We’re dependent people. No matter how much we resist this, defeat in varying forms always finds us. Our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs persist. They remind us of our fragile humanity.

There’s a seemingly opposing tension rising within us. In the same breath, we feel deeply needy but also incomplete. We feel an internal purpose much larger than ourselves. There’s a greatness we want to accomplish but it is never fully attainable.

There is so much more to life. The world is brimming with possibility. All around us whispers hope. If only we could be who we really want to be. What is holding us back?

We either pick apart our efforts, point to our circumstances, or shift blame towards our current culture. No matter who we deflect responsibility for this disconnect, we’re left with making sense of it on our own. We feel deeply that we are made for something greater.

As Christians, we would agree with this fact. Cognitively, we know that this leads us to deeper intimacy with Christ. But in reality, many of us find ourselves with the same secular struggle. Our neediness is a source of frustration, not joy.

Perhaps, some of us have known God for many years. At what point does our neediness not let us down? When do we start to feel this peace which many speak of but few of us truly resonate with? The sharp edges cuts us with the truth we’d rather not face: our sanctification is ongoing.

I feel this tension even now. This week has been nonstop for me. Really, many weeks have looked like this. It feels like my ink is running dry. Endless thoughts coursing through my mind. Yet, both my mind and page are blank. I’m progressively running thin.

After a nearly sleepless night, I woke up at 3am to catch an early flight to Denver. Those cheap, early flights always sound more appealing at check-out. It’s more than worth it for a long overdue trip to see my sister. It so happened that she won’t arrive in Denver until later in the afternoon, leaving the whole day to myself. This turned out to be a hidden gift for me. A whole day, with no plans.

I took a glorious 20-minute walk to a nearby coffee shop to catch up on some writing. This time in Denver is absolutely delicious. A gentle breeze meets the soft glow of the sun. The sweet fragrance of blooms linger in the air. It’s my idea of a perfect, Spring day.

I settled into my writing corner at the cafe. One latte and green tea later, I could feel my fatigue advancing. It was time to take my own advice and head back for a nap. On the way back, I let my mind wander.

What does it mean to put our beliefs into practice? We all feel this frustration of living in holy bodies in a broken world. We see the pieces of ‘what could be,’ shattered by our side. As Christians, we ought to see Christ’s beauty in this. That’s the point, right?

Pondering this conundrum while fast-walking toward home, I noticed an elderly couple crossing the street ahead of me. I reduced my pace in anticipation of them walking towards me. To my relief, they continued in a different direction. Wait. Why did I feel at ease knowing I would avoid a short, human interaction? It probably only would have consisted of a quick smile and “hello!”

Something in me clicked. And the truth was immediately humbling. God was interrupting me with His answer.

If I believe that achieving this greatness is all up to me, then my life will consist of endless check-points. I’ll only be as valuable as my accomplishments. Which means, my focus is on completing something. I must do this and finish that. Here is where my faulty theology finally reveals itself.

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This changes everything. Finding purpose then is less about finishing something and more about enjoying Him in the process.

God designed each of us to uniquely reflect Him. He gifts us differently so that we might know Him differently. One day, He will perfect what He’s started in us. Our work in Heaven will look nothing like our work here on earth. Now, we labor tirelessly. We feel fatigue and burnout. This is because sin and death prohibits us from fully exercising what we are made for.

Isaiah 65 describes it like this, “My chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain” (22b-22a). Our work will be a delight because we will be doing exactly what we were designed for, completely unhindered by sin and death.

Our Heavenly bodies will find satisfaction in our Heavenly duties. We don’t wait for this perfection, we’re meant to refine and sharpen them now. Just as the parable of the talents, what we do on earth will have eternal dividends.

The desire to find deeper meaning and more to life is met with the assurance that we will fully accomplish them. He promises to complete the good work He has started in us (Philippians 1:6).

We don’t need to prove our value but rather find it in the One we were made for. The act of finding it in Him is what it means to enjoy Him. This is what we’re made for. This is the longing we feel everyday. We’re longing for more, because we’re designed to be fully in communion with God. We’re longing for Him.

Since He created us so different, we get to see different aspects of His character all around us. We see Him through others and His creation.

There is freedom when we believe what God says about Himself– holy and righteous. But also what He says about His children–holy, as He is. The calling we feel inside our soul is purposeful.

When our ink runs dry and fatigue sets in, might we see what we’re working towards? Can we catch glimpses of His goodness along the way? Perhaps, this is where we find this mysterious peace we keep hearing about.

The Spring air breathes new life into our redemptive bodies, now named with Love instead of shame. So we see that our response to God’s grace reveals how we feel about Him and ourselves.

The night of the Last Supper reveals two different responses to grace from Peter and Judas. Both followed Jesus faithfully; both appeared to love Him; and both betrayed Him that night.

As the night unfolds, one repents and the other recoils. Two egregious actions with contrasting outcomes.

Peter was one of Jesus’ closest friends, and it didn’t preclude him from being capable of disowning Him when Jesus needed him the most. Judas’ dedication to Jesus masked his avoidant heart towards Him.

Despite this, Jesus’ love for them never waned–no matter how unfaithful they were to Him.

Through their stories we understand that our outward devotion to God can mask our internal posture towards Him. What might we learn from Peter and Judas’ view of Jesus that night?

Peter’s passion for Christ

It’s been long observed that Peter was a man full of passion, never doing anything half-way. He adamantly professed his loyalty to Jesus that night.

Matthew 26:33 recounts him saying, “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away.” A few verses down, we see his fervor sizzled and replaced with an equally vibrant rejection of Christ. Verse 74 describes it, “Then he began to curse and swear, “I do not know the man!”

