If you’ve ever felt like you don’t quite fit in, or if life has left you weary and overwhelmed, I hope this reflection will encourage you. Together, we’ll discover the deep comfort found in the saving work of the Triune God and learn what it means to stand firm in his true grace.

I’d love for you to read, listen, and join me on this journey through 1 Peter.

Flannery O’Connor

This has been a year where I’ve been able to cross items off my bucket list. Ok - I don’t have an “official” bucket list - but there are some things that bounce around in the back of my mind that I hope to happen before I lie down for the last time.

Here are some:

1. Visit Paris - more specifically, the Louvre.

2. Have lunch with Christian musician Steve Taylor.

3. Take my whole family to Singapore and India.

That actually might be it.

One that I crossed off was meeting famed writer Yann Martel. He wrote Life of Pi, which won the Booker and was adapted into a hit movie. I am re-reading it for the third time in anticipation of an upcoming coffee meeting with Mr. Martel. Martel lives in Saskatoon, and he is one of only a small number of celebrities I have ever wanted to meet.

And last week I crossed off another. Flannery O’Connor is one of my favorite all-time writers. She is an American writer from Georgia. She was Catholic, and faith, God and the devil appear throughout her writing. But she is not easily accessible. Her stories contain the grotesque and bizarre: a Bible salesman who steals a one-legged woman’s artificial leg, families destroyed by violence, and characters confronted with the strange intrusion of grace.

Well - Karen Swallow Prior (another writer and leader I greatly admire) taught on O’Connor at my alma mater - Regent College last week. She taught the same course 4 years ago. At the time I wrote on Facebook that taking that course from her was on my bucket list.

Well - cross it off because I took it.

Dr. Karen Swallow Prior and I

Regent College - June 2026

We read a book of essays by O’Connor and several of her short stories, including her masterpiece: A Good Man is Hard to Find. There were about 20 people in the class - half online and half in person. Folks were from Canada and the States and one student from Portugal. There was a variety of professions among the other professors, a couple of pastors, and even a dermatologist!

Prior was a masterful professor - although sadly lacking the use of a whiteboard - she very ably conveyed the major themes in O’Connor’s work while helping us tease out other ones.

Why I love O’Connor

She is a great writer. A writer is an artist that uses words and language as their medium. O’Connor uses words with such great economy and grace that it is breathtaking. Although she wrote 2 novels, it’s obvious short stories are what she was created to write. Some examples of her beauty:

“The pain in his throat was all over his face now, leaking out his eyes.” - from her first published work “The Geranium”.

“He was gazing at her with open curiosity, with fascination, like a child watching a new fantastic animal at the zoo, and he was breathing as if he had run a great distance to reach her.”

“As a child she had sometimes been subject to feelings of shame, but education had removed the last traces of that as good as a surgeon scrapes for cancer;”

“She felt as if her heart had stopped and left her mind to pump her blood… this boy with an instinct that came from beyond wisdom had touched the truth about her.”

-all above from Good Country People

And so on.

I also love the fact that she was a Christian (a Catholic if you want to get into the weeds).

In taking the class, I learned a lot from the stories we read and from the insights that our professor had - but hidden inside of O’Connor’s life came the biggest insight for me personally.

O’Connor lived in New York City for a season. She was welcomed into the literary and arts communities there. She was going to stay there, build her career there, and find a community with these coastal elites.

God had other plans. Diagnosed with Lupus, she had to move back to her family farm in Georgia. Now removed from the cosmopolitan excitement of Manhattan, she faced a life of rural isolation.

But she did not despair of her condition. Many would retreat into bitter self-pity. Instead, she took stock of her circumstances and continued in her vocation as an artist whose medium was stories.

She stayed on the farm in Milledgville, Georgia, until her death at age 39. In those 14 years, she would go on to produce some of the most brilliant works of fiction in the 20th Century.

O’Connor was a subversive artist. She did what Emily Dickinson said to do: “Always tell the truth but tell it slant.” She preached the gospel as Jesus did through parables. Parables do not give us surface truth. We actually need to dig, probe, and ponder until the truth emerges. Others who were subversive like O’Connor were Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Marilynne Robinson, and C.S. Lewis (in Narnia and space trilogy).

Many of O’Connor’s hopes did not come true. She had a romantic interest that did not result in marriage. She did not get to live the life of an urban aesthete. But she accepted her life as a gift and, in turn, used her talents to give back to God and His creation.

She loved God and wanted to serve him well. During my week of study, I was struck by prayers that she recorded:

"Don't let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story—just like the typewriter was mine."

“Dear God, please give me some place, no matter how small, but let me know it and keep it. If I am the one to wash the second step every day, let me know it and let me wash it and let my heart overflow with love washing it.

Like O’Connor, our lives don’t often pan out in the way we imagined. My prayer and hope is that we can emulate her humility and deep love of God and offer back to God a gift from what he has given us. May we learn, in whatever place God has given us, to “wash the second step” faithfully and let our hearts overflow with love while doing it.

Some of my books.

This is a companion piece to the latest podcast episode. (Which is going GREAT by the way!). I’m really enjoying doing it, and my friend Malcolm Whyte is doing an amazing job as producer. It will be fun to see where this little offering goes. The number of downloads is pretty strong for someone who has a very limited social media platform.

Orthodoxy is a book written by the prolific writer G.K. Chesterton. It was published in 1908 and somehow remains relevant in the 2020’s. Very few books achieve this perennial evergreen status. Mere Christianity and Augustine’s Confessions are two that come to mind.

