Why does it seem like darkness rises up continually in our world?

Tragic accidents continue, the bodies of people we love are wasted by disease, divorces blindside us, dementia steals precious memories, political corruption erodes trust, faith falters and fails, beloved celebrities die, innocence is lost.

While the challenges we face in our community, country, and world are not new, our awareness of them seems to grow day by day. While this increase in information might give us plenty of causes to embrace and advocate for, in reality, it often leaves us feeling overwhelmed and disoriented. With the saints of ages past, we cry out,

“How long, O Lord?”

As followers of Jesus, we are to be concerned about the injustices in our world. Racism, violence, oppression, and the fact that so many people are underfed, underhoused, and underloved in the midst of our material abundance should blare an alarm in the ears of every believer. Instead, perhaps as a means of self-preservation, we tend to ignore, downplay, or minimize these challenges as much as possible by promoting a vision of God’s work is almost exclusively future-focused.

“This world has a sin problem” or “We’ll understand it all by and by” are true enough as far as they go, but we dare not allow such phrases become shameful excuses for overlooking the kingdom work to which we are summoned. If Jesus is truly the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8), then He came not only to heal, to save, and to liberate 2,000 years ago, but is seeking to do the same today through His people.

God has always been concerned about the troubles that trouble us.

Whether clothing Adam and Eve to cover their post-sin shame or touching the wounded and broken through the ministry of Jesus, our Father has always cared about His children who face the struggles and bear up under the strains of daily life in this fallen world.

So much is wrong in our world that we can often feel overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of obstacles we face. If we are not careful, we become increasingly cynical and frustrated by our seeming inability to make any difference. To our fellow believers who were struggling with the big picture and were tempted to give up, Paul wrote, “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Gal 6:9)

As we live in connection with one another, Jesus commands us to see with His eyes. The challenges of our world are not merely abstract projects or impersonal budget line items; each issue involves real people with real souls who need a real, living relationship with their Creator.

The grieving mother, the lonely widower, the hopeless addict, and the self-righteous preacher all stand in need of the healing found through Jesus. Jesus offers a powerful example for us in how He was able to truly see and then to serve real, struggling people in meaningful ways.

Never content to sit back debating theories with the religious elite, Jesus went to work healing, feeding, and comforting those who suffered most. We are called to do the same.

The road to healing and restoration in our world is never an easy one. Just as there is no shortcut to our own spiritual maturity, there is no fast pass to healing the pain of our world, yet we cannot allow the cynicism around us to drown out the certainty that our actions matter.

We cannot predict the harvest and we will likely not live to see its full reward, but as we journey on we must faithfully scatter seeds of hope. Others will enter into our labors just as we have entered into the works that began long before us. At times, weariness will rise, but by faith, we refuse to lose heart.

What we sow today in faithful tears will one day yield a harvest of blessing for those who walk this same path. People will eat fruit from the trees we plant. People will rest in the shade of the trees we tend.

Whenever the day’s weariness threatens to overwhelm us, may we look beyond the immediate moment, and with the eyes of faith, behold a future blessed and shaped by today’s faithfulness.

For those who pay attention, there are daily joys breaking into our lives serving to remind us that what we experience in this moment is not all there is.

Have you ever passed a restaurant and caught an aroma that reminded you of a wonderful night out with friends from decades before?

Have you ever heard a song in the background while moving through the grocery store that carried your mind back to a spontaneous college road trip?

Have you ever stepped outside in the morning into the first crispness of autumn and found yourself transported back to dawn in a deer stand beside your grandfather or a Saturday afternoon spent tailgating with friends now gone from this life?

I believe our balancing of memory and anticipation is key both to appreciating the beauty of our world and in allowing us to live in hope. As we have sweltered in this August heat over the last weeks, I have remembered those crisp fall mornings not just because they were special long ago but because I believe such mornings will soon come again. Memory allows me to reflect on the good and to appreciate that life’s most difficult seasons have not had the last word. Anticipation draws me forward with the hope that the good of my past and my present may be even more magnified in the future.

How many of our children and grandchildren love counting down the days to Christmas? Each day as we mark the date off of our calendar, the anticipation grows. While we long for the day to arrive in its fullness with the food and presents and time with family, anticipation itself becomes an added gift as we enjoy all the potential of the day in advance.

We remember past holidays, and we remember the features that made those days special. We long toward certain foods that mark the day. We look forward to the songs that are only sung in connection with the season. We make plans to see distant family and friends.

The longing toward the day is exciting, and in reality, often yields more pleasure than the actual day itself. The same is true of graduations, birthdays, weddings, and retirements. While these “big days” may be the goal, it is the longing toward them that unites us and fills us with excitement and expectation.

The good things of the past bless us because we can reflect and remember the experiences and individuals we have loved in those fleeting seasons of our lives. We will never get those moments back, but rather than being overwhelmed by regret and recrimination about what we ought to have done, we can use memory as a way of blessing and forgiving ourselves and others.

Memories are precious because they are indeed passing and rare, but they are also precious because they are the material from which we build the sacredness of our lives. The past is gone, but the goodness we can mine from memory still abides.

The positive potential of the future draws us forward. We have not yet known all the good we will know. We have not yet met all the people that we will love and who will love us. While there is life, there is possibility, where there is possibility there is hope that good may return in familiar ways and new experiences may bless our lives. For the believer, the potential of future joy is only enhanced as we near life’s end and the prospects of immortality near. The future is not something we face with fear, but with the earnest expectation that all that is good will go on and on in ways we cannot yet comprehend.

I thank God for precious memories, and I thank God for the promised potential of future good. As we live by faith, we seek to abide in God’s presence. No matter what has come before or what comes next, as we live in Him, we lean into the experience of the fullness of joy. Whenever a passing memory stirs my longing toward more and better, I believe it is the fullness of His presence breaking in upon my life and drawing me toward a deeper, fuller experience of joy in Him.

You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

(Psalm 16:11 NKJV)

I hope this post finds you in the middle of a great faith-producing, thought-provoking read. Good books are made better as we cultivate the art and skill of reading well. If you are looking for a little back-to-school reading for your own shelf, here are three of my favorites that speak to the benefits of reading more fully and more faithfully.

Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading – Eugene H. Peterson

“We enter this story, following the story-making, storytelling Jesus, and spend the rest of our lives exploring the amazing and exquisite details, the words and sentences that go into the making of the story of our creation, salvation, and life of blessing. It is a story chock full of invisibles and intricate with connections. Imagination is required.” (105)

Primarily focused on the reading of Scripture, Peterson gives us a way of seeing the Story of God as just that; the epic that originates in and from God and ultimately points us to God. For those us who have approached the Bible more as a collection of fairy tales, life coaching tips, or disconnected moralisms, this way of pulling back and comprehending the total of Scripture, as well as each book, chapter, sentence, and word as parts of a complete whole, is a welcome vantage point.

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Reading For the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice – Jessica Hooten Wilson

“…one of the great reasons to read works of the imagination is to overcome our habitual disposition toward utility.” (52)

For the believer, all of life is spiritual. When we read only to reach the right answer or to use the information gleaned for ourselves, we have set ourselves up as the idol and god of our own quest. Dr. Jessica Hooten Wilson asserts the enjoyment from reading, rather than serving as an extra-if-unnecessary byproduct to the utilitarian transfer of information, is in fact a gift by which God’s truth and our own natures are revealed. To read then is not simply to shift ideas for advantage, but to open ourselves to being shaped and formed by the best of our shared human stories.

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On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life Through Great Books – Karen Swallow Prior

“But the cultivation and expression of virtue (and vice) and the formation of conscience is not merely an individual act but also a communal one. In addition to shaping individual experience and character, great literature has a role in forming the communal conscience and public virtue. We can understand a great deal about a culture-its strengths, its weaknesses, its blind spots, and its struggles—when we examine the literature that it not only produces but reveres.” (102)

In On Reading Well, Dr. Karen Swallow Prior explores reading faithfully through the lens of the classical virtues. Wisdom is not only to read much, but to read well; that is, to read that which is truly excellent. In a world where reading itself and the concept of virtue seem besieged if not overthrown, this book is one to read through with highlighter in hand and then to dip into again and again. What can we understand about our culture by what we read and don’t read? By what discomfort we are willing to sit with and what issues we choose to ignore?

These books serve as guides for more faithful reading.
What is your favorite book on the art of reading well?

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“So how were you called into the ministry?”

Often after I teach or preach at a community event, someone will ask some version of this question.

I never know exactly how to answer.

Not because I don’t know my own story, but because the question reveals a certain understanding of calling based more on the background of the one asking than my own path into ministry. Looking back, I believe that all my life I was being prepared to be ready to step into the role of teaching and preaching in a local congregation. Although I believe I was providentially prepared since childhood to share the gospel through teaching and writing, I also recall specific people that pointed me to this path and can even recount the location, occasion, and conversation that led me to the church where I have served for the last 22 years.

My love of Jesus, His church, study, and devotion have helped equip me for this role, and yet I believe these affections would be present even if I were not in my current vocation. I fully believe that God gives every believer a measure of gifts and talents and passions to be used and redeemed for His kingdom work. I am grateful that my abilities and my passions have aligned with God’s will to place me in a place and in a position where I believe I can use them for good. I am grateful to be where I am supported and encouraged by being given the time, flexibility, and financial support needed to hone my gifts through use and growth.

While not every believer will serve in a full-time vocational livelihood within the church, all those who follow the path of Christ are called to ministry in its most fundamental sense: we are called to offer up service to God through our care and service to others.

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Perhaps a limited definition of ministry and the often hyper-specific concept of calling within many religious communities have contributed to a framework that unintentionally divides the church into two classes of disciples: a few seen as “professionals” and the vast majority as “just everyday Christians.”

Many of us were raised to be believers by believers, and our personal narratives may lack the moments of coming to ourselves in the prodigal’s pigpen or having a specific Saul-like Damascus Road-style encounter. We don’t need a dramatic testimony of our personal brokenness to equip us to minister to others; we simply need the realization that both the best moralist and the most public sinner are likewise in desperate need of gospel salvation in Christ.

In 1 Peter 2, Scripture reminds us that all believers are given roles and functions in building up the spiritual house of God. Paul notes in Romans 12, as well as in 1 Corinthians 12, that believers are to give their lives as living sacrifices through diverse ministries including preaching, giving, encouraging, leading, serving, and showing mercy.

Whether we come to Christ through a dramatic turnaround or a slower, extended movement toward embracing Christ’s will for our lives, all who come to share in Christ’s family are likewise called to use our time and talents as we serve in building and extending His kingdom.

We are told to use whatever we have for the building up of the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:12). For some, it may be advanced academic training in theology. The church needs Bible translators, apologetics experts, and Christian professors. For others, the lessons of Jesus will be applied less in the classroom and more in the streets as we engage with our neighbors through recovery ministries, informal conversations, and acts of mercy and compassion.

To reach the world and to bless the kingdom, the church needs believers who possess both a solid understanding of God’s Word and who have experienced and applied those timeless truths directly to their own lives. No single disciple and no single body of believers will be perfectly equipped to meet every ministry challenge, but together we unite to form a worshipping community that can better display the fullness of Christ to the watching world.

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We need believing farmers, school teachers, factory workers, salesmen, welders, bankers, law enforcement officers, cowboys, medical professionals, retirees, and stay-at-home parents. We need wealthy believers who respond to the call to use their financial resources for good, and we need to recognize the calling and gifts of those brothers and sisters who are among the most poor and marginalized folks in our communities. We need believers who focus on preparing and offering Christ-centered teaching, and we need believers who share in serving and seeking justice for the most vulnerable people who stand in need of the hope of Jesus and the healing relationships found within Christ’s church.

As we read in the pages of Scripture about our earliest Christian ancestors, we can appreciate that Paul and Peter, Mary and Martha, Barnabas and Stephen, Lydia and Timothy were all faithful to the Lord, but each one was faithful using his/her own particular gifts and talents. Like them, our own stories are complimentary (but never identical) as we work out our own calling through the paths of ministry God has placed before us.

No two people have the same exact skills and gifts, but we must come to see that the gospel’s call to salvation in Christ is always accompanied by the call to serve in Christ’s kingdom.

The need of the world calls us.

The nearness of our neighbors calls us.

The love of Christ compels us.

Whatever I have to offer, I am called to yield up all I have to His will.

Whatever gifts we possess, may we respond to His call by serving faithfully in this season of our lives.

When we embrace God’s will right now, right where we are, He is glorified, and our own callings are clarified and refined.

