early morning climbs with Brody, several resurrection celebrations this week, warmer weather coming in. We’ll get together with a handful of friends which are each in their own way the surprising answers to many lonely prayers. I’ll wear sandals and sunglasses. I’ll put ice in my drinks. I’ll pay close attention.

What about you? What beauty decorates your life these days? What might you be missing that you could open your eyes to? Share in the comments below!

Each month, at the end of the month, I write a reflection piece like this in which I share three things I loved, two things I learned, and one question I’m carrying into the next month. I encourage you to use this as a prompt to engage in your own reflection, that we might continue living forward with intention. Cheers!

Three (3) things I read, watched, or listened to that stirred my affections for Jesus…

• “Communion and Clomipromine” by Drew Brown. Drew nailed the juxtaposition of these two (three?) elements gorgeously. He explores the mystery of healing both in the taking of communion and the taking of medication, and attributes all of it to the power and wonder of God. I was greatly encouraged by his perspective, his thoughtfulness, and the nuance he develops and explores. Definitely worth the read.

• Single, Gay Christian by Gregory Coles. I started this read casually on a sunny Saturday afternoon and didn’t end up getting up until I’d finished it. Greg is a beautiful, precise communicator, and his story is honest and challenging. I found myself so fond of him all the way through. Yet what is so compelling and encouraging is his staunch commitment to the way of Jesus: denial of self. His life and story bears rich fruit because of his submission and surrender at the expense of his own affections. He is thoughtful and generous in the way he communicates, never one to shoot from the hip, and his admonitions and personal perspectives land softly.  

• Dwell: Audio Bible App. I feel silly recommending an app here, but I’ve been starting my mornings recently with their audio devotionals and I’ve loved every one. I’m not usually a devotional gal, but they provide ample space for my own reflection and engagement with God, and when the hours are early and I’m not quite ready to say any words yet myself, the reading of Scripture is an easy entrance into the day. Plus, they have the full Bible recorded on audio with various translations and accents to listen in. 

Two (2) things I learned or am learning…

• Creativity depends on silence. I participated in a creative writing challenge this month organized by a friend of mine. It was a random group of people from around the world, most of whom I’d never met. Each day we were given a prompt requiring some variation of a silent practice upon beginning. I reveled often in the beauty that was produced out of even just several moments of quiet and disciplined attention. Equally, I was disheartened as I considered how much of my creativity, and that of others, must be squelched due to endless noise. We are grasp-y to avoid the vulnerability of silence, always putting on a podcast or playlist to clean the house or go for a walk rather than opening ourselves to the spaciousness of silence. If not for creativity alone, but also for the health of our souls, might we consider with greater levity the noise we give ourselves to.

• The simple enjoyment of God is an investment in our eternal purpose. Given what I already shared, it should come as no surprise that this is one of my largest take-aways from this month. I’m treating enjoyment as if it is a spiritual discipline akin to studying Scripture or worshiping God. Because it is. Proverbs 8 says, “daily I was [God’s] delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man”. This excludes nothing from the boundaries of delight. As Wendell Berry says, “There are no unsacred places; only sacred and desecrated.”  This practice of enjoyment is coloring both my soul and my countenance with His joy; it is producing new life.

One (1) question I am carrying into the next month…

Are we continuing to live in alignment with the intentions we set as a family at the beginning of this year?

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Take Joseph, for example: beloved of his father, given the gift of dreams, created for influence. His brothers couldn’t deny the favor on his life, but in his immaturity - his lack of knowing exactly what to do with his gift - Joseph lords it over his brothers in arrogance (as if he had any part to play in what was given to him). Though the gifts in his life reflected the image of God, he first needed to learn how to steward them well. In other words, who he would become desperately needed the formation of the Holy Spirit in his life to get there.

Stewardship in all things - especially good gifts, I’m learning, is necessary to growing in maturity - into the full stature of Christ and His image. We must first learn to identify the specific image of God we bear, and then we must learn to steward it well. Every strength, after all, has a weakness if not brought into submission, and if we are to become who we are created to be, we must learn to submit to the formation of the Holy Spirit.   

The war for our formation 

When God created the world, He created all things by His voice: He spoke, and it came to be. 

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate waters from waters,” …and it was so.

And God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness,”...and it was so. 

On and on it goes in the opening pages of Genesis: God speaks, and it becomes. 

I believe that’s how all things, including people, are still formed today - and it’s one of the many reasons why I believe words, semantics and all, are so important: we are always being shaped by the voices we listen to, God’s or otherwise. 