I first read Orthodoxy in 1993 while working in a Christian bookstore in Saskatoon. I found it a bit difficult, but I knew something important was going on within its pages. I would then go on to read it 7 more times:

1993 - Saskatoon

2002 - Vancouver

2010 - Port Moody

2013 - Ithaca NY

2019 - Ithaca NY

2024 - Saskatoon

2026 - Saskatoon

I have a habit of writing the date and location of where and when I read my books. It’s fun to look through and remember what was happening in my life at the time of reading.

This time, reading through the book, I was struck particularly by the essay The Ethics of Elfland. God used this chapter to reveal to me in a fresh new way the beauty and wonder of life. Chesterton argues that we tend to approach life with a kind of presumptuous familiarity. We assume the world owes us explanations. We lose our capacity for surprise. Wonder slowly drains away.

Yet life is astonishing.

Every day is a miracle.

And God, the author of life, is an inexhaustible fountain of joy.

This is the passage that really hit me:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Is this true? Can we have a view, experience of God that we can believe he takes great joy and pleasure in each separate act of creation? I used this story in my podcast. I drive my teenage son to high school almost every day. Saskatchewan has stunning sunrises because we have so much undisturbed sky due to the incredible flatness of the Canadian prairie. The sunsets are massive and seem to cover the entire sky in beautiful pinks and oranges.

One day, I was driving, and I was thinking of how someone had said that God loves us so much that he paints us a new sunrise and sunset every day. I thought that was a nice thought that is shared to make one feel better, also kind of cheesy. But then I thought:

Then one morning, I found myself wondering:

What if it is true?

What if God actually paints each sunrise and sunset?

My first instinct was to dismiss the thought as naïve. But then another question emerged:

Why is that naïve?

Why shouldn’t the source of all beauty delight in creating beauty?

Why shouldn’t the source of all joy revel in sharing joy?

I think Chesterton is right.

I think God is more joyful than we imagine.

I think He delights in His creation more than we realize.

And I think every sunrise and sunset is, in some mysterious way, a fresh gift.

Life itself is astonishing.

As I type these words in my basement in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, people from around the world can open this page and read them.

We are connected across cities, provinces, nations, cultures, and continents.

That is amazing.

A walk by a river. A conversation with a friend. A good book. A prairie sunset. A child’s laughter. All of these are gifts of grace that we too easily overlook.

Perhaps one of the great spiritual disciplines is simply learning to notice.

If you haven’t read Orthodoxy, read it.

Then read The Everlasting Man, Chesterton’s brilliant book on Jesus, which I hope to revisit soon.

More importantly, allow Chesterton to teach you what he has taught me again and again: the world is far more magical, meaningful, and beautiful than we often assume.

Thank you for joining me on this long obedience. I’d love to hear what books have shaped your own journey, or what topics you’d like me to explore in future posts.

Below - a first edition that I bought in a used bookstore in New York for $5. I did not know it was a first edition when I bought it - I bought it because it was a hardcover and looked cool. It is valued at several hundred dollars. The woman it was gifted to was the wife of Carlton Hayes, who was the ambassador to Spain and a professor of history at Columbia University.

Today, the first episode of my podcast dropped. The Long Obedience podcast is a teaching podcast where I am simply going to teach through books of the Bible. I might mix things up every once in a while and interview a guest or do a book review. But for the most part, it will be simple bible teaching.

Why? Well, for one, it gives me something to do until God opens up my next ministry placement. Secondly, I simply can’t find a lot of straightforward biblical teaching/preaching in the podcast world. I have very high standards in terms of preaching and teaching, and I find the majority of the material available is lacking.

Or as John Stott famously said when asked about the state of preaching, he said:

“Miserable. Abysmal.” And then a looong silence!

So, if my meager offerings can help elevate the resources to the church, then I offer them with an open hand.

And - because this is how these things work - please review, subscribe, and share!

Here it is:

Support the show

Music track: Funk It Up by AgusAlvarez
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Music track: Funk It Up by AgusAlvarez
Source: https://freetouse.com/music
Copyright Free Music (Free Download)

Forgiveness.

Forgiving others is the key to a life of joy and liberation. I …

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Hello folks

Well, first off, you will see my blog has a new name! Yep - goodbye Rocks and Gravel and hello The Long Obedience! I found Rocks and Gravel not very intuitive and a bit hard to explain.

The Long Obedience is much simpler, and I like the feeling it evokes. The title takes its name from Eugene Peterson, who took it from Friedrich Nietzsche. Here’s the full quote:

"The essential thing 'in heaven and earth' is... that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.” - Beyond Good and Evil - Frederick Nietzsche.

Peterson took it and wrote a book called “A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.” It is a reflection on the Psalms of ascent in the psalter - Psalms 120-134 - Psalms that pilgrims sang as they went to Jerusalem for Passover. Peterson found the Psalms inspiring and wrote in his usual pithy and wise style. The book has meant a lot to me over the years.

So - new name - what else?

Well - here it is - I’m entering the world of podcasting!!! Yep. With some seed money from some friends, I will be setting up a podcast studio in my house! We’re going to start small - audio only as a 6-month pilot project. And then add a YouTube channel when the timing feels right. I’m super excited! I don’t really see myself as a social media “content creator”. I’m just a guy who has a few miles in ministry and leadership behind him who wants to share his voice on issues of our day. The podcast will be called “The Long Obedience,” and it will focus on applying biblical truth to contemporary issues and life’s challenges. I hope you find it helpful. Right now, we plan to drop 3 episodes on April 15 on all major podcasting platforms - stay tuned!