Lord, as students return to our local classrooms this week, let it be a safe and productive school year. Let this year find our schools to be places of safety and security where our students can learn free from fear and free from harm.

Let these students develop strong and lasting friendships with their classmates. Let their social skills develop and expand in ways that will help them throughout their future lives in the classroom, in the workplace, and in the community. Let our students discover share interests and build strong bonds among their peers and with mentors this year.

Let our schools be places where respect and responsibility are taught both in principle and by example. Let students, their families, teachers, administration, and staff treat each other with compassion and courtesy throughout the coming school year. Let the love and compassion that each child needs be offered up by professionals and peers alike.

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Let it be that our academic curriculum will challenge and engage our students so they can grow in scholarship and be equipped for further education and for their future careers. Help our teachers to inspire students and encourage them to greater heights.

Let each student be able to reach his/her own potential. Grant that self-improvement and self-discovery might be the primary motivations toward growth rather than external competition. Guard our students from the temptation to cut corners knowing that knowledge is gained not just from the end result but from the process of learning itself.

Let our athletic programs be blessed with safety and success throughout the school year. Allow us to have spirited rivalries even as we keep a proper perspective. Help our students, coaches, and fans to maintain good sportsmanship and to compete fairly.

Let our art, music, band, and theater programs be a blessing to our students, schools, and community. Help us to appreciate that beauty and a desire to create are gifts that come from Your own creative heart.

Let our service organizations, career clubs, and vocational programs encourage and equip students for the opportunities of daily life. Grant that the friendships forged through these commitments during these years may prove a source blessing for the rest of their lives.

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Let there be a special blessing on students starting this school year in new situations. Bless those starting school for the first time. Be with those navigating the transitions between elementary, middle, and high school. Be with the seniors who are experiencing the mixed emotions of coming adulthood and the many “lasts” of their final year of high school.

Let those of us who are adults seek to be positive influences on the young people in our lives. In our small community, we often know and engage with many students through the course of our week. Help us as parents, grandparents, fans, employers, customers, and fellow church members to have generous hearts toward the students around us.

Let us remember our own awkwardness and uncertainty, and help us to be gracious and kind to children and teens as they mature. Give us eyes to see and hearts to help when we see young people who are struggling. Allow us to see the needs and to seek to offer support and encouragement.

Let us have a tenderness toward these young people who are growing up in times of political turmoil and social unease. Let us seek to be safe ports in their emotional storms, sounding boards for their hard questions, and caring hearts when they hurt.

Let this coming school year be blessed. Whether attending homeschool, private school, or public schools, we pray that each student will grow not only wisdom but in character. Let us as adults steward our roles well and set an example of goodness for those around us. Let not only our words, but our actions and our lives, point those we influence toward You.

In the name of our Master Teacher and Compassion Friend, Jesus, we pray, amen.

I am starting to see my social media feed overflow with photos of my friends’ children and grandchildren returning to school this week, and I could not help but recall the teachers who impacted my life.

Some taught students effectively due to high doses of energy and engagement. Mrs. Reida in fifth/sixth grade social studies comes to mind immediately for me. I didn’t always appreciate the rhymes and memory devices at the time, but I have never forgotten the names of the oceans or the explorers from the Age of Discovery.

Other educators were dedicated to their particular subject and taught it with a contagious intensity. I did not especially enjoy science as a kid, but “Space Week” with Mrs. Marla was the highlight of the year at our small elementary school.

As I grew older, I came to appreciate the unique combination of qualities in a teacher who not only could provide correct information but who could inspire students to go deeper. Knowledge of the correct information is key, but sharing those facts in ways that cause students to think more fully is a hallmark of the wisest teachers.

Ms. Sandra in seventh grade made me love reading even more because she loved it passionately and transported her students into the story. I remember reading an account of the sinking of the Titanic, and how she described the cold and blackness of the ocean and asked us to consider how we would have determined who deserved the limited space in the lifeboats. Our class was no longer reviewing an abstract report of events or even reading an intense firsthand account; we were actors in a high-stakes ethical drama playing out right between PE and lunch.

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While knowledge and wisdom are at times parallel and often intertwine, the ability to apply what we know to how we live ultimately passes beyond the standardized test, “just the facts” mentality and into the realm of true wisdom.

Knowledge tells us what we have in front of us, but wisdom helps us decide how to engage faithfully with whatever we have.

Scripture reveals that true wisdom comes from God. We are reminded that if we lack wisdom, we should ask, and God will give it generously and without scorn (James 1:5).

Often in life, our daily experiences can feel like an ongoing attempt to put together an elaborate toy or assemble an intricate piece of furniture. It looks simple enough on the packaging or in the showroom, and so we race ahead and soon find ourselves lost and tangled amid the complexities of the actual project. If we keep at this task long enough, we realize (or perhaps are told by an all-too-helpful observer) that we should have read the directions first.

Spiritually, we often do the same.

Rather than seeking to know God’s will and prayerfully asking for the wisdom to live by faith each day, we rush ahead and only ask for help once the trouble hits. Such an attitude may seem like independence, but our repeated refusals to ask for help and to seek guidance only further prove our lack of godly wisdom and genuine humility. We become more and more enmeshed in life’s complications, and as we vainly struggle in our own strength, the bonds that ensnare us only tighten.

Scripture likewise teaches that wisdom comes not only directly from God but from the counsel of others who have faced the trials of life before us. A foolish person believes he is the first person to ever face his particular problem, but a wise person seeks out the advice of others (Prov 12:15).

A lot of us want to go our own way and to do things according to our own understanding. In certain areas of life such confidence can be a blessing, but we are foolish if we allow self-confidence to prevent us from seeking out the spiritual wisdom others have gained through time and experience.

Wisdom understands that learning from others shows strength rather than weakness.

A person without wisdom is a great waster of time. This individual sees the future either as too immediate to change or too far away to be concerned about. It is never the right time to make needed changes or to embrace fresh ideas.

When God’s Word tells us to walk in wisdom, one aspect of such a life is “redeeming the time” (Eph 5:15-17). One who possesses wisdom understands that time is precious and will seek to make the most of each moment. He or she will also learn from the successes and mistakes of others and be able to avoid repeating errors that are not only ineffective but waste valuable time and resources.

Knowledge can give us the facts we need to act, but wisdom tells us when action is needed and what action is best.