The consequences of knowing Jesus were too great for Peter. Suddenly, every miracle and display of Jesus’ power dissipated from his mind. Fear entered instead. How quickly his heart turned against Jesus. And how quickly we see that ours run cold as well.

Perhaps some of us have been walking with Jesus for some time. The longevity of our history with Him can elude us into believing we’ve earned a certain status. And with this, an immunity to types and depths of sin. Though we know that God has ultimate control over our life, when our circumstances feel uncertain, our trust is tested.

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Peter’s faith in Jesus was tried before this. On another dark night, he was tossed in the sea on a boat. Matthew 14:29-32 captures the event when he walked out on the violent waters towards Jesus in a dramatic act of faith. As soon as his eyes ventured from Jesus’, Peter slipped into the sea.

When our eyes turn from Jesus, the chaos of this world can overwhelm us. We want to run, or grasp for control. As Peter, our passion for Christ is easily swayed.

This is what brought Peter to a repentant posture in Matthew 26:75. He was grieved by his sin, but never swallowed by it. His attention was not on his own fickle heart, but on Christ.

Although we continually fail, God waits patiently for us to come back to Him. It’s His love which invites us back in, not our good behavior. The moment we rely on our own performance, shame will consume us, as it did for Judas.

Judas’ faithfulness to Christ

The disciples were shocked to hear that one of them would betray Jesus. No one noticed an obviously disingenuous person in the room. Judas appeared as devout as any of them. Long before he accepted gold coins for Jesus’ capture, Judas was inwardly distant towards Him.

The gospel of Mark recounts the story of the woman who anointed Jesus with costly perfume before the Last Supper. Judas’ true view of Jesus was perhaps the most visible during this event. He could not see the value in the woman’s sacrifice towards Jesus because of his own distorted view of Him.

Judas wasn’t likely an evil person. He probably carried many genuinely good qualities. Regardless of his good intentions, his service to Jesus’ ministry was contractual. He was willing to follow Jesus so long as He became the king he desired and received the benefits which he felt deserving of. Perhaps it was his love of money or desire for a position of power which Judas was ultimately seeking. In any case, he wasn’t drawn to Jesus so much as what he could get out of Him.

Jesus didn’t come on earth to rule over others but to serve them. Judas didn’t understand this. It didn’t fit in with his idea of who God should be. He wasn’t loving Jesus, but an idealized version of Him.

When his betrayal came to light, all that was left was a man shriveled up by the guilt of his sin. His identity was swallowed by his failures instead of grace.

Judas didn’t know Jesus’ heart to be gracious and long-lasting, but rigid and conditional. As his own love for Him. The weight of shame was too heavy for Judas to carry on his own. He couldn’t see God’s heart because he didn’t know it.

As Judas, we can idolize being a Christian rather than worshipping Christ. We don’t look to God to know Him more but to forage His good gifts. Worshipping a fictitious version of God, we feel a fictitious love from Him. We miss out on the true character of His heart and how He views us.

Christ’s love towards both Peter and Judas

Jesus knew that Peter and Judas would betray Him. He was not only disowned by them, but also by His Father. Jesus would go on to endure the greatest sacrifice ever known, or ever will be known to man. He felt God’s abandonment so that we never have to. Despite this, He washes their feet.

Jesus’ love to His disciples never shrunk back when their faith did. Their devotion was not the prerequisite to His faithfulness. Jesus embodied God’s heart when He fulfilled His covenantal love towards humanity.

On the cross, God didn’t see Jesus’ perfection. He saw our sin. Not only did Jesus carry the weight of our sin, but also our shame. While sin still marks our heart, God sees holiness. He sees Jesus. Why would God do this? He so desires that we might enjoy the gifts of communion with Him, that He made a way for us to be with Him.

Our sin is no less disgraceful no matter how hard we achieve to be worthy of His love. We can never be the perfection His holiness requires to be in fellowship with Him. And we don’t have to be. Jesus already took on our burden. Our debt is covered.

The depth of a love like this is difficult to contemplate. God’s love feels as precious as our sin feels ghastly to us. As Judas, His grace won’t compel us if we’re serving a god we’ve manufactured. We’ll be endlessly chasing our idea of perfection.

May this Easter season remind us of the incomprehensible beauty of God’s grace. Let us be as Peter, confidently depending on His steadfast love despite our continual deficiencies.

Because of Jesus, our failures will never make us less worthy of His love.

We can never outrun it.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

A regular occurrence for me is to question the common takeaways we find from verses such as this one. Yes, we ought to hunger and thirst for God. But what does this really mean and how is it meant to change us?

Hunger and thirst signifies a bodily necessity, something we cannot live without. If we go all day without food or water, our body signals us in not so quiet ways. I am very attuned to my bodily needs. It doesn’t take long for me to enter the category of “hangry.” This fact is easily confirmed with my husband and anyone who knows me well enough. I’m frequently humbled with how incredibly needy I am, both physically and spiritually.

As often as I feel the need for food and drink, there’s another internal desire every human has for righteousness. Of course, in our modern day, we call this searching for goodness or morality. The Greek word used in this text for righteousness is dikaiosuné, which refers to justice or being aligned with divine approval.

Every one of us, whether spiritual or not, wants to be in good moral standing. People frequently say they want to be on the right side of history. No one wants to get it wrong. In addition to this, we want to be assured that we’ve discovered the “right good” by the people or systems we value the most.

As a Christian, this is the easiest test question. Desiring God’s goodness based on His standards is our default answer. While this may be true for what we believe, is this reflected in how we live practically? Is His goodness a nice-to-have, achieve if we can–or an actual life necessity? The text implies it ought to be no different than our daily sustenance.