Life Update - I’m still unemployed, and Felicia still has cancer! Fun times in the Ninan house! Yep, I still have not secured full-time (or even part-time) employment. Every day I scour the internet for what might be suitable ministry positions. At this point, we are focusing on Saskatoon, Calgary, Vancouver, and Kelowna - in that order. I’ve applied to churches in other areas as well. The truth is, there just are not that many ministry positions out there where I think I would be a good fit. My ideal fit would be a medium to larger-sized multi-staff church where I can serve as lead or teaching pastor. If I still don’t have a position by this time next year, I’ll start looking east and south for other positions - the truth is, we want to stay close to Saskatoon as both our parents live here.

And Felicia still has cancer - early April, we expect the 2nd biopsy results, which will determine the next course of treatment. Our big prayer is that she will not need chemotherapy as that will be quite disruptive to our family.

Prayer Requests - For those of you who pray, please pray that Felicia is healed of her cancer and will require NO further treatment.

That I will get a job! Pray I even get a secular marketplace job to tide us over.

(above - autographed copy of Disappointment with God - I’ve had this edition for over 30 years)

I was first introduced to Philip Yancey in the late 1980s and early 1990s through his column in Christianity Today. Before long, I began reading his early books—Disappointment with God and Where Is God When It Hurts?

Yancey took up the daunting task of addressing the problem of evil for a wide Christian audience. His most well-known works—The Jesus I Never Knew and What’s So Amazing About Grace?—appeared in the 1990s. There is even an apocryphal story that Bono once had a long conversation with Noel Gallagher about Christianity and sent him a copy of Yancey’s book on grace.

Meeting the Man Behind the Books

In the summer of 1995, I took Yancey’s class at Regent College entitled The Jesus I Got to Know. It was not especially academic—largely a retelling of the book—but it was unmistakably personal. I also had the opportunity to have lunch with him and interview him for the school paper.

My memories of that encounter remain vivid. He was gracious enough to meet with me, a young seminary student. We ate lasagna and Caesar salad prepared by other students, sitting together in the atrium. During the interview, I noticed a pattern: he would answer a question and then immediately turn it back on me—What about you? What do you think? His journalistic instincts were always at work.

In class, someone asked how he remained humble amid meteoric book sales and encounters with public figures like Bono and then-President Bill Clinton. Yancey replied:

“Those meetings are such a small part of what I do. I’m writing a book right now—it’s a solitary endeavor, and I constantly wonder whether it’s any good.”

Over the years, I continued reading his work and enjoying it immensely. He became one of my favorite writers. One personal connection stood out: Yancey had extensive interaction with Dr. Paul Brand, who worked at the hospital where I was born, Christian Medical College in Vellore.

Why His Writing Mattered

Yancey is a gifted writer. He draws from a wide range of sources and illustrations, but what appealed to me most was his honesty. He gave voice to questions many believers quietly carry but are afraid to articulate.

His life’s work was, in many ways, a sustained effort to reconcile the deep brokenness of our world with the biblical vision of a God who is wholly loving. Even when he wrote on other themes, this question resurfaced.

I loved his honest struggles.

An Eight-Year Deception

On January 6, 2026, Christianity Today published an article containing statements from both Philip and his wife, Janet.

Philip’s statement opened with these words:

“To my great shame, I confess that for eight years I willfully engaged in a sinful affair with a married woman.”

What followed were acknowledgments of deep inconsistency, harm, and repentance—his conduct defying everything he believed about marriage, contradicting his faith and writings, causing deep pain, and leading him to confession, counseling, and accountability.

The statement read like a modern lament—one notable for its raw honesty, even as it largely lacked the common corollary of describing a God who hears and answers those cries.

“I have failed morally and spiritually, and I grieve over the devastation I have caused.
My sin has brought dishonor to God.
I am filled with remorse and repentance, and I have nothing to stand on except God’s mercy and grace.”

Philip concluded by saying he would devote his remaining years to rebuilding trust and restoring his marriage. He resigned from all public ministry, acknowledging that he had disqualified himself.

Janet’s statement expressed her own devastation and trauma, her commitment to their 55-year marriage, and her belief that Jesus has paid for and forgiven all sins—including Philip’s. She asked for God’s grace to forgive and ended with a simple plea:

Please pray for us.

What now?

A fall like this evokes anger and grief. My own reaction was shock and a deep sadness that someone I had admired for so long could have carried such extensive deceit.

How does such a disconnect happen?

Men like Philip Yancey, Ravi Zacharias, Bill Hybels, and Brian Houston all understood—and taught—the Christian vision of human sexuality. Yet each stepped outside the covenant of marriage. While every case differs in scope and harm, the pattern is tragically familiar.

In his memoir, Yancey describes an extraordinarily painful childhood. His father died when Philip was very young, refusing medical treatment in the belief that God would heal him. His mother suffered from severe mental illness, with devastating consequences for her sons. Yet Yancey never spoke about how that trauma was addressed in the memoir. There is little mention of therapy, formative practices, or the long inner work required to integrate such pain. This was one of my big questions after completing the book.

In some cases, unresolved childhood trauma leaves vulnerabilities that later surface in destructive ways. The human soul is vast, and there are often regions not fully surrendered to Christ. In those shadowed places, harmful seeds can take root. A person may display a fruitful ministry and genuine charisma while carrying unresolved darkness. (I had met Ravi Zacharias on several occasions and was always struck by his apparent humility.)

But hidden seeds grow. An addiction or an affair begins in secrecy, followed by a personal crisis of conscience. This is its own kind of hell. No one lives with joy or freedom while carrying dark sexual secrets.

In time, what is hidden finds its way into the light—whether through exposure, the courage of a victim to speak, or, as it appears in Yancey’s case, when conscience finally stirs and a person longs for freedom through truth rather than continuing in the quiet bondage of deceit.

From Anger to Embrace

For the rest of us, the danger is bitterness.

I am deeply saddened that Yancey’s life has ended this way. Like others before him, he will now be remembered more for his sin than for his substantial contributions to the kingdom of God.