Knowledge can be sought, processed, and quantified while wisdom is received through prayer, discerned through conversations, gained through experience, and demonstrated through faithful actions.

I hope that you experienced teachers in your life that challenged, encouraged, and inspired you. Whether we stand in front of a classroom, sit among a group of coworkers, or share insights with family members, all of us need to grow from simple knowledge to God-centered wisdom. We need to realize that we too are teachers and our examples shape the people who we encounter and engage with each day.

May we come to appreciate how much we need not only to know the right answers, but to ask better questions and to faithfully apply godly wisdom to our lives.

When we never stop seeking to grow in wisdom, we will continue to expand our influence and impact others for good.

Whether passing through times of uncertainty and pain or enjoying seasons of joy and peace, our aim as believers should be to seek the heart of God. We do this through paying attention to our emotions, filling our minds with Scripture, serving others in need, and lifting up our hearts in prayer.

I offer this prayer in the hope that you will use/adapt its words to fit the particular challenges and celebrations you may be facing today as you seek the heart of God.

Lord, I ask to receive and acknowledge the appointed blessings You offer up to me this day.

I know You the source of every good gift, and I thank You for the generous way You pour out these blessings on me.

Help me not to grasp and grab for more, but to gratefully accept all that You freely provide.

Grant me the ability and the desire to behold the good around me and to praise You for it.

Help me to see the blessings that arrive even in the midst of life’s burdensome seasons. Allow me the awareness to appreciate grace even as it often comes disguised as hard work, disappointment, or loss. Help me to see that while some blessings are immediately appreciated, the value of others will only be fully revealed in time.

I ask for the ability to see and discern what is best and most aligned with Your will for my life.

Lord, help me see myself more truly.

Allow me the character to be honest and open with both my gifts and with my shortcomings. Help me to realize and repent when I willfully embrace paths that do not lead to closer communion with You. Strengthen me to turn from these dangerous distractions and self-focused aims.

Let me honestly appreciate my own weaknesses and thereby understand my constant need to walk faithfully with You.

I ask that my heart would continually be open to Your nearness, and from this awareness, may I seek to share hope with others.

I pray for the people I encounter each day- whether family in my home, friends in my community, or strangers on the street. For those who do not know You, I pray for them to be blessed with open eyes, open hearts, and more opportunities to be touched by the good news of Jesus.

Give me the ability to live by faith- not rooted in self-will, but in every way and more each day aligned to Your will for my life.

Help me to praise the good works going on around me regardless of who receives the credit. Allow me to be a person who looks to encourage rather than one who constantly seeks to find fault. Help me to stay caring and curious as I navigate my way through the ever-changing seasons of life.

Do not let me grow weary in doing good, but rather help me to develop the rhythms and practices I need to remain healthy and whole even as I seek to serve those who are struggling. Grant me an openness and awareness of people’s needs as I move through my day. Help me to observe and to inquire for ways to help and let me do this for people’s good and Your glory.

As I draw near to You, help me to see that a true focus on You will draw me nearer to others. As Jesus did, help me to offer up welcome and hope into the world. May You grant assurance and peace as I am more and more conformed to Your will.

May Your desires be my desires as I am drawn nearer to Your compassionate heart.

Through Christ I pray, amen.

i will never be a minimalist

at least where words are concerned

there will always be a need, a stirring hunger,

to glut myself upon these glories.

and yet morning’s silent light reveals more

than words could ever utter

as it pours out muted speech

burning down, breaking in as at the first day.

i do not know the number of my dawns remaining

or the wisdom experience may yet bring,

but i do know this- when the last great day breaks,

all my words will fail, and the light alone endure.

We build some structures in our lives understanding that they will be temporary.

Children enthusiastically build snowmen in the winter and enjoy constructing sandcastles at the beach. We may be thoughtful in putting up a tent for the night or building a duck blind for a season, but we recognize that the nature of such shelters is fleeting. Because of the limited uses and short lifespans of such projects, we invest in them differently than a home, a church building, or a historic structure.

The words we speak are far more permanent than we realize.

When it comes to building others up, we must realize the words we speak today have the potential to make a difference that will echo in eternity.

Believers should never be guilty of flippantly using cutting phrases, sharp criticisms, or demeaning language toward others. Genuine compliments and encouragement should be the mark of Christian conversation while bitterness, vulgarity, and profanity must be banished from our lips. Words have the power to hurt deeply, and their impact lingers long after the exchange is over. Harsh words can knock down the work of years in a moment, and we as believers are to be builders not bulldozers when it comes to our interactions with others.

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As Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”

In engaging with others, we must look to remove corrupt communication from our speech. While this certainly includes overt profanity and lewd language, it also includes more subtle ways our speech can be used to erode the spirits of others. Gossip, boasting, half-truths, and mocking jokes made at others’ expense are just a sampling of ways our words can hurt.

As believers, we must appreciate that people are not punchlines and that even passing comments leave a lasting impact. Even after decades, we remember how it felt being teased as a child, mocked as a teenager, or chewed out by our first boss. We cannot control the words of others, but we can recognize that the words we release into the world are not simply a temporary venting of frustration but have the potential to impact lives far beyond the moment. Rather than being thoughtless or cruel, we should seek “necessary edification” and choose to build up those around us with intentional, grace-soaked speech.

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In seeking to build others up, we should look for genuine strengths in the lives of those around us. We live in a social media, cable-news-saturated world that daily attempts to remind us of all the dangers and darkness lurking in our world. When it comes to those we are interacting with face-to-face, we can cut through the noise and notice the blessings our family, friends, and neighbors bring into our lives. In conversation, we can choose to be thankful, positive, and kind thereby building a foundation of honoring God and imitating Christ in all our relationships.

As we meditate on the positive and praiseworthy (Phil 4:8), we then move from our minds to our mouths and honor the things that draw us closer to the fullness and goodness of God.

We who experience life in Christ are blessed with His presence now and the confidence of joy in eternity, and yet sadly we can often be surly, standoffish, and suspicious. We dare not be known as cynical, critical, and crude in our interactions with others. While perfectly taming the tongue alludes in this life (James 3), we cannot allow corrupting speech to become the default pattern of our conversations.