We may feel troubled by feeling God’s absence, unable to feel His love clearly or hear His voice plainly. But the very act of sensing the lack of His presence is in itself a sign of faith. Although we often feel as though it reveals a shortfall of it. Our desperate pounding at His door is the vitality of our Christian walk.

This search is exhausting. It continually reminds us that we don’t worship a God who is at our beck and call. Our trust is tested when we cannot see what He’s planning to do, or how and when He will answer us. The reality of His grandeur rubs against our own desire to be in command. It’s incredibly humbling.

For some of us, we stop knocking at His door. We attempt another one instead. Suddenly, our jobs, family, and goals become our greatest good. Or even, appearing spiritual. God no longer is our necessary good, but an accessory to our own goodness.

One by one, each god eventually abandons or betrays us. Alone, again. Discouraged, again. We begin to believe that it is He who has failed us and not our manufactured gods.

Though we may live outwardly or inwardly in opposition to God, it does not change His sovereignty. His authority is not determined by our understanding of it.

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Why must God enforce His goodness on us anyway? It can feel cruel and unfair. To understand this, we must go back to His original design for us. Ephesians 1:4-6 articulates this:

“..just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”

He created us to be holy, for His righteousness. When we attempt another moral goodness apart from Him, it won’t live up to what we expect it to do for us. More than this, He adopts us into His family so that we might give Him glory. Ephesians describe this as a “kind intention of His will.” Why? Because His glory is what our hearts were designed for. We find our meaning when He is most glorified.

Of course, this meaning is fraught with our own sinful state. Our human will wants to choose our own way and find our own good. We want glory for ourselves. But we won’t find it apart from Him. Shame and pain come instead.

As we hunger and thirst, our necessity for God regularly points us to our own desperate state apart from Him. It enables us to see the reality of how little command we have over our life. Similarly, if we’re designed to commune with God, then remaining close to Him is how we will thrive. Considering these things, perhaps this constant knocking at His door is not a burden but a gift. We’re kept from what might superficially fill us.

There’s a beautiful reality to find when we dig further. This continual neediness won’t be satisfied in Heaven. That sounds negative, but let me show how it’s actually quite incredible. When sin longer veils our view of God, this hunger and thirst will be glorious. We’ll experience God’s love completely unobstructed. Our flesh and the toil of death will be forgotten. Only God’s vast beauty will be before us, communing with the saints.

My husband and I traveled to Louisiana for a weekend trip a few weeks ago. The beauty of the moss-filled trees and delicious cajun food paired perfectly with my unrestricted time with Sunny. It was lovely, I didn’t want Sunday to arrive. We all have times like this that we never want to end. But Monday inevitably rolls in and moments turn into memories. These restrictions won’t reach us in Heaven.

Saint Francisville, Louisiana (February 2026)

God’s holiness and righteousness will be so indescribably dazzling. And that’s not all. We’ll never grow tired of it. We’ll never be full of His love and goodness. Our hunger and thirst remain, so that we never find the end of His unquenchable love.

For now, our neediness feels tiring. But one, glorious day, this will be our greatest joy to endlessly discover.

Relationships become more like arenas to display our good character. They are less about God and more about us. Meanwhile, people blur into the background. God’s design for community is then blemished.

I’ve met many faces in my lifetime. Some relationships linger for a moment, while others weave in and out depending on the season. Then there are those who remain for decade. They leave a lasting mark on my story.

Every person creates a one of a kind footprint in the world. While we share many commonalities with one another, each life is distinct. Our culture, environment, and history formulate who we are.

When two lives collide, a unique connection occurs. Shared memories, inside jokes, and a created vernacular is born between them. All specialized to this particular friendship. Life is enriched through these bonds.

Relationships matter. If they didn’t, Jesus wouldn’t have spent so much of His life building them. His ministry didn’t expand more than 3 years. Yet, He made great lengths to strengthen roots with many. Regardless of the length of each relationship, eternal impacts were made.

When we’re focused on how we look towards others, we tend to diminish relationships. They can become transactional. We see them as what they might provide us. The stranger we casually chat with while waiting in line at the store becomes irrelevant to us. How we engage with others depends on the value we feel they have in our lives. This isn’t at all how Christ interacted with people. So then, it’s not at all Christlike.

We’ve quite missed the point.

How we relate to others correlates to how we relate to Christ. We enjoy Him as much as we feel we need Him. Otherwise, we’ll mimic His traits while missing the grandeur of His character.

Our lives are not our own because we house the Spirit of God. We are with Christ. This creates a different view of our day-to-day life. God calls us to be stewards of the body and life He’s given us, but also of His Holy Spirit. Instead of listening to the commands of performance, we’re called to attune our ears to His whispers.

As Christians, the Holy Spirit resides in each of us. He breathes life through our bodies so that not only do we get to experience God, but others get to as well. We tell His story through our lives in different ways. People feel the spiritual tug on their hearts through the Holy Spirit inside of us. It’s both a beautiful truth and sacred responsibility.

We often attempt to be Christlike without first experiencing Him ourselves. And I don’t mean the butterfly, spiritual highs. Rather, the slow and steady abiding in Him which anchors our life. What we ought to be consumed by is our own pursuit of God. Our concern shouldn’t be on how we’re Christ to others, that is the natural response to following Him.

The Holy Spirit allows us to sit still. He opens our eyes to God’s presence which has always been there. He gives us the power to respond to God’s love. To worship Him. When we get to know Him, we become like Him.

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Moses directly interacted with God. When he did, his face glowed so intensely that his face had to be covered. Similarly, the Holy Spirit shines within us so that we are unmistakably marked by Him. As we gaze on His beauty, it naturally reflects back on us and onto others.

God breathes life into our soul, flourishing through our dead bones. Our soul’s restless hearts find stillness at last. Slowing to His beat, we finally find the rhythm we’ve been searching for.