I will pray for Philip and Janet, and I encourage you to do the same. I will also pray for my own heart, mind, body, and soul—that I would not believe lies, justify sin, or confuse ministry fruitfulness with spiritual health. Success in ministry is meaningless if one’s soul is dark.

Jesus offers this sobering warning in the Sermon on the Mount:

“If your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
(Matthew 6:23)

Jesus is not saying cataracts lead to spiritual death. He is warning that our vision—our perspective, our focus—can become distorted. And when our vision is damaged, everything else begins to unravel. It is sobering to realize that what we have received as light can become darkness—great darkness.

Sexual sin often begins when our vision of God and his commands become blurred by the promises of this world. When our focus goes, everything else follows.

Yancey wrote extensively about God’s grace. Now he will experience that grace in a way no book or previous insight could have prepared him for.

God loves Philip.
God loves Janet.
God hates sin.
God grieves Janet’s pain.

As someone who has walked through deep disappointment and pain in recent months, it is my faith in God as a loving Father that keeps me walking the path set before me.

And I pray—even now—that the Yanceys’ story will yet prove redemptive.

So instead of picking up stones of anger to throw at those who sin publicly and grievously, may we take up the posture of the grieving yet hopeful father—watching the road, preparing the celebration, and longing for the prodigal to come home.

C.S. Lewis, famed apologist and creator of the world of Narnia, is my favorite writer. I’ve read everything by him that I can get my hands on. For a while, I was re-reading Mere Christianity every January.

Lewis married a woman named Joy Davidman. He married her in a hospital as she was undergoing cancer treatment. Mercifully, the cancer went into remission, and she was able to live another three years. Those three years were a season of deep joy for Lewis. She became a conduit of God’s love to Lewis in a way no other human had ever been. Her death, while foreseen, shook Lewis deeply.

Known for his formidable intellect, he was now forced to reckon with the sharp emotion of grief. He kept a journal of his grief and ended up publishing it as “A Grief Observed”. This book has been a valuable companion to many individuals who are navigating the lonely and unpredictable path of grief and loss.

I just read it for the third time. On this go-around, I was struck by his observation on how our grief impairs our perception of reality and environment. The severe emotional shock leads to cognitive dissonance with reality itself. But, even at these times, God’s grace emerges unbeckoned.

He uses an illustration of a person in a dark room - a dungeon or a basement. He spends some time there and assumes he is alone in the dark. But then he hears sounds of nature: wind through leaves, waves on a shore, or farm animals. Or he hears a human laugh. These recognizable sounds jolt the man into reality. He is not alone in the dark - he is outside in nature. Or there is a friend close by.

When we are managing grief and loss, there will be times of utter darkness where we do feel all alone, and we join the sad Psalmist who laments, “Darkness is my only friend.” (Psalm 18:8)

But if we wait, God often sends a sound, a person, a letter, or His own Spirit to remind us that our feelings and perceptions are not an accurate picture of our reality. A more profound reality and narrative are unfolding that we are currently disconnected from. In time and by his grace, he will reveal parts of it to us. (Although not the whole plot - not in this life and maybe not even in the next).

The book charts Lewis’ uneven journey from contending with God as a Cosmic Sadist back to the perception he had of God before Davidman’s death. God’s absence and silence are replaced with God’s Presence and Voice.

Grief and loss are difficult paths to sojourn. Be patient for the shoots of grace that will emerge on the path as you trudge along slowly

.

Spotify sent out its Wrapped year-end summary of our media intake through its product. Songs, artists, podcasts, and audiobooks that were accessed through Spotify are analyzed and codified. And then this information is given to you in an attractive package that makes it fun to look over.

No surprise: U2, Bruce Cockburn and Bob Dylan were both at the top in terms of artists on my list. 4 out of my top 5 songs were worship songs. The one outlier is a song called “Bethany” by an indie artist named Craig Finn. Finn is the lead singer of The Hold Steady, a band I’ve seen in concert.

Finn’s writing has really captivated me with his evocative storytelling. He paints audio pictures like Bruce Springsteen. The song Bethany is a song about a man who becomes a pastor and then leaves the pastorate.

He describes his entry into ministry like this:

“And I never had a calling, it was just a strong desire
To be the one that stood up in the room
When I was a child, I used to fixate on the chaplain
The way he brought the widows all to tears
And that looked like a decent way to make a little living here
I gave myself to God for a few years”

But then he makes this confession:

But I couldn’t shake the feeling
I was faking all the faithfulness
Every single sermon was a fraud

Drifted through the rituals
Prideful high and pitiful

He goes on to describe how he left the ministry and became a caddy at a golf club. He has a small, insular life of drinking in bars and shuttling between his sister’s house and his parents’ summer home. It’s a picture of an aging man whose come to terms with how his life has ended up. He also expresses regret about a relationship that went sour.

What hit me about this song were these lines:

In some other prior life
The Reverend and his wife
Are sitting in the kitchen making plans

Maybe there’s a life where
The Reverend has his wife
And Jesus has his ministry in Galilee

It struck me that the failed pastor was considering what might have been - he could have had a life as a pastor.

The man in this story went into ministry in order to fill an inner need for affirmation and approval. He wanted to be “the one who stood up in the room”. He saw the power when the chaplain “brought the widow all to tears.”

So he takes this position and can coast for a while. But, finally, the hypocrisy catches up with him. He can no longer play-act through the sermons. He leaves the ministry and chooses a path that allows him to display more personal integrity.

It is the wistful thought of “the reverend and his wife sitting in the kitchen making plans” that touched me deeply. A part of him wonders at the might-have-been of his life.

As we age can fall into this same trap:

What if….?