It may come as no surprise to you, then, that there is a war going on for your formation. Perhaps you have experienced it by sometimes frightening or painful means. Other times, and this more often the case, you may be entirely ignorant to the formation of your soul as it is happening. 

The reality is that God’s voice always forms us into who we were created to be. His voice always leads to our flourishing - even, especially, when he corrects. Jesus says in John 15, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.” 

There are other voices, however, which try to disfigure us - which move us away from who we really are. These are the voices of shame, comparison, criticism, and lies, both outright and suggestive. We hear their sound in a multitude of places: social media, entertainment, our own families or circles of friends, our workplaces, the various crowds at school. The familiarity of these voices beckon our assimilation. We grow ignorant to the ways these voices are giving shape to us, sabotaging the truth of who we are and convincing us to become someone altogether other.

In this war for our formation, the enemy’s greatest ambition is to distort the image of God in the world, and therefore, to keep us from becoming ourselves.

What the fall reveals

You already know the story: Adam and Eve are in the Garden, a place called delight. They know who they are (beloved by God) and what they are created for (to work and to keep). They are themselves delighted - which is to say they were satisfied.

Yet even in the midst of perfection, or perhaps because of it, there was a choice: whose voice would they submit to? 

[The serpent] said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 

The serpent presents Eve with a perplexing suggestion: he attempts to deceive her of the goodness of God - and of who she is: you could become more important if you’d only eat. 

Eve considers the serpent’s persuasion, which is to say that she considered her value at present was not enough - the age-old message of shame. If you’ve experienced shame at all, you know that as soon as it is felt, you want to rid yourself of it as soon as possible, or at the very least, hide-away from its oppression however you can. 

You can imagine, then, that Eve took the fruit - that which was pitched to her would relieve her of her not-enoughness. 

Once Eve acted, she partnered with the enemy’s lie: she recognized her nakedness, and to cope with her nakedness, she covered herself with fig leaves and hid from God. In other words, rather than remaining free in her nakedness before God - read: her original, intended form - she creates a new version of herself that masks her shame with fig leaves.

All these other voices encourage a false self to emerge in us. And this is what a false self does: it hides us and protects us from feelings of vulnerability, pain, or shame. In reality, these are the exact places in us that need to be exposed to the light of God’s love, grace, mercy, and healing power! These places, too, need our intentional stewardship.

How the fall plays out in our real lives

Let me give you a real-life example of my own malformation. 

Since I can remember, I’ve always been a feeler of the deepest kind. I hold a preference for the deep end, and though I’ve observed others feeling quite uncomfortable with the complexity of emotion, I’ve always been fond of its texture. In this current moment, I recognize my deep feeling - what some have lovingly identified as high sensitivity - as a generous gift from God. 

However, as I’ve said before, gifts, when not submitted to the formation of the Holy Spirit, can present many challenges. 

In my adolescence and into college, it seemed my big feelings were at their height - leading the charge in my life in every way. Feeling, for me, came as naturally and as often as breathing. I could neither suppress nor ignore my interior landscape with its high mountains and deep valleys. I’ve heard it said before that feelings make great followers but terrible leaders. Well, in my experience, this is the gospel truth. As with Joseph, I had some growing to do in the realm of stewarding my personhood. 

Nonetheless, in my immaturity, I was vulnerable to the voices of others, especially those who met my big feelings with contempt or criticism - those who were visibly inconvenienced by my emotion, who distanced themselves from my sensitivity, who wrote off my thoughts because of the packaging in which they came, often beset with tears or frustration. In a season in which I most wanted to blend in, I was acutely aware of that which made me different from others, which is to say I’d discovered a piece of myself I didn’t quite like.  

Rather than bringing it before the Lord in honesty and letting Him speak to me about His intention for the part of me, I hid it in shame. I’d mask it with false confidence, or I’d belittle myself saying, I shouldn’t feel this way, or why can’t I be more like so-and-so. To my disgust, the more I tried to avoid this part of myself, the more it would come out in greater measure, or altogether sideways. 

Eventually, I tried to hide my tenderness and sensitivity with a shield that made me feel stronger and more in control: anger. Much like a porcupine, anytime a more vulnerable emotion would surface, like sadness or rejection or disappointment, I would put on this shield, effectively becoming irritable with anyone who might come close enough to see my shame. 

Just like Eve tried to make of herself a different creation with fig leaves to mask her vulnerability, I’d get angry when really I was just sad. 