His steadiness moves us towards Him

Our pulse rests to His quiet cadence

Fears subside as joy effortlessly takes its place

With softened hearts and emboldened confidence, Christ emulates through us.

We don’t become like Him by trying to, we become like Him by knowing Him through the inevitable work of the Holy Spirit.

As we lean into Him, we’ll need others’ approval less and His approval more. Relationships will have room to breathe and give space for the Holy Spirit to move. No people-pleasing, just mutual Christ-gazing.

The air feels new and the year fresh. Spring is already upon us, and now a new chapter in this home. There is so much life to be had. God promises to give us good things, and He’s fulfilling them even now.

Whether we’re weathering the cold winters of life’s bitter side or enjoying the fruitful harvest of glorious days, one thing will always remain the same: God’s presence won’t leave us. He is constant and steady.

Right now, life feels a bit chaotic. I’m a few days into the house settling-in process, and it’s already overwhelming. To be honest, it’s been difficult to fully enjoy this time because all I see are projects strewn around me. So many things aren’t in their place yet.

The world doesn’t stop when you move. It keeps up the momentum, never skipping a beat. Not only is my normal routine interrupted, everything takes ten times longer.

One day, things will be put together and I’ll return to my normal rhythm. But that is not today.

I don’t enjoy unfinished projects. Laundry has always been the death of me because no matter how caught up I get, it’s never really completed. As you can already imagine, a house full of disarray has taken a toll on me.

Anxiety? We’re well acquainted.

This process has exposed a part of me I didn’t realize had so much command in my life: the desire for completion. It’s not a bad desire. In fact, it’s holy. God plants in us a longing that goes beyond what any created pleasure could satiate. As Christians, we’re given an eternal purpose in a temporary body. We naturally yearn to fully exercise what we were created for.

Which is what exactly? Simply put: to be whole in Christ. He designed us to thrive in His love and to find our full satisfaction through Him. We are meant to know and therefore love God.

Our enjoyment and discovery of Him will be untethered when sin is fully severed. While Christ’s blood justified our salvation, our sanctification from the entanglement of sin is still ongoing. This is only possible through the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. Through Him, we feel loved by God and are strengthened to deny sin’s pull.

Let me clarify, we aren’t on a journey to “get better” and finally one day reach peak holiness. No, this isn’t our work but God’s work in us. And He’s only getting started. On this side of Heaven, we’re a continual work in progress. Our sanctification is incomplete.

The truth is, performance is something I struggle with. I want to know that “I got it right” and that I’m not failing. This tendency was ingrained in me as a child. I was always known as the “bad kid,” the one who disobeyed. As a true youngest child, I didn’t enjoy constraints. I longed for independence. Stubborn and strong-willed, I pushed the limits to get it.

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Everyone has a story which characterizes who they are today. This narrative directly shaped me as an adult. I wanted to shake the stigma which cling on my back, not wanting to be known as the one who always got it wrong. As a result, a new sense of control arose–an tireless search to feel and appear “good” enough.

This identity crisis certainly framed the way I saw God. It opened the way for me to walk away from Him entirely for several years. Although I’ve returned to Him, my bent desires remain the same. Many times, my pursuit of goodness has nothing to do with God. This leaves me carrying the heavy thought of, “I haven’t arrived.”

What I’ve been slowly teasing back is that I won’t ever “arrive” at any version of perfection I’m searching for. Perhaps my frazzled mental state over our new home accurately exposes my tendency towards this idolatry.

My longing for independence, wholeness, and perfection aren’t evil. They are signaling me upwards–towards a deeper, more intimate reliance on God. They remind me that He’s designed me with an eternal purpose.

Even when we’re in Heaven we’ll never find the end of His glories. Although we’ll live on eternally, our beginning had a time and space. Whereas, God does not. He’s always been and always will be.

We get to look forward to endlessly exploring His goodness. Free of distractions, we’ll experience His love fully. We’ll worship Him fully.

Why is this important? Because right now, we aren’t there. Heaven isn’t meant to be something that distracts us from our time on earth but rather enriches it. God’s continual work in our lives will prove time and again of His faithfulness.

“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” — Philippians 1:6

Our life will often feel insecure. We’ll feel the pain of living as an unfinished work. We are incomplete but not stagnant. God doesn’t leave us to go on our merry way to figure it out on our own. He is with us through every breath and will finish what He’s started in us.

My life may be a bit scrambled at the moment. But I wonder what might happen if I embrace each day, finding beauty in the slow building of our home. If I look for the ways God is present with me throughout this, I am confident I will spot Him.

Same tendencies and struggles, just different flavors. And we both loved Jesus. Our lives took similar turns—just 44 years apart.

We shared laughs and cries together as we held hands to pray. Before we knew it, two hours had passed. Just like that, we knew we’d found something unique in each other.

My friend and I don’t attend the same church or stay in the same state anymore. But we’re bonded by something deeper—our love for Christ. The church feels larger now. Every time we hop on our regular FaceTimes and calls, the Holy Spirit is so visible in our shared joys and struggles.

All it took was a simple question, “Do you need anything?”

Who knew a few forks and plates could strike up an eternal friendship.

Finally getting a picture a week before our move back to Texas. October 2025

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The Bible describes God as near to us—comforting and supplying our needs. Sometimes, God fulfills these promises to us through His people.

As Christians, we are the body—His hands and feet. We are the church.

Our relationship with God isn’t meant to be enjoyed alone, but shared with others.

My new friend’s generosity is reminiscent of how the first church was described, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need” (Acts 2:44-45 NIV). This is how we Christians ought to operate, forming godly community not only within the church but embedding it into our everyday lives.