If only…..

And so on.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of ways our lives could have gone.

I know I suffer from whatever mental malady this is called. It is a colossal waste of mental and emotional energy. It adds no value to your life and leads to feelings of sadness and depression. Regret is a horrible thing to carry around in your soul.

The life you have now is the life that you and God have crafted together. For most of us, it is not how we had planned or hoped. But that’s ok. When the demon of regret starts creeping into my soul, I resort to my belief that God is wise. God knows better than I do how and where my life should be.

So, when things don’t pan out the way they should, I lean on the fact that God is a much wiser guide than I am. Our frustration is that we do not have access to the larger picture God is painting with our lives.

God loves us and wants the best for us. Even pain and suffering can become tools of healing and redemption in his hands. The key to this transformation happening is surrender.

Surrender of our will into his hands.

Surrender of our emotional well-being to him.

Surrender of our future.

It is the potent prayer of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, where he asks God the Father to spare him from the cross. With an economy of words, Jesus manages to summarize this war of wills that we all contend with:

“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” - Mark 14:36

He addresses God with intimacy Abba Father, and acknowledges his power - everything is possible for you. And then he expresses his desire that the cup be taken from him. The cup symbolizes the suffering that lay before him. through the cross And then 9 words that turn everything upside down:

“yet not what I will, but what you will.”

This is the approach one must take in all of life. We are born selfish. We grow up selfish. For the Christian, there is a persistent struggle between our will and submitting to God’s will. (Just read Paul in Romans 7). Life works best when our will and God’s will converge. Then we don’t end up living in the might-have-been dilemma of imagining the reverend and his wife together.

I am writing this on November 25, which means there is 1 month to go.

1 month to

• Buy stuff for people who already have a bunch of stuff

• Write and send out a letter that tells everyone what you did all year

• Get a family picture to put with said letter

• Eat more than we should

• The gift (and challenge?) of time with family

November 30 will be the first Sunday of Advent. Advent is a season for reflection and waiting. The word advent comes from the Latin word “adventus,” which can mean “coming, arrival, or approach.” When we use the word today, it is often in reference to “waiting” for the birth of Jesus or looking forward to the “arrival” of Jesus.

Waiting.

I hate waiting.

It feels like a useless waste of time.

Over the past few years, I have been pondering the act of waiting as part of our spiritual formation. Waiting is a spiritual discipline.

The truth is, most of our lives consist of waiting:

• doctor’s office

• airport gates

• traffic

• drive-thrus

• for others, we are meeting

Other types of waiting are more paramount.

• medical results

• exam scores

• acceptance letters

Right now, I am in a season of waiting. My employment at my previous church ended abruptly on September 30. Since that time, I have been unemployed, floating in a kind of nether world. No schedule and no demands can quickly coalesce into no purpose. And no purpose can send you to dark places. Is there a redemptive way to wait? I believe there is. What do I do with this long expanse of unscheduled days before me?

I write these words.

I read books.

I pray.

I exercise.

I walk my dog.

I listen to audiobooks while walking my dog.

I watch movies.

I watch sermons and lectures online.

AND I WAIT.

I wait for the next thing that God wants me to do.

And this kind of waiting is hard for the following reason:

The Invisible God

As a Christian, I am called to a number of things. I am called to believe. To believe God exists and loves me and wants me to know him. I am also called to trust him. Trusting in God is hard.

I can’t see God.

I can’t hear God audibly.

So what am I left with?

Faith.

Ouch - the word that our scientific age is allergic to. But it is faith that propels me forward. With the gift of age, I can look back on specific incidents and events where God’s protection and guidance were clearly seen. These act as supports for my faith today. I also read the Bible, and it becomes incontestable that God can be trusted. So I trust him.

And here is where the discipline of waiting comes in.

What is the posture for the Christian who is waiting for an answer?

If you look at the Christmas story, we see a good example of waiting in the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus. (Stop here and go read the Christmas story - Luke 1 and 2.) As I read about Mary’s season of waiting three themes emerge: humble, community, worship.

Humble

“I am the Lord’s servant. May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Mary says these words after learning her life is about to be turned upside down. Her plans for a “normal” domestic Jewish family have just ended. She now has to live under the shadow of doubt and suspicion as an unmarried pregnant woman. And will Joseph reject her? Yet, Mary accepts God’s command. Mary is humble and willing to give up her own dreams for her life. Mary is forced into a season of waiting, instead of choosing it for herself. Waiting forces us to be humble as we are reminded how little agency we have over our lives. When God places us in a season of waiting, our posture must be one of humility.

Community

It’s striking that the first thing Mary does is “hurry” to her friend Elizabeth. She stays with her for the first 3 months of her pregnancy. Mary sought out community - someone who would help walk through this unbelievable new chapter of her life. Waiting alone is hard. We were not meant to go through life alone. Especially when life gets hard - we need the gift of others who will walk with us and carry us when we stumble. Wait in community.

Worship

Luke 1:46-55, Mary belts out a song which we call the Magnificat. All that is happening is so overwhelming that she turns to music to express herself. Mary has been raised on a steady diet of the Psalms, as much of her words and imagery dip into that great prayer book. Waiting need not be monotonous or anxiety-inducing. We can still worship the God who loves and watches over us. From the depths of Mary rose this beautiful song that I am sure carried her through some difficult days that were going to come. If you are waiting, don’t forget God. Worship Him every day.

Waiting is hard. But there are pracitces and postures that we can take to lighten the load. Life is unpredictable and can be scary. But the tools of humility, community and worship can be powerful aids as we wait for what God has for us.