Our words matter, and we must use them as tools to build rather than weapons to wound as we live by faith each day.

it is good perhaps that flowers are fleeting

they do not linger too long

their welcome never wears thin

their presence does not overstay.

goodness is not measured by length but depth

and for all the wrong days I have known

(and I have known more than a few in my time)

the vast goodness of the good overwhelms the wrong entire.

do not think I do not know, as you do,

that darkness is measured out in depths too

but without such shadows, the coming light

could never break and brighten before us.

amid the stillness of this drowsy heat,

in the quiet of this near-done day,

night returns not to overshadow the good

but to reveal yet again the fleeting glory of our days.

Each day, we are bombarded by revelations delving into the secret character of celebrities, the corruption in our cultural institutions, and the covert activities of our government. Whenever we see another headline, we might be tempted to ask,

“Where is God in all this? Why are people not being held to account for their actions?”

In Mark 4:22, Jesus makes a startling declaration, “For there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light.”

As we look at our own lives today, does this prophetic word straight from the mouth of Jesus comfort or frighten us?

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If you are like me, there is no shortage of situations in the world I do not understand. Despite this fact, I take comfort in knowing while I cannot always discern motives or circumstances, I am not given that responsibility. My role is not to judge or commentate or dismantle the mindsets of those around me; my God-given task is to love others and to serve in ways that both help them and honor God.

I can only discern based on what I can observe outwardly, and I must base my assessment of an individual or circumstance on limited information. I must recognize that for all the negative things that fill our newsfeeds and conversations, there are likewise countless actions of faithfulness unknown to you and me yet fully known to God.

The revelation of who we truly served is one aspect of final things that is going to surprise and shock many. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells His hearers in refusing to help others we have in reality refused to help Him, and in serving others, we have actually served Him. One aspect of this passage that is often overlooked is the fact that neither group, those who refuse nor those who help, knew that their attitudes and actions toward “the least of these” were their responses to Jesus Himself.

Jesus comes to us in the circumstances of our daily lives and in the people who cross our paths: the sick, the broken, the lonely, the hurting, the fearful, the abandoned, the addicted. We are not commanded to accomplish great, impressive feats for others, but we are called to faithfully pay attention and take action toward the opportunities placed into our trust.

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No good that we do is ever lost or ever wasted. Even when the external responses appear mixed, small, or hostile, there is value in giving our lives in submission and service. Seeds planted today in faith can yield amazing results in time whether we ever know it or not in this life. The best part of spiritual work is the part that is known within our hearts and visible only to God. Better to do small actions with good motives than pridefully seek praise and recognition for the good that we do. There will many saints unknown to history who will be rewarded for graciously offering a cup of water in the name of Christ while others who have been praised for their piety will be sent away empty.

If we can come to appreciate that no action is unseen by God or forgotten by Him, we can begin to cease striving for others’ constant approval. We can work without fanfare and without the need for acclaim knowing that what seems small and hidden now is fully seen by our good Father.

We usually think of hidden things being revealed in the sense of the classic expression, “your sins will find you out.” While it is true that judgment will reveal the darkness in us all, it will also reveal the many people who have served in quiet, humble, seemingly-forgotten ways and, sometimes without fully realizing it, were serving Jesus all along. As we live by faith, the good we sow into this world and into the people we seek to serve will find us out in due time.

As a disciple, my awareness that God sees me and knows my deepest motivations should cause me to live in such a way that each person I meet can come to see the presence of Christ in all I say and do.

With the arrival of the Fourth of July this weekend, the United States of America will celebrate 250 years as a nation. Even more than the typical patriotic displays each summer brings, this milestone birthday is being marked by vast amounts of parades, concerts, and firework shows. Interviews, conferences, and think pieces abound right now on the meaning of America and its story as we reach the semiquincentennial mark as a country.

Like all nations, the story of the United States is neither one of pure heroism nor of pure villainy. The appeals of our founding documents have always been aspirational as much as actual. The country’s Declaration proclaiming the unalienable right to liberty was primarily composed by a man who owned and exploited other human beings for profit. There should always be a tension when we tell the American story, and yet I believe we can hold a sense of gratitude and continued hope for what our founders sought to begin in Philadelphia in 1776.

Our collective group project of seeking to form a more perfect union is still very much a work-in-progress.

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The history of the church is much the same. Christianity is not an American faith; it is far older and wider than a single geographic location; but like America, the church is experienced by us in both the ideal and the actual. The church established by Christ and proclaimed by the apostles calls believers to compassionate community, and yet the church’s history and our current religious climate often fall far short of this standard.

It can be tempting to lean into the tired excuse that “nobody is perfect,” but as we consider the triumphs as well as the shortcomings of the church witnessed in our time, we do well to remember some of the foundational principles of the story God longs to tell through His church.

The church is to be a community of servant leaders.

Jesus understood how power works in a world touched by the sins of pride, arrogance, and selfishness. In His earthly life, He would be pursued, persecuted, and eventually crucified by men seeking to cling to control and power at the expense of virtue and truth. He wanted something different among His people. While the world may worship power and adore brute strength, Jesus told His earliest followers,

“You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant…”

(Mark 10:42-43 NLT)

The kingdom of Christ is not to simply adopt a sweeter, kinder approach of the world’s version of power; it is to be the community in which all serve and thereby all are made great. Unlike the power of politics that so often corrupts and seeks to expand its influence at any cost, Christ’s community stands as one in which the good are great through humility and the lowly are made strong through service.

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The church is to be a body strengthened by mutual care.

Throughout the New Testament, the inspired writers make the appeal that Christ’s church is to be a body of shared joys and sorrows. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul reminds the believers at Corinth that the church is not a place to exercise privilege but to practice a mutuality that acknowledges and respects the differing (but no less vital functions) of each part. As we consider each other as members of one body, we are able to release personal ambition and to grow in a way that is healthy and edifying to each person.

Not only in an abstract mindset, but our daily actions begin to be filtered through seeking the greater good of the whole. In Acts, Luke notes the practices of the early disciples in which goods, finances, and spiritual gifts were shared freely. As needs arose, needs were met. At times, different roles are addressed and tasks delegated (see Acts 6), but these distinctions serve to honor differing abilities rather than to diminish some tasks as unimportant.

In Christ, my blessings and my burdens are never mine alone. We bear with each other’s weaknesses and meet each other’s needs. We care how other believers are treated within the body of Christ, and we seek to be sensitive to matters of personal conscience. As Romans 14:7 succinctly states, “For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.”

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The church is to be a place where everyone is valued.