There are of course one thousand other ways this might play out: 

• You may be artistic, but perceive that your peers really value athleticism or popularity, so you bury your real dream in place of a false dream that will garner you the affection you desire. 

• Perhaps you felt as though you could never please your parents, so you strive and strive and strive despite not enjoying or delighting in anything you do. 

• Someone may have criticized you, told you that you were awkward or stupid or what-have-you, and you believed them.

• You may have been rejected or lonely or found it difficult to make friends, so you’ve become critical of others to protect yourself from future rejection, sabotaging your real desire for community.

At the heart of each of these stories is a magnificent gift which, at an opportune time, was exposed to the voice of the enemy attempting to disfigure the soul - to distract you from becoming who you were intended to be. In these moments, we are given the opportunity: will we bring this part of ourselves before the Lord, asking for His wisdom? Lord, what is your intention with this part of me I just can’t seem to change? Or will you try to cover it up, suppress it, shapeshift it to something else of your own imagination? 

Such is the nature of the war for our formation. 

Our hope for transformation 

Perhaps the most significant moment in the story of the fall is when God asks Adam and Eve, “Who told you that you were naked?” 

Who told you? 

It’s a question of formation: which voice gave you this shape of shame? This is certainly not the work of My hands…

Yet this is why we must bring even the most unappealing parts of ourselves before God: there is usually a story to be uncovered and a place to be healed. 

When we choose to not cover our nakedness, but instead bring it before God - saying, “what is your intention with this part of me?” - He loves it all back to life. He removes every part of us that is false, that isn’t us, and He liberates us into who we really are. 

It reminds me of the scene from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, as Eustace the dragon becomes who he was created to be through the healing power of the lion, Aslan. Eustace has injured his leg, and Aslan leads him to a pool of water. Eustace thinks to himself, “If only I could get in the pool, my leg would be healed”, but Aslan tells him he must undress his scales first. The scene goes: 

“So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place… But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before... Then the lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you.’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it. The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. 

The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”

This is what God does with us. He takes every part of us that has been deformed by some other voice in our lives and He heals it: He makes us who we actually are. He is the only One with the power to heal us from all insecurity, all arrogance, all shame, the pain of our past, or our present, all fear and anxiety, etcetera, etcetera - there is simply no death His life can’t touch.

This is why He desires we give the fullness of ourselves to Him. He is compelled by a love for us so far beyond our imaginings that He desires we’d be wholly free, that we’d become the very intention of our being. He longs for intimacy with what is real of us, not what is false. 

I won’t lie to you: it is painful to reckon with the places in us that we don’t yet accept. Even more painful is to let go of the masks that keep us protected (albeit alienated from others). It is as peeling off layers of our very skin. But in allowing God to strip those pieces of us away, we become who we really are. 

And this is the Lord’s desire for us: that we’d become ourselves. Not as we hope to be. Not as we imagine important persons might desire us to be. Not as we’d prefer to be. As we are.

Isn’t it absurd, and also tragic, how many places and people and niches we can turn to in order to define ourselves? We have this insatiable desperation to know who we are, which was intended to be met and satisfied within the dynamics of a relationship with God, but instead, we have turned to reductionist categories to find truths about ourselves that are actually kept with our Creator.

Now, I know others will disagree with me about this, but I have found personality grids like the Enneagram or Myers-Briggs to be very helpful tools in spotlighting blindspots and identifying pathways to growth. I love the conversations they spark and the insights they give as I seek to engage more effectively with myself and others. But I will say in the same breath that when I try to make these tools do and be more than they were designed for - namely, to tell me who I am - I am only ever distracted from the genuine truth of myself and of those I love: truth which is only found in the context of the God who created us.

There are other tempting ways to grasp counterfeit versions of our identity of course. All too prevalent is the illusion that we can curate ourselves into a work of our own hands. We determine in our minds a sense of self marked by nothing more than a certain irresistible aesthetic or a particular set of friends or a list of impressive accomplishments and accolades. We subscribe to immovable ways of thinking: political parties or denominations or gurus. We give ourselves to our passions. We make a brand for ourselves and we say to the world: this is who I am! A sentiment which is of course always followed by: Is it enough? 

Yet everything within our power to curate is reductionist, too - nothing more than broken cisterns ill-equipped to hold the fullness of who we are. In fact, whatever we curate thinking will give us a clarity of self only works to superficialize us and distract us from discovering the real substance within us. 