Happy Advent and blessing as you wait.

smiling while thinking about writing stuff

Once upon a time, I had a blog. It’s still out there:

https://dreamsunlocked.blogspot.com/

“My first post was on May 23, 2005, where I recounted that this was my first post. My wife and 1-year-old son attended church, I cooked soup, and then I had a nap. Scintillating stuff.”

I will now be blogging on here - I’m not sure why - but it appears everyone has migrated to Substack to blog. I am a complete newbie at this. I don’t have many followers on here, and I don’t know how to monetize it. But I’ll learn, and this will get better.

Rocks and Gravel is the name of my blog. It comes from an extremely obscure Bob Dylan song. He has only performed it 3 times, and it has never been released commercially. It was an outtake from the recording of his second album. I heard the song on the compilation album “Through the Open Window” released this year. The song struck

me - the plaintive vocals and the compelling blues influences.

But - this is the line: “You takes rocks and gravel, and you make a solid road” that stuck me. Rocks and gravel on their own cannot be driven over. But with engineering skills, one can take loose gravel and create a road heavy enough for trucks and cars to drive over.

And this is what I thought wisdom and knowledge in life are like - we take these disparate things and mend them together. Over time, a road emerges that points us the way to go and provides support for the journey. So, I am writing these rocks and gravel and invite you as we try to build a solid road together.

This blog will not have a defined purpose - I know you are supposed to have one main thing you focus on. But my mind doesn’t work like that - so this blog will jump around from books to ministry to pop culture - whatever is marinating in my mind at the time I sit down at the MacBook.

I hope you join me.

Then I prayed as a teenager. I’m not sure if I actually believed anything. But prayer had been habitualized in the home I grew up in. So the habit transferred to my personal spiritual life.

In my late teens and early 20s, a change starts to happen. I begin to understand the importance of regular prayer in terms of being formed into the character of Christ. As a Christian, I had been called to live a life of holiness and purity - a life that reflects Christ to the world. Prayer was necessary to do that.

From my 20s until now, I have prayed every day. That means there is over 35 years of cumulative prayer in my spiritual bank account (if there is such a thing). I have prayed over 12 000 times. That’s a lot of prayer.

Prayer is communication with God. Usually, prayer consists of sitting somewhere quietly and then focusing thoughts toward God. I have always struggled with prayer. Prayer is simultaneously the most important and most difficult thing I do.

Why it’s hard:

1. Does it work? A significant obstacle in prayer is that God is invisible and inaudible. When I pray, my prayers are directed to a being that I cannot see or hear. With this lack of empirical reality, I am at a disadvantage. Prayer becomes an unnatural act.

2. It’s boring. Sitting still and thinking thoughts - this is what prayer consists of. In our dopamine and adrenaline addictex culture, this idea of sitting still quietly becomes out of the norm. Our phones give us dopamine hits in 2 ways: the fast scrolling of videos on platforms like tik tok and the affirmation we receive through online interactions (someone liking your post or making an encouraging comment). Ongoing use of our devices in this way becomes a detriment to prayer. Over time, prayer will become less and less desirable because it can’t provide the same “hit.”

So, why do I still do it?

I pray because I have to.

I pray because I am scared of what my life would be like if I did not pray.

I pray because when I pray, I feel that God loves me and is listening to me.

Prayer is oxygen to my soul. Without it, my life would be diminished. Actually, my spirituality would be completely withered. Prayer creates a channel between our life and the life of God. Without prayer, I am all alone. And I know myself well enough to know that I cannot live this life with ONLY my own resources.

The challenges do not outweigh the gifts.

I pray because God answers prayer. Biblical evidence and encouragement:

• Psalm 34:17 –
  “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.”

• 1 John 5:14–15 –
  “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.
  And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.”

• Psalm 145:18–19 –
  “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
  He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.”

• 1 Peter 3:12 –
  “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
  but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

• Isaiah 65:24 –
  “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.”

Over and over again, we see God as one who sees and hears us when we pray. In a way we will never fully understand, our prayers become adjoined to his will. This is again one of those challenges. How does my prayer get connected to God’s will and power in the world? I don’t know, but it does.

If you pray, keep praying.

If you’ve never prayed - try it. Start small - just one or 2 sentences. It can be as simple as:

“God, I don’t even know if this does anything. But, I’m going to pray to you because I want to know your will and I want to be closer to you.”

Pray every day for 2 weeks and see what happens.

Here’s a morning prayer that might encourage you. :

“God, I struggle to pray to you. You are beyond my senses. And yet - here I am - talking to you like a child with her father. Without you, I would be without hope.

This is a new day. Anything could happen today. I have such little control over the events in my life. I know you are the one who has ordained all that will happen to me today.

As I start this day, control my thoughts. Direct my energy. Teach me. Discipline my will. Take my mind, heart, and hands and direct them to do your will. I pray that my actions today will join your greater actions in your Kingdom.

Amen.”

(adapted from A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie.)

I can’t sleep. 5 weeks ago, my life changed. One day, I was a lead pastor of a large busy, and active church. And the next day I was not. The shock of moving from a life of extreme activity to a life with virtually no demands, direction, or structure has been jarring to say the least.

One of the consequences has been the disordering of sleep. Like most people, I have gone through seasons of bad sleep - but never really had anything that affected my everyday life.

But now - I sleep too much or (like now) I don’t sleep at all.

I am currently in a season of transition. I have left a very exciting and fulfilling ministry position (one I thought I would spend the rest of my life doing). I am processing the exit from that position. And once I feel processed, I will seek out where God would have me serve for what will likely be my final posting as a pastor.