Even as the church thrives in shared community, the individual is never to be devalued. Rather than a cold “survival of the fittest” mentality, the old, the young, the weak, the poor, and the outsider all have a part in God’s kingdom. People are not loved for what they contribute or for any perceived potential, but as individuals who uniquely bear the image of God. “The least of these” do not compose a general category of the weak to jettison, but are each recognized as divine image bearers that are special beneficiaries of Christ’s mercy. Within the church, the distinctions the world uses to separate people are recast as special gifts through which believers bless one another and our greater society.

The faithful church constantly reminds itself that it is serving Christ as it serves the people who hurt most. Believers are attentive to the needs both within the church and within the larger world. They live in constant awareness of the scene from Matthew 25:

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’

(Matthew 25:34-40 NKJV)

Like our young country, the ancient church has faced conflicts within and trials from without in every generation. The story of the church is one full of beauty and also marred by brokenness. It is a story in which looking back also compels us to look forward. We would be foolish to not appreciate the lessons of our past; ones often learned only through hard trials and costly errors. In light of this reality, we must diligently guard against our love of power, our tendency toward self-focus, and our denial of the image of God in our neighbors.

As believers more fully embrace our high calling to share the love of Christ, the communities and country we call home will truly be blessed.

my best days bear witness to the moment

when the taper of morning’s candle is

swallowed with the in-breaking of dawn’s greater light

and words once shadowed flame again

revealed golden by the rising.

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i am no monk, no great lover of austere offices,

yet when the light from without and within

collides and night’s edge jars against day’s arrival,

who could deny the heart’s upward movement

toward the ancient Mystery?

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when fatigue or sorrow or bitterness pile up

strengthening the body’s temptation

to betray this early watch,

may I remember the quiet glory

witnessed here in Word and Light-

early gifts offered up once more

shaping me for all the coming day will bring.

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Father, the weather of our lives is unpredictable, but we know that You are constant and ever-sure in each season.

Like the thunderstorms of summer, we too are inconstant and frequently blown by forces that make us unsteady and unpredictable amid the challenges and trials of life.

You know our frame, our limitations, our weaknesses. Despite our best defenses, we falter, fail, and fall.

Help us to see that our efforts at self-defense always leave us short of the deliverance only experienced through surrender to You. Give us the ability to see the folly of resisting our great need for Your divine care and grace in each moment of our lives.

As we confess we can never scale upward to the perfect heights we seek, we give all the more thanks that in lovingkindness You descend to us.

In the blessings of our daily experiences, in the bold assertions of Your word, in the beautiful community of the church- You show us more of who we can be through grace.

Yet even these gifts would be nothing without the Giver.

Incarnate in Bethlehem, walking in Galilee, dying outside Jerusalem, rising in power to die no more.

In Jesus, You come among us clothed in the dust and ashes of creation.

You do not offer an absentee love, but place the fullness of Yourself in our midst.

To the vulnerable, You are a protector.

To the self-sufficient, You are a servant.

To the prideful, You are a warning.

To the broken, You are a healer.

To the burdened, You are a liberator.

To the lonely, You are a true companion.

To the hungry and thirsty, You are Daily Bread and Living Water.

To the lost, You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

In grace, You choose to place Your love upon us. From Your bounty, You extend constant sustaining blessings and the hope of everlasting salvation.

What more could You do to give Yourself to us and for us?

Help us to see this love. Help us to accept it. Help us to experience it more and more fully, and help us to live our lives in response to it. In this season when all seems awash in the power and posturing of this world, let us choose to pass forward the compassion we have received in Jesus.

Amid tense times and uncertain days, may our lives be marked by a Christ-like humility that silences the mouths of critics and opens the hearts of cynics.

Let us be neither bewitched by power nor lulled into passivity. Give us the courage to withstand the assaults of enemies and the compromises of friends. Grant us, as Your people, the ability and the desire to faithfully shine light into the darkness.

Let us not be tossed by the stormy winds that threaten from both within and without, but let us instead be anchored to a love that cannot be shaken and will not be moved now or in eternity.

In Christ’s holy name and through His storm-calming power we pray, amen.

The writer of Lamentations considers the burdens and hardships that had befallen God’s ancient people. Because of disobedience and sin, both personal and communal, the chosen people of God had been conquered and oppressed. God had blessed them with power, position, and privileges with Him so they might be a light shining into the world’s darkness, but darkness had penetrated to the very heart of the people.

God bears long with His people raising up leaders and prophets to guide them, but ultimately, the voice of the Lord is rejected again and again. At last, in justice, God withdraws His protection and allows the nation to fall into the hands of its enemies. Over time, the Babylonian Empire conquers the nation and plunders the holy city. The visible presence of God among His people is removed when the Jerusalem temple is destroyed, wealth and treasure along with the best and brightest of the next generation are taken captive to Babylon, and the promised land itself is laid waste. The Lamentations reflect on the consequences of sin and self-reliance that led the people of God to this tragic end.

From a human perspective, things could hardly get worse, yet right in the middle of the book, the author appeals to the nature of God to keep His promises.

Lamentations 3:21-24 reads:

Even though the people are deserving of the judgments being received, God will surely relent due to His great compassion. In fact, it is only because of God’s great compassion that His care for His people has endured over the many generations of unfaithfulness. Even as the faith of people wanes, God’s faithfulness is renewed. Even as the people have rejected God’s lordship, He is using the harshness of judgment to bring them back into covenant keeping with Him.

His people have been unfaithful and unjust by serving other gods and abusing their authority and blessings, and yet God will renew His attachment and mercy towards them. He will not treat them as their sins deserve, but will again, just as the sun comes up with each new day, return and extend unfailing compassion.

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In our time, I do not believe God deals with modern nation states in the same manner as He dealt with His covenant people in the pages of the Hebrew Bible, but I do believe we can see parallels from this story of how God engages with the church and believers today.

For far too long, many of us have claimed to be committed disciples of Christ even as we sought our own ways and followed our own false gods. Sometimes it has been the pursuit of power or political influence that led us away from our gospel mission. At times, the ancient fears of the other have risen up anew in manifestations of a Christianity based less on Christ’s message of compassion than on our own need for racial superiority or social dominance. In other seasons, it has been money or pleasure or a desire to be seen as relevant and desirable by the watching world that has drawn us away from our first love. We have too often sacrificed a genuine, lasting commitment to God for a moment of cultural relevance. We have not been faithful to our calling to live as lights in the world.