Here is the truth: our identity - our true identity - is something we receive from God as a gift of grace. It is bestowed upon us at conception - and even before that within the imagination of God - and it is the fruit of relationship with our Creator that our self is realized.

It is much the same as with an artist who creates a painting. The painting itself never makes itself into its own imagining. The painting is entirely at the mercy of the artist, fully dependent on the artist’s imagination, sovereignty, and brush. It cannot make anything of itself: only the artist can do that. To think that “Mona Lisa” could instead become “The Last Supper” if only she tried hard enough is just silly. But Da Vinci, in his genius, made each a masterpiece by their own right, and they must submit to him as the artist to tell them what they are.

Of course, this is an impossible metaphor, but you get the idea. Similarly, in Genesis 1, we see that it was God’s very breath breathed into the lungs of Man which brought him to life. Apart from the word of God, Man and Woman would never exist - their formation was conceived in the imagination of God, and their life was given to them by the very breath of God. 

And so it is with us: who we are is a gift from God - conceived in His imagination, brought forth by His word - and therefore, the essence of our identity can only be discovered in Him. Looking anywhere else to define us and tell us who we are is simply creating a self made in our own image: a superficial replica of the self made in the image of God. 

It only makes sense then: we must look to Him for who we are.

For the believer, there is a fixed identity we inherit at salvation: that of a son or daughter of God (John 1:12), completely forgiven and justified (Col 1:14; Rom 5:1), a royal priest (1 Pet 2:9), a chosen nation (1 Pet 2:9), God’s special possession (1 Pet 2:9), light of the world (Matt 5:14), salt of the earth (Matt 5:13), temple for the Living God (1 Cor 3:16), joint heir with Christ (Rom 8:17), a saint (Eph 1:1), holy and dearly loved (Col 3:12), a living stone built up in Christ (1 Pet 2:5) - the list goes on all throughout Scripture, God lovingly calling us by name, giving shape to our souls by His Word - just as He did in the beginning. This is our inheritance in Christ - it does not shift and there is nothing and no one who can take this away from us: it is who we are at our core. 

There are, however, our individual identities, too, which indicate and reflect the infinite creativity of God, and which together, compile the fullness of the image of God. Likewise, it is His voice which brings form to this part of us - something we only discover within the context of intimate relationship with Him. 

I remember an encounter I had with God when I was a sophomore in college. I’d only just begun to discover my identity in Christ. Up to that point, I’d tried on many different identities, believing I could curate an identity based on who I wanted to be. I could do this of course, but I would later find out I would have to sacrifice who I really was by way of denial, suppression, or pretense. As it turned out, unsurprisingly, none of these different identities felt quite right when I tried them on. They never afforded me the approval I sought by the people I regarded important. 

Needless to say, I’d been looking in all the wrong places to find the sense of self I desired. I was disconnected from myself, and it created an ache in me that eventually pushed me into the presence of God. I remember asking God a host of honest questions one night alone in my room: God, who do you say I am? What do you call me? If everything false was stripped away - all perceived expectations of me, my desire for approval, or even the idea in my head of who I’d rather be - what would be left? Who have you created me to be? 

In His kindness, the Lord answered me that night. He gave me an image and a name which has deeply grounded me and formed the basis of my identity. I found myself in Him for the first time that day, and I continually find myself in Him (though most often when I am not looking for myself, but for Him). As He did in the beginning, He gave shape and form to my soul by the transformational power of His voice. 

Of course, there are other voices vying for your attention, trying to shape you into something else of their own image: the appeal of appetite, power, and status will always be jockeying to disfigure you. Only ever will it be His voice which forms you into who you really are - the self which is designed and desired by God. Therefore, it is only from God from Whom you can receive this identity: the One who created you, Who knows you most fully and authentically, and Who desires to see this person formed in you. 

The invitation is simple: to live and move and find your being in the One from Whom your being originated in the first place.

Prompt: 

We can only discover and become who we were created to be in the presence of God. He is the only context within which our being makes sense! Consider that God has designed you with unique intention and great affection - that He imagined your form, your personhood, your way of being in the world, your preferences, your dreams, etc. This self - the self designed and desired by God - is who you really are. To discover this person, we must begin with God. Ask the Lord, “Who do you say I am? What is your knowing of me? When you imagined me, what was your heart’s intention for my being?” Give Him ample space to speak. Write down everything you hear Him say, any image He gives to you, any feeling that rises in you. Allow God to give you the gift of your identity.