We’re in a position to build connections with those around us more than we think. Our neighbors, friends, family, the people we pass by at the grocery, our mail carrier—all people we’re in close proximity to. This is no accident. God gives each of us a unique opportunity to love those around us.

Family wasn’t an exclusively blood-related word for Jesus. When the crowds announced His mother was waiting for Him, He made a staggering statement.

“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3:33-35 NIV).

When we isolate ourselves from His people, we can begin to feel distant from God. As we share our world with others, we see Him more clearly.

The communion between Christ and His Bride is sacred. We are not scattered pieces of the church, but one whole body.

When we look outside of ourselves, our world expands. People aren’t distractions from God but avenues to deepen our enjoyment of Him.

This call isn’t meant to burden us with more expectations, but to help us see how God may be orchestrating our lives together.

Opening our lives to others can feel scary and deeply vulnerable. But if we do, something beautiful happens. We see the messy, awkward, and redeeming gifts which come from living in genuine, Christian fellowship.

How can we be the hands and feet of Jesus if we’re too busy to notice the people around us right now?

God’s presence is felt through the nearness of His church. We experience Him more fully and invite others to share in this intimacy.

It only takes a moment.

Growing up, I heard of one atheist sharing their view on Christians. One line always stood out to me, “If you believe in God, wouldn’t you crawl over broken glass to tell me about Him?” It’s a sobering thought. Generally, the takeaway would be to share the gospel as much as possible. While this isn’t wrong, I wonder if we’re missing out on a more costly command from God: to not only share the gospel but live it out.

To be patient with our friend when they make us late for the 200th time.

To forgive our daughter who spilled water over our computer.

To overlook an offense from our spouse.

To choose kindness over bitterness.

It’s in the small, mundane moments that the gospel shines brightest. While our day-to-day life feels very similar to our neighbors, there’s an undercurrent of sustainable joy which is unmistakable. We exude Christ’s love when He first changes our own heart.

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Our worth is not found in what we do, but in who we represent–because of that, it never diminishes. We cannot outrun His mercies or outgrow His forgiveness. Even through our darkest days, we never have to walk them alone. Our future is secure.

God desires that we enjoy Him fully in eternity, but also to enjoy Him in our present. One way we can delight in Him is by engaging with His people. Our love for Him deepens as we experience Him together. This ought to change everything for us. But perhaps it doesn’t. How can we show others how life-changing the gospel is if our own lives remain unchanged?

We can articulate the gospel in the cleanest theological argument, but if our words are unmarked by grace they fall flat. It’s not to say that God cannot use them–He can.

This isn’t meant to discourage us when we fail to exemplify Christ in our lives. Certainly even in our weaknesses we are living proof that Christ loves us for no other reason than His desire for us. Although we ignore Him time and again, He remains faithful. And through our repentance we see His gospel most clearly.

It’s tempting to aim for a “crawling on glass” moment. But the quiet price we pay is in our daily pursuit of Jesus. It’s found in the humble moments no one notices and the faithful prayers that go unheard.

Sitting down in my local coffee shop, I was unexpectedly echoed decades back. Emotions rose to the surface within seconds. Where was this coming from? And why?

Not all feelings are meant to be lived in. Memories can trap us inside moments we wish we could forget, imprisoning us in our failures. But this isn’t how God intended us to live. When we circle endlessly around the what ifs and if onlys, we overlook His sovereignty in our mistakes.

The Bible is full of stories from long ago–some are not so good. There are many colossal disasters recorded in Biblical history, moments which appear hopelessly bleak. Yet, no matter how determined someone is to disrupt God’s purposes, He weaves even their failures into accomplishing His will.

God doesn’t erase evil; He redeems it. When Jesus was resurrected, His scars were not removed but perfected. When we believe that God holds even the most vile stories, memory begins to lose its sting.

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Why we remember

There are times when a previous memory holds a present ache. It weighs on us, telling an unresolved story. Although it’s in the past, it shapes our present and forms our future. God doesn’t dismiss the worries we carry. He joins us as we process our grief. When we invite Him into our memories, we’re reminded of His unchanging character throughout history. He was faithful then, which gives us good reason to trust He will be faithful now.

In Psalm 55, David recounts a betrayal from a close friend. They were closer than brothers, which made the wound cut all the deeper.

“For it is not an enemy who reproaches me, then I could bear it; nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me, then I could hide myself from him. But it is you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend; we who had sweet fellowship together, walked in the house of God in the throng.”

(verses 12-15 in NASB1995 version)

David doesn’t avoid the pain as he recalls the once beautiful but now marred moments. He enters the pain honestly before God. Later he writes, “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken” (verse 22). David doesn’t attempt to fix the burden himself. He places it into the hands of the only One who can truly hold it. Rather than allowing regret to loop inside him, his memories lead him to worship.

The kind of unshakable faith David describes is only possible if we release our self-assigned pressure to control the outcomes of our past or future. It’s difficult to not know the end of the story or understand how our story fits inside of it. This is the hardest part. Our life makes up a small piece in His much larger collection.

Leaving our burdens to Jesus looks like a stumbling prayer amid tears and frustration. It looks like allowing our whole soul to unfold in front of Him. It’s found in our untidy and unscripted prayers. Our memories can invite us to feel God’s presence while remembering His faithfulness while walking through the unknown.

On one side, voices impress scriptures like 1 Timothy 6:12, “fight the good fight,” along with 1 Corinthians 9:24, “to run the race to the end.” The tone of these voices lend towards urgency and highlights our limited time on earth. We’re meant to focus on eternal moments rather than fleeting pleasures which would distract us.

The answer? Turn away from things that would deflect us from God and instead pursue spiritual disciplines. The temptation? To steam-roll through performance-centered religiosity while missing God in the process.