With this excess of spare time, I decided to pull out all the books I want to read. I have 62 books on my desk now. Books like Dominion by Tom Holland - the book that 5 years ago, everyone who was smart was referencing online. I haven’t read it yet, but I was able to converse on its main points because Holland was omnipresent on my social feeds for a while. Another one is Letters by a Modern Mystic by Frank Laubach. This is a book anyone can read because it is so small. Seriously, it is barely bigger than a pamphlet - but it contains a spiritual practice that will change your life.

I read …. a lot. I read between 50-60 books a year, which is more than anyone else I know. Actually, that’s not true - I think I have a friend who reads 100 books a year. Reading is important. In fact, I would say reading is vital to living a fulfilling life as a human being.

Why? 2 reasons out of the plethora of reasons out there.

1. It exercises your mind. The mid-20s is a time in human history when our brains are under assault. The helpful tool called the phone has become the #1 killer of brain cells in our day. Reading for 30 minutes straight through provides some prevention against the assaults from our feeds on our devices. (The best is just cut down on scrolling, but since most of us are addicted, we can take up reading for 30 minutes to 1 hour as a way to be kind to our brains and help them get healthier.)

2. You don’t know everything. Our lives and our minds are very small in contrast to the wide world around us. If I didn’t read, I would have a very impoverished life. Reading connects me across time and across cultures. I likely won’t travel globally - but books bring other cultures and worldviews into my head. In an age of violent polarization, we need this discipline more than ever. We MUST read outside of our tribes. This is hard for me to do. I would much rather just read theology, biblical studies, sociology, cultural studies, literature, and poetry. But, I also need to read across other disciplines so that my world does not stay truncated. And I need to read those with whom I disagree with.

It is now 4:56 AM, and I am still not tired. I know I will pay for this during the day. But what can I do? I even took my melatonin, and I am still wired. I will drink some sleepytime tea and read my current book, which is fantastic: Holy Hurt by Hillary McBride. This book is helping me so much to sort through what religious trauma is and how to heal from it. If you have ever had a challenging season or incident with a religious organization, you will greatly benefit from this work

.

Good night. (And read something today)

Enjoyed an amazing art show of one of my favorite living artists for my birthday.

55 years ago, at Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, I made my grand entrance into this thing called life.. And today, I reckon with the reality that I am a 55-year-old man. I am beginning to wonder if every successive birthday will cause me to look at the number in as much disbelief as this one does.

How did this happen? I was once 5 – not many memories.

Then I was 15 – foggy memories of teenage insecurities.

Then I was 25 – a confused young adult – unsure of what to do with my life.

Then I was 35 – married (!) with a 1-year-old son (!)

Then I was 45, enjoying relative career “success” and 3 children bearing my name.

And now … 55.

What happens now? Am I a senior citizen? Thanks to the luck of the genetic pool, I appear younger – could pass for someone in his late 40s. And my tastes in entertainment haven’t changed much – although I am clueless about most new artists now – Chapell Roan … etc. I still dress like I have when I was younger – today I was self-conscious that maybe people thought I was having a mid-life crisis because of what I was wearing - yellow Chuck Taylors, slim (not skinny!) jeans, a U2 t-shirt, and a chore jacket.

55 is a good time to reflect and perhaps despair a little bit. This morning, I listed my positive qualities and things I am grateful for in life. And then I listed my weaknesses and defects. I have some defects that have taken permanent residency despite repeated attempts at evacuation. These are things that have evolved and devolved over the years, but persistently remain.

The past – some good, some bad, some joy, some pain.

One gift of aging is that one can begin to detect through lines in one’s life. And I look at my past, and one constant that emerges is the protection and provision of God. There were many, many times my life could have gone off the rails, but the hand of God reached down and set up guard rails for me.

God has protected me. There’s a verse in the bible that I often ponder: “What do you have that you have not been given?” It’s a strong directive towards accepting that all of life is traced back to the graciousness of God.

These 55 years are grace. I might walk around for another 30 or so – and those years will also be grace.

I need to remember that.

I need to remember that everyday.

Some Reflections:

Mentally - I can feel the cracks – forgetting certain things, unable to follow plot lines of movies sometimes. Not sure if this is age or the cathode ray from my screens that are hastily transporting healthy neurons away.

Physically, the decay is more pronounced. Less flexibility. Less cardio capacity. In my 30’s I ran marathons and half marathons. Right now, I’m trying to run 3 miles without walking. This, more than anything, humbles me now. My body is following the law of entropy. I can fortify it through exercise and a healthy diet … but in the end, I will come to the end.

Emotionally – here’s where it gets interesting. At the age of 54, I felt a turning point. I received a 360 evaluation from the organization I work for. I am a senior leader with several staff members who report to me. My organization is large for its field. The evaluations from those I lead were sobering. But – (and here’s the turn) – in the past, when I received criticism, I would pull back into this gross black hole of self-pity. I would get very small and look up at my critics and think they were idiots.

That didn’t happen this time. I looked soberly at the observations and criticisms. I made a mental note that I was going to lean into this. I was going to read leadership books and listen to leadership podcasts. I made an agreement with myself that I was going to be the best leader I could be. And the most important words were the last 3. I will not be perfect. I will still have gaps. I will make people angry and upset. But I choose to lean in, not sit out.

I reflected on this internal shift, and again, I am drawn back to grace. As a person of faith, I point upward to God and testify that he intervened and did a deep healing in my soul.

Marriage – It will be 24 years in a few days from when I wrote this. There is no other human being that I am closer to than Felicia. And yet, there are caverns of mystery that still dwell within her. Which means marriage need never become boring or mundane. A monotonous marriage can be traced back to lazy people who have retreated from the adventure of discovery of the other. There are more vistas that Felicia and I will see together as we nurture this relationship.