If we are willing to admit such errors in the past and in the present, what can we do? How can we return to the Lord in our hearts so that we can return to faithfulness in our daily lives?

Like the ancient poet, we recall the Lord’s promises.

We remember His goodness. We lean into His faithfulness.

We repent of our sins, and we admit our failure to honor His will.

We recognize and name our shortcomings and short-sightedness.

We seek to live at peace with God and, as far as it depends on us, with our neighbors next door and throughout the world.

Like the ancient prophets, we call ourselves and others to collective work of restoration and repair.

We advocate for the hurting, and we bear witness to the brokenness in our world.

We speak up prophetically against the forces of our culture seeking to apply a whitewash of faux Christian identity to cruelty, greed, and worldly ambition.

We acknowledge that we have been too silent, too complicit, and too disengaged as we have stood by as the loudest voices have drowned out the lessons we should have learned from the church’s past compromises.

We cry out for the Lord to remember and to renew His people even as we sound a warning about the dangers we see that others have yet to fully realize.

None of us have been what we ought, and yet the Lord is still faithful and of great compassion.

May we remember His mercies, and trust in them. Like voices in the wilderness, may we call the hurting and the disillusioned back to Him. May we encourage one another not lose hope in the dark. His compassions have not failed, and He will not fail to remember us.

We look for the breaking of dawn.

Eugene Peterson

Outside of pastoral circles, Peterson is most often remembered as the translator of The Message paraphrase. Growing up in the era that The Message was being released piecemeal into the world, I was told not to trust the modern language renderings and Peterson’s “reckless and sloppy” view of Scripture.

Through the years as I encountered his books and ultimately his memoir, The Pastor, I came to see him as someone with an extremely high view of Scripture and with a dedicated (if countercultural) approach to congregational ministry. His love of the beauty of Scripture and its overarching story and his love for the care of souls have impacted both my study of God’s Word and my work in the local church. Peterson led me to deeper love of God, of wonder, of the Bible, of God’s people, and my role of teaching and ministering within the context of a small, imperfect congregation.

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Rachel Held Evans

Evans is the one author on my list who is truly of my own generation. Like Peterson, she moved across lines in faith spaces and became a voice for myself and many of my peers who wrestled with loving God while feeling unheard in the traditional churches of our childhoods. Her memoir, Searching for Sunday, featuring youth rooms, church camps, SEC rivalries, and the pains of disillusion, confusion, and doubt reads like the autobiographies of thousands of thoughtful young Christians raised in the evangelical church spaces of 1980s-2000s.

When Rachel died suddenly from an allergic reaction in 2019, the loss was staggering for her family, friends, and her readers. The books, social media presence, conference work, and advocacy she gave us in a short time have continued to play a major part in changing the conversations for millennial Christians and faith seekers and in opening wide a door leading others to ask questions and to wrestle with the realities of the faith we inherited.

Wendell Berry

While writing in almost every genre, Berry offers a prophetic, poetic witness to the power of anchoring in one place over a lifetime. From his home in Port Royal, KY, Berry has rooted his poetry in the experience of generational kinship and in a life lived in faith to a place and its people. The novels and stories shaped around the lives and the passage of time among the fellowship of souls in his fictional Port William, KY may technically be written as prose but read as poetry. While Berry’s essays range over many themes, all are rooted in his passionate experience of (and commitment to) a physical place and his defense of the way of life lived there.

As Peterson praised a lifetime of vocation in the small, local church, Berry praises a lifetime of work to know and to be known in a small, local community. Berry’s ability to notice and describe so much of what many never pause to see has been a practical and aspirational guide for my own work living in rural America.

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Marilynne Robinson

While I have often struggled with Robinson’s nonfiction, Gilead changed my life and my approach to local ministry when I first read it in 2005. The Pulitzer Prize winning novel takes place within the life, times, and town of an edlerly Congregationalist pastor bridging his grandfather’s homesteading Civil War generation to the life of the child his mysterious young wife bore to him in old age. When my undergraduate English professor shared this book with me, I read it with such an intimate awe of the internal life of Reverend Ames, and I have continued to reread and ponder it over the last 20 years.

In recent years, Robinson’s Reading Genesis offered a powerful literary encounter with Scripture’s oldest and most formative stories.

Leonard Allen

In the small lending library of my childhood church, I first read Allen’s Distant Voices: Uncovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church. In exploring the untold (and at times deliberately downplayed) historical aspects of my Restorationist/ Stone-Campbell heritage, Allen’s work helped me to see that practices and principles that I and many others had taken for granted as long settled were in fact the results of choices made and circumstances encountered in the awkward coming-of-age of the church.

Allen’s work on Stone-Campbell history and his own approach of engaging current faith issues through the lens of past challenges has sharpened me as I think about my own Christian walk and seek balance in both praising and critiquing the heritage of our faith.

Who is an author that has shaped your journey of faith?

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light breaking from behind morning’s rainstorm

last day for local school, only a half day in fact

kids passing ecstatic landing in the puddles laughing

as I sit booth-bound in my too-heavy-for-the-weather blazer and sensible shoes

remembering nights now more than two decades gone.

.

we paid our small bills with small bills then [CASH ONLY ACCEPTED]

wearing the era’s college-issued uniform

faded hoodies, well-holed jeans, and cheap flip flops

debating politics and religion and art until

a closing time that never came.

.

I thought I would remember it more clearly

and perhaps I do

recalling the good, regretting the not-so-good

letting the margins of one night blur into another

lost in smells of harsh coffee, sweet syrup, and late spring life.

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astonished, I realize now I am grateful

to have lived it, lived it all- to have survived at all.

not dying young for love or poetry or faith or madness,

but living long enough to see much good come, and some good ones go,

and to be here alive in this moment ordering another waffle.

.

Reflecting on the brevity of life, James 4:14 offers this insight,

“For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”

Few of us who have lived long in this life would deny this truth.

One day we are nervous about our first day of school, and the next we are watching our own grandchildren walk across the stage at graduation. One day we are teenagers celebrating summer break blasting music with car windows down, and the next those hot new pop songs make up the oldies lineup at the local senior citizen dance.

Despite knowing life is brief, we often live unexamined lives under the impression that we will have more time.

While we cannot know the exact length of our days or the challenges they will bring, we can consider and choose the mindset we embrace as we move through our lives.