While the other side sites texts like Psalm 46:10 to “cease striving,” and Psalm 62:5 to “find rest in God.” The answer here seems to be to do less things. It pushes us away from spinning our striving wheels and instead to look to Christ instead. This approach comes from an eternal perspective as well, but focuses on God’s sovereignty instead.

The answer? Resist control over our circumstances and trust God with the results. The temptation? Bury our heads in the sand and wait for Jesus to come back.

So then, are we running or resting? Agh. This is where it starts to feel all meddled.

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It’s not either/or. Neither of these messages are wrong, rather we’ve twisted their meanings. Those scriptures aren’t turning us towards performance-based faith but they’re also not leading us to a passive one either. In doing so, it becomes difficult to understand how they are meant to form together.

How do we run the race while also resting in Christ? Of course, the Bible study answer is that it’s all about our heart motives. But, tangibly, realistically, on the day-to-day, how does this play out in our lives?

Let’s pull back the layers on where some of these ideologies have led us into treacherous directions instead of deeper communion with Christ as it was intended.

The lie behind apathy

We cannot avoid the toll life puts on our backs. It sits heavy and often intensifies when we least expect it. In response to this weight, we can breed an attitude of giving up in the name of giving it to God. I’ve seen this a lot growing up in the Bible belt of the church. We herald phrases like, “God can handle it from here” as an excuse to settle comfortably into our seats and turn a blind eye to where God might actually be calling us.

Yes, we must relinquish our struggles to God. But we often relieve ourselves from any responsibilities as we raise our hands in defeat. He doesn’t mean for us to pretend there is no loss as He covers our eyes from the reality of the brokenness around us. It means He guides us through so that we might boldly walk through the fire and not fear the burns because He is with us. When we choose to look away and avoid what is happening, it can feel like we’re letting Him “carry the weight for us.” But this isn’t humility, it’s denial.

There are verses which speak to God sustaining us with physical rest (i.e., Psalm 3:5, Psalm 127:2, Mark 6:31). But we often conflate these with resting in Him, which refers to a trusting or waiting posture.

Waiting on God is active. We’re alert, our eyes rested on Him. We’re waiting for Him to direct our steps. And many times He asks us to step out of our comfort zone. God calls us to move into the discomfort, because He moves with us. We can walk confidently with Him because we know that He holds the ending. He is sovereign.

We reject His comfort when we reject the reality of our loss. He can handle the weight of our pain, but we must actually experience it for Him to hold it. So we can open our eyes, unclench our fist and hold His hand as we step into our adversities.

The lie behind performance

Another response to the constant demands of life is to smoother it with a never-ending wack-a-mole of accomplishments. We start performing to prove our worth instead of responding to a Love we’re delighting in.

We can fall for the lie which tells us that if we are in control of what disciplines we implement into our life, that we will gain control over how life affects us. The truth is, we’ll always be on this rollercoaster of life, switching between laughter and weeping, the mundane and the excitement. There will always be cruelty and injustice visible around us. We long for not only peace amidst this, but peace which we can control. And we often find this through drowning ourselves in spiritual practices while missing the point of them.

When we are focused on our performance, we approach God with an agenda. Our time spent with Him will be led by receiving a certain amount of feelings or completing a certain amount of steps.

We read our three chapters: check.

We felt moved by a verse: check.

When we read our Bibles, we’re searching for a personal takeaway or word from God to us specifically.

We wait to feel something and if we don’t, we may assign meaning where there isn’t. The Bible then is a tool we use to experience feelings and to find our identity. But then, we’ve made godliness our identity and therefore an idolatry.

But this is all really self-serving, isn’t it? Our time with God ends up being what we get out of it. To a certain extent, that is what it’s for. Our need for Him is what draws us in. But we don’t need Him for the growth check marks we can receive out of Him, rather our need compels us to know more of Him.

When we get spiritual tunnel-vision, we’re blinded to what we’re doing and who we’re doing it for. The truth is that our spiritual disciplines are important, and shouldn’t be done away with. But if we aren’t assessing the “why” behind our actions, we may be doing it for ourselves or others.

That doesn’t mean we have to get rid of our check-lists or reading plans. Those are great tools for some of us to keep centered and keep ourselves accountable.

When we do something for God only for His eyes, things are different. We don’t care so much about how it’s received, what it accomplishes or who it makes us in the process.

What does all this mean practically? We don’t have to work for God’s affection, we already have His attention. We aren’t halfway loved by God when we halfway love Him, we’re fully loved by Him no matter how we treat Him. God doesn’t ration His love to us.

One of the most beautiful parts of knowing Him is that no matter how many mornings we wake up, feeling a failure, God is waiting for us to come to Him.

Our failures included. He doesn’t love us less for them.

Whether we’re getting lost in the car, or we’re trying to remember something, we often intentionally slow down in order to be aware of what we’re doing.

Today, most of western society faces the constant struggle of endless expectations coming from almost every angle in our lives. Both the secular and church crowd are not immune to this ailment. The Christian church simply masks our addiction to productivity in a spiritual flavor. At our core, we feel as exhausted and overstimulated as our non-religious neighbor.

In an answer to this growing epidemic, much of the Christian church encourages us to slow down and choose to abide in God instead. This is refreshingly good news.

We don’t pursue God in our natural state. We’re drawn towards things that make us feel good, important, and useful. When we don’t see how God values us, we find value in our work and what we do. It sends us on a wild goose chase which we’ll never find the conclusion to. We’ll keep searching for newer, bigger, more important titles and life ventures. It will be difficult to find fulfillment in what God has gives us in the present because we may feel it’s too boring. It may not come with fancy titles, or doesn’t feel world-changing enough.