Fatherhood – Adam is 20, Sophia is 18, and James is 15. Two young adults and one teenager. The “they grow up so fast” mantra that everyone told us a couple of decades ago has now proven itself experientially. I stare at these human beings and wonder where they came from. When Sophia turned 18, I yelled out that I thought she was 15. How did she leapfrog three years like that?

My children keep moving ahead. And I get a front row seat to watching new realities emerge for them. Like every parent, I did the best I could with the tools that I had. I know that there are small t traumas that I inflicted both unwillingly and unwittingly – and for that I will have perpetual regret and sadness. Most of adulthood is trying to untangle the knots that were tied up in childhood. Many of my kids’ knots will lead back to me, either my emotional absences or hurtful words that are now etched into deep places within them. There was so much I didn’t know. There was so much I could have done better. The love for my children almost feels like proof of the existence of God. The moment I saw each child and the moment I held each child, a love was ignited. That love has flickered once in a while but has never extinguished completely.

The future – I am hopeful. I trace my spiritual lineage to a man being resurrected from the dead. I take that event to be historically verifiable – it is beyond myth or legend. It happened. And that means I can always access hope.

Here’s a story:

Over the winter, I got depressed. I was diagnosed with clinical depression when I was 25 years old. I have spent my entire adult life navigating this mysterious entity. And believe me – it is mysterious. Psychiatrists and therapists do the best they can, but they will readily admit their craft is more art than technique. But this winter, something snapped, and I fell into a silent abyss like none I had experienced before. At one point, I couldn’t even read, which, if you know me, is what I spend several hours a day doing. I had to take a leave from work. And so I faced this long stretch of inactivity where my only assignment was to get healed.

I read books.

I read my Bible.

I prayed (sort of) – these were pretty pathetic prayers, which might turn out to be the best kind.

I exercised, although the drift to indolence was pretty strong.

And that was pretty much it.

There might be an odd social excursion with the family if I had the energy.

The most significant thing that happened to me during that forced sabbatical was a simple verse that I read in the Bible. It’s in a section where the apostle Paul, who was the most important Christian in history, the guy got a lot of stuff done. His writings helped set the stage for the establishment of Western civilization. But Paul also struggled, and he wrote about his struggles. At one point, he’s bemoaning his weaknesses and deficits – but then he sticks this in:

“but his grace is sufficient for me”.

If you grew up born again like me, you know that verse. You have heard that verse several times. I’ve probably even preached that verse. But, in the throes of deep depression, in my gloomy basement, those words ignited off the pages and lit some combustible part of my soul.

I couldn’t get past this. If this is true, then I need not fear anything.

Relational challenges – his grace is sufficient.

Physical challenges – his grace is sufficient.

And my depression - his grace is sufficient.

I live off that line. And not just the line, but the primal reality that undergirds it.

And that’s where my hope draws its energy.

Jesus Christ is alive.

God is real.

And I will be ok.

In the next years of my life, I will continue to witness the physical and mental decay that comes to all living things. But I will also be able to witness the grace and beauty all around me. There is grace and beauty inside me, too – God can guide me into some of those places.

55 is ok. And next year will be good too.

Grace and peace.

My church did a sermon series on wisdom this summer. We are using the book of Proverbs to shed insight.

I came up with the following three definitions of wisdom:

The ability to align one’s thoughts and actions in the most positive way that leads to both individual and communal flourishing

Christian Wisdom —> alignment of one’s life focus and thought life with the mind of Jesus Christ

Basic definition - Doing the right thing at the right time with the right resources

Wisdom goes beyond knowledge and insight. Knowledge is the ability to gain information about a subject. Insight is gained through experience. In contrast, wisdom is the ability to utilize information and insight towards a positive goal.

The self-help industry of today is really about wisdom. There is an underlying sense that we were created for something, for some purpose. But we encounter challenges and problems when that purpose or goal is frustrated.

Therefore, we seek wisdom from others who might have more education or life experience than we do. This can be risky. This is because every human being has minimal knowledge or insight about every other human being. Psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors do their best to make diagnoses with the data you provide them in a therapy session, but the most crucial insight - what is ACTUALLY going on within you is not available to them.

This is where I find the concept of an all-knowing, all-loving God so appealing. I believe God is my creator.

God created me. No one has more insight and knowledge than the creator of an object. The creator has conceptualized the object and then constructed the object. Once the object is complete, the creator knows it inside and out.

The apostle expands on the idea of our being created beings in Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

If I personalize this, I draw the following conclusions:

I am an act of creation by God. And I am HIS. As a created being, there is a link between the creator and me.

The phrase “created in Christ Jesus” is challenging. I take it to mean that there is a secondary creation that takes place when my life is joined to Christ. (This happens at conversion - no longer separated by sin - we are in Christ). The concept of new birth and being born again is helpful. At the moment of conversion, something new has been birthed into the world. My soul has been changed. Paul again in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

And as a created being in Christ, there is a purpose to my life. An outward trajectory that I must be working toward. The purpose is to do “good works”. What I love about this is that there is no specificity to what those good works are to be.

For me, as a pastor, my good works could be preaching, providing pastoral care, and praying for people.

As a father, it means providing for my children.

As a husband, it means loving and serving my wife.

As a citizen, it means contributing to the common good of my city and nation by obeying the laws, paying my taxes, and perhaps volunteering in places of need.

For you, in your profession and role, good works can be:

• performing a successful surgery

• Laying a solid foundation for a new build

• Providing good leadership to your work team

• Stocking the grocery shelves promptly

• Leading your corporation with ethics and integrity

And this leads me back to wisdom. Wisdom is needed in order to do these good works.

Learning what the good works I was created to do is a huge psychological relief and provides a strong basis for one’s identity.

But then, the quest begins to gain wisdom to be able to do these good works in a way that leads to “personal and communal flourishing”.