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When looking at our world, some choose to live a constantly critical life.

There is certainly much wrong in our world from destructive weather to tragic accidents, crime and violence, corruption and injustice, physical disease and spiritual darkness. All who are paying attention see these challenges and these hardships around us, but many of us seek to balance these harsh realities alongside the good that exists in our lives.

The person who embraces a critical life ends up almost wanting bad to happen so that their own cynical, bitter judgment is proven right. In this mindset, the person comes to discount anything positive that could offer hope that there is good left in our world.

To paraphrase the folk song, such a person sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest. This lens of cynicism blinds the soul to any beauty or goodness in the world.

Such cynicism is rarely formed in a single moment or even from a single negative experience, but by the accumulation of many smaller negative moments and reactions that compound over time. Without balance, the critical person is doomed to harshness and often a self-created isolation.

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While we may manage to avoid such a completely cynical outlook, many of us seek stability by leading compartmentalized lives.

In order to survive in an overwhelming world, we divide our larger lives into smaller sections and parts that, at least in theory, can be managed more easily.

We may have “work life,” “family life,” “school life,” “church life,” and so on. We come to think we can keep these areas from overlapping too much, and we approach each day with the idea of divide and conquer. We often come to realize that while this compartmentalization may be efficient for a season, it becomes an unfulfilling and highly-conflicted way to live.

We may do a lot, but nothing is done fully or well. We focus on one goal, but leave other important matters neglected. We lean into the areas we enjoy and value most while pushing off the deadlines and demands of compartments we find challenging or uncomfortable. When our self-imposed compartments inevitably come into conflict, we end up living with more and more anxiety and tension of our own making. In dividing our lives, we cannot bring our whole selves to any one aspect, our actions are hindered, and our relationships suffer.

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Rather than basing our lives in criticism or living so compartmentalized that we struggle to ever be genuine, we can intentionally choose a committed, Christ-centered life.

Both the commitment and the focus on Christ are vital to those who take this path. On the surface, a committed life of any kind may sound positive, but it is only a better option if our guiding commitments are founded in what is good, beautiful, and true.

Being Christ-centered is essential. Without Jesus as the focus, we cannot endure the trials of life. Without true relationship with Him, the life of faith often begins in a burst of excited enthusiasm only to fade without the enduring commitment that must validate such a conversion over our lifetime. Only when love for Christ is central is the life with Christ possible.

Being both committed and Christ-centered forms the lasting combination that shapes a faithful life. Life is brief, and yet the approach we take to life shapes not only our own days and outlook but also impacts the many lives that intersect our own.

When the commitment to Christ is primary, criticism recedes and can be replaced with an anchored optimism. When the commitment to Christ is primary, I no longer withdraw into different compartments with different people, but allow His presence to be at the center of each sphere of my life.

We cannot know what will befall us or how soon our own vapor will vanish, but we can commit to centering our days in the One who not only knows us fully but also values our lives far beyond our own understanding.

When I was growing up, people often knocked on our front door.

In the days before the proliferation of personal cellphones, home security cameras, and delivery tracking apps, we actually answered the door without knowing who would be on the other side.

Sometimes the visitor would be a neighborhood boy asking me to come play. As the son of a social worker in a small town, sometimes the knock would bring someone looking for my mom seeking help to understand a government form or piece of mail. Sometimes the knock would reveal a pair of Witnesses or young missionaries from the Latter-Day Saints distributing religious literature. Sometimes it would be a student selling candy bars for the high school band or a tree trimming company seeking to offer estimates for their services.

The only way to know who was knocking was to answer the door.

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During local election season a few years ago, I heard a knock and went to our door and was met by a man seeking my vote and support. As a relative newcomer to the community, I had never met him before, but we spoke briefly, and he left some follow-up information. The conversation took less than ten minutes, but I was glad he had made the effort to knock on my door.

We did not agree on every issue, but I appreciated the time he invested to go out and meet potential voters. Although I had not known him before, I took notice of his name on my ballot, and the only reason I recognized it was because he knocked on my door. We have since interacted several times at ballgames and in community meetings, and we maintain a positive relationship based on that first meeting at my front door.

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Occasionally, a package will arrive that requires a signature, and the driver will knock on the door. If neither Ann Marie or I are home, the driver will leave a sticker brightly declaring “Sorry we missed you!” with instructions on how to retrieve the package. If you can’t (or don’t) go to the door, you miss the opportunity to claim what is being delivered.

While part of the equation is being in the right place at the right time, I must also be willing to respond when I hear the knock. If I am too distracted, too busy, or simply unwilling to answer, I might protect my privacy and my time in the short term, but I also may miss a blessing intended just for me.

In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”

In this short text written to early Christians, we are told what Jesus desires. He wants an open door. While Jesus ultimately desires a relationship leading to worship, devotion, and service, He initially wants us to open up the door of our lives to Him.

The Lord of all the universe is seeking to enjoy our presence. He wants to be welcomed into our hearts, our homes, and our lives. He desires our friendship and fellowship. Once we have opened ourselves to His presence and blessing, He wants us to share in extending His invitation to others.

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• If you want to see Jesus, you have to open the door.

• If you want to be delivered from sin, you have to open the door.

• If you want the gift of salvation, you have to open the door.

• If you want to mature in your faith, you have to open the door.

• If you want to share Him with others, you have to open the door.

None of us can live the life of faith if we choose to keep our lives closed off to Jesus. He wants to be welcomed and to provide the blessings that we can only experience in His presence. Not only initial salvation through receiving Him, but all subsequent growth and deepening comes through abiding in His presence. To enjoy these blessings, we must hear His voice, acknowledge our need, and day after day, open more of our lives to Him.

He will not force us to receive Him. He will not break in without our consent. We will never enjoy the fullness of His blessings unless we freely and fully welcome Him into every aspect of our lives. As we hear His knock, may we open up and celebrate the joy of sharing all we are with Him.

no one ever told me

how much the shape of our words

translates the tenderness of home.

.

my wife says to be funny

in your second language is a gift-

“just think about the tone, the timing!”

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in this coffeeshop, the question offered up

in this land’s adopted, halting sequence

answered back in a sudden flood

of childhood’s fluency.

.

smile spreading, words flowing,

stories bubbling up and out like arriving

back from a vast distance of layered years

to find a familiar song playing on repeat

unexpected, surprising

most welcome.

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