It’s tempting to make up our own path instead. If we stop looking to God for our direction, we’ll be pulled in a million other ones. While we may be pursuing spiritual disciplines or good and healthy passions, when God isn’t who we’re running towards we get lost in the noise.

The productivity lie we buy into sells us the idea that we find our worth by what we do or who we become when doing it. This hides itself inside our spiritual invocations as well, being a parent, a pastor, or spiritual leader. We can become so entrenched in those labels that we forget our true identity in Christ.

When we keep our schedules full, we feel a semblance of control. And we begin to imagine ourselves to be a god of our own. The problem is, we weren’t meant to be gods, rather reflections of the One true God. So when we try to juggle a million balls at once, they all inevitably fall.

Purpose of sabbath

God knows our natural tendencies. Which is why He created us to depend on Him and not our own strength. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes our need for Him. Even Jesus, in His humanity, took breaks. He lived in a limited body just as we do.

When we abide in Christ, our role is active. Not in an anxious-driven way, where we’re enslaved to our accomplishments. Back to my car analogy, when we give ourselves the space to quiet our distractions, we can ensure that our car is heading in the right direction. The purpose of rest is to give us time to gather our focus. It’s a purposeful margin to keep us in check. Who are we doing this for? What direction are we moving towards?

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Abiding in Him, then, doesn’t mean we’re asleep at the wheel. It means we do less of what pulls us away from God so that we can do more of what moves us towards Him. We resist chronic productivity so that we can engage in proactive rest. We’re not slowing down to stop, we’re slowing down to pay attention. The pause button allows us to sharpen our focus on what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

We can’t merely look away from other things that distract us from Christ, we must turn our heads towards Him in exchange. Otherwise, we’ll find a new way to deflect Him.

Maybe this means actually setting aside a day and implementing the sabbath to restfully worship. Or perhaps this is a reminder to re-assess our schedules and see where we might be adding weight where there shouldn’t be. This may mean listening more and talking less in our prayers, or the other way around. Maybe we’re giving God a rehearsed prayer and not our true doubts or stumbled wonderings.

This is the purpose of the Sabbath. It is there to give us proactive rest so that we might re-center our eyes back to God amidst the busyness of life.

Tremble, and do not sin; meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. - Psalm 4:4

Rest often calls for an actual halt to everything we’re doing, saying, or thinking. This is what the psalmist gets at in chapters 3 and 4 in the morning and evening prayers. They remind us to be still and tremble at His presence.

Sabbath invites us to redirect our eyes towards the One who matters, the One who we’re actually living for. So that our work is a form of worship and not an attempt to show our worth.

Will it be like this forever? Am I ever going to feel enough?

I feel ashamed for even asking these questions. Of course, I know Christ is enough in me. But, my identity has been shaky lately, and to say that my heart didn’t feel the weight of it all wouldn’t be true in the slightest.

My eyes absently wander toward the sparsely decorated rental home walls. Far away from the home I left, this new small town felt foreign to me. Holding my complex set of emotions feels impossible, the amount of all my unanswered aches is overwhelming.

Reminiscent feelings of sorrow fill my heart as do my eyes with tears. A decade ago, these same lies of unworthiness whispered in my ear.

Back then my love for Him was contractional. It was dependent on Him being the type of God I thought I needed. I felt owed for my years of faithfulness to Him since a child. I made much religious effort to source my own goodness.

All these years walking faithfully with Him, where was He now? I had read countless Psalms where the writer was calling out to God in their darkest hour. Here I was now, in my very own crisis, now waiting for His quick rescue to my cry.

The stillness of the night crept over me, as my greatest fears and anxieties came to life in my mind. I was more alone than I thought.

That night, I wrote God off. Not His existence, or even surprisingly His goodness. Instead, I distrusted His goodness and love towards me specifically. He was holy, good and just, only certain people seemed able to experience His love.

It felt like God was playing favorites and I couldn’t understand how to be one of them.

My sorrow was met with God’s deafening silence. The next few years I spent in search of filling the void from my felt abandonment of God. Seeking life apart from Him, I found what Hell feels like. Finally, years later, worn and exhausted, I took a chance on Him.

Truthfully, God was my final resort. My return came out of a need I hoped He’d fill, not out of a love for Him.

Before, my love for Him was contractional. It was dependent on Him being the type of God I thought I needed. I felt owed for my years of faithfulness to Him since a child. I made much religious effort to source my own goodness.

Instead of expectations for what I thought I was owed, I brought my hurt, sin and shame instead. I had nothing to offer. Quite literally the rags off what remained from my hollowed self-made morality.

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The idea of God’s love wooed me to Himself, not my own for Him. Waiting for a wagging finger in my face and a shamed place in His presence, I was met with grace instead.

I began my journey of discovering His love. Endless nights bending over my tear-stained Bible, reading every word with fresh eyes. I paid more attention to His words now. If they were true, what did it really mean for me and my life?

Scribbling my way through my doubts and fears, I led my anxieties at His feet. In the darkness, I could feel the warmth of His words etching tattoos on my heart.

Slowly, I grew the desire to know Him, and not what He could do for me. A genuine desire to lean in and discover Him. The deeper I leaned in, the more I grew to actually enjoy Him.

My story goes on from there, of course. It’s long and nothing short of a miracle–a redemption prodigal story of my own.

Snapping back into the moment, a quiet resolve settled over me. This tactic wouldn’t work on me this time. The truth struck me:

God wasn’t abandoning me, He was beckoning me towards Himself.

The whispers of aloneness and unworthiness held me captive for years. But this time, it wasn’t going to break me. This time, I know better of His character. Instead of leaning into the lies, I leaned into Jesus.