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Emily P. Freeman describes reflection as a practice of discernment: careful consideration of past decisions can often lend profound wisdom to the current decisions we must make. More than that, reflection can inform us of what really brings us joy, what still needs to be healed, what God is breathing on in this particular season, how we might partner with Him, perhaps how we are working against Him, what next decisions might be necessary to make, what we need to release, what we need to fight to hold onto, and a host of other intricate details to your valuable life. 

Sometimes we avoid these signposts out of indifference, but usually it is out of busyness or an unhealthy preoccupation with the future - the belief that somehow right now isn’t as important or glamorous as tomorrow or the next day. But let me be the one who tells you today: if you are alive and breathing, there is purpose in your current season. We acknowledge its inherent value through good stewardship: paying attention to what God is doing in our midst and responding accordingly. 

All that to say, I’m sharing some things I loved, some things I learned, and some things I still don’t know in faith that I’ll discern the Lord’s hand in my life more acutely - His goodness, mercy, correction, and delight. I’ll pray you find the same. 

Three (3) things I read, watched, or listened to that stirred my affections for Jesus…

• Anonymous: Jesus’ Hidden Years…and Yours by Alicia Britt Chole. A friend of mine recommended this book to me while we were out to coffee, and the tagline was all I needed to order it then and there. In a world that values notoriety, success, and significance (and to my dismay, realizing how much I value those things, too), I have been compelled and marked by the settledness in which Jesus gave himself to obscurity. I haven’t finished it, but I have grabbed hold of every word. It’s soothed an ache I haven’t quite known what to do with. 

• This conversation between Preston Sprinkle and AJ Swoboda. Ultimately, they unpack the premise of AJ’s new book, The Gift of Thorns: Jesus, the Flesh, and the War of Our Wants (which is as irresistable a title as any), covering topics like desire, grief, and the grace of limitation. Both deeply wise and thoughtful, this conversation is abundantly rich. Time not wasted.

• This two-part Deep Waters podcast episode unpacking several testimonies of how God is moving in our community - Part 1 and Part 2. Our church hosted a conference early this month called, “God is Near”. We collectively experienced many signs and wonders of God, and have since been testifying and celebrating the manifold ways they point to the person and power of Jesus. In all of the mystery, I have been moved simply to marvel at the wonder of God and to enjoy Him as He chooses to reveal Himself. (I had the joy of sharing a bit about this in episode 2.)  If you’re curious, check it out - and if you have questions, you’re not alone and I’d love to connect with you - shoot me a DM!

Two (2) things I have learned or am learning…

• It is possible to remain in uncertainty and to remain at peace. Brody went back to work this month after having left his job in late July of last year. We’ve rejoiced much this week - praising God for His perfect timing and His faithfulness to us and to him. I shared briefly on my instagram of my overwhelming admiration for Brody in this last season: planting his flag on the certainty of the Lord’s provision, determining that we would walk this season with the peace of Christ, and living into those convictions day after day. It was everything for us in these last few months. In following suit, I tasted of the profound riches of Christ’s all-surpassing peace and the generosity of His provision in a myriad of ways. Not only were we strengthened in the waiting, but now we also have this ebenezer: God is faithful. He is our peace.

• There is tremendous purpose in obscurity. And genuine contentment, too, if you’ll open yourself to it. This is something I’m wrestling with most days, absolutely something I have not learned but am learning - however, the proportion of days in which it feels true to me is only ever increasing. Eventually, only because of the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit, I know this work will be accomplished in me, and I’ll be able to fully live into its truth.  

Some wisdom from Anonymous, which I mentioned above, that I keep returning back to: “Like a flower whose budding glory is covered up by wet leaves, we sense the weight of hiddenness in our hearts and whisper, ‘I have so much more to give and be.’ But there is One who can see the beauty of that covered, smothered flower: God himself. And, mysteriously, his delight in that beauty is not diminished by its leafy camouflage. Neither would his pleasure be amplified by the flower’s visibility. Good news indeed for the hidden. In fact, obedience to this God who appreciates the visible and invisible equally has led many truly great souls into long seasons of anonymity. Some emerged from obscurity into eminence. Others remained relatively unknown. All agreed that God never wastes anyone’s time” (Chole, emphasis mine).

One (1) question I am carrying into this next month…

Is there anything I need to let go of or re-order in my life in order to more fully grasp the riches of inheritance that are already mine in Christ Jesus? Anything hindering me from running the race that is mine? 

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