Peter and the other disciples felt this same distance from God while they fought the violent waves from evening until morning. All the while, Jesus was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, they see Him walking on the water next to them. Jesus wasn’t walking towards their boat. The epistle Mark provides the detail that He was passing them by. It’s only when they cry out for Him when He stops to help them.

Why wouldn’t Jesus just save them if it was in His power to do so? He was teaching them something instead. Full of belief, Peter stepped out boldly onto the same waves which previously terrified him. Once his eyes slipped their gaze from Jesus, the water gave way beneath him. Jesus helped Peter and then stilled the seas.

Maybe some of you reading this can resonate with this feeling of desperation. His silence can feel as callous when in the middle of a crisis.

When we feel distance from God, it’s often a sign we’ve turned our attention elsewhere. He waits for us to keep our eyes on Him, to release our figment control over our worries. To be present with Him. To bring Him our sorrows, anxieties and doubts. Because only He can withstand the weight of them.

For me, this looked like setting aside a day to remove any distractions and make time for prayer instead. God wanted my attention more than my to-do list. And He wanted my attention those many years ago when all I was giving Him was my fancy religiosity.

Perhaps, His silence is calling you in, too.

The case could easily be made that the more attention we put on ourselves the less secure we’ve become. Perhaps this is why we were meant to mirror One greater than us rather than trip over our own naval-gazing.

This idea of pointing to God’s holiness rather than ours has never been attractive to humanity. Since the Fall, our hearts burn to be our own gods. The more we try to be, the less we see others as people to love but rather distractions to our purpose or threats to our ego. Our self-image then becomes something we must protect rather than reflect.

As our circles become smaller, so does our world. The problem we’re left with is that we’ve defended ourselves to the point of isolation. This is not only devastating to those outside the church, but to ourselves as well. Here are three repercussions which come to mind:

1. We lose security

Now that our identity is in something we do rather than in the One we worship, we must keep up with the pace we’ve created. Our image must be maintained. It appears noble from the outside, as we ambitiously focus on spiritual disciplines. But inside, the only fulfillment we receive is either from our own applause or that from others.

When it stops, we deflate. Now we must hurry and do more spiritual things to be worthy of the love we think we deserve.

At best, when we’re on a spiritual high we are in constant anxiety of losing it. At worst, we are constantly feeling inept. Either way, our insecurity steadily increases.

2. We avoid confrontation

Our obsession for holiness has pulled us inward instead of pointing to Christ. But it’s our own self-expressed holiness not His. To save our self-esteem we’ve swelled our ego. Healthy criticism is now seen as a threat to our identity.

We can no longer view our flaws accurately because we’ve made sure to surround ourselves with people who never challenge us. Worse, we may view counsel as spiritual warfare because it puts our perfect image in jeopardy.

Not only does our self-expression overshadow our ability to be exhorted but we lose sight of others in the process.

3. We resist community

So long as those around us give us what we feel we need, they are welcome. We may minister to someone in order to feel charitable. If we mentor or teach someone in the church, we’re excited to showcase our scholarly proficiency. But if we don’t feel any benefit for ourselves, we may see people as a distraction to our “greater purpose.” Or, if we feel someone else is besting our efforts, we feel intimidated.

Community becomes pawns for our ego rather than people to love. We stop seeing them as God does. He sees us as unique body parts that make up the church, working in unity. With our self-glorifying worship, we don’t see the individuality of the church. We only see ourselves.

We love others as much as we feel loved by God. And if we believe we must earn it, others must earn our love too.

This leaves the church more secluded than ever in an already isolated society starved for community.

Have we forgotten the point of it all? The reason we pursue spiritual formation is so that we might live out the gospel to those around us, not withdraw ourselves in our prayer room. As God’s Triune traits teach us, His love naturally moves outwards, extending towards others.

If our worship leads us inward, we’re worshipping something else. Maybe even ourselves. But a love which comes from God bears the image of Him and therefore is free of the weight of perfection. A love which comes from God is free to love others because it doesn’t see people as competition but complementary.

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The purpose of the gospel isn’t to revel in its beauty in solitude, but exude it through the way we live and interact with others.

When we are assured that the source of our life is secure in Christ, there’s a mysterious joy to be found. We catch glimpses of this joy as our hearts swim deeper in the knowledge of who God is. Our needs turn to wants and our joys we now see as His gifts to us. We need nothing from anyone, only excess love to extend to others.

It’s far easier to think about others if we’re completely satisfied with Christ. We see the early church model this beautifully. The disciples gave a beautiful example of what a loving community was like for them.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-47)

They shared their belongings with others as if what they owned wasn’t theirs. They gave freely of themselves because all of their needs were met.

As we become more like Him our hearts align with His, slowly softening over time. We love what He loves, we hope for what He hopes for, we grieve what grieves Him. We must allow for the Holy Spirit to do His work in our hearts to do so.

If we live like we don’t need Him, we don’t allow His transformative love to change us. And He never forces His love on us.

There’s a confidence we have in God when we are His beloved child. When our identity is established by His righteousness and not our own, we can rest down our shoulders.

No need to prove our worth, He’s already called us His. No need to work for our salvation, He sees Jesus’ perfection not our own.

We see fingerprints of God’s glory displayed all throughout creation.

The remotest crevices of the seas resemble the undiscovered depths of His mystery.

The sweet scent of the honeysuckle reminisces His kindness.

The soft glide of a falling leaf from the mighty oak tree tells of His never-wavering love.

But the sun teaches us something about God and about us too.

God’s likeness is that of the sun. It exposes the shadows of evil and overcomes it with its’ brilliancy. The beams create rainbows when looked at through a distance, yet our retinas burn if we gaze at it directly. When we aren’t reviling Him, we see Him as He intended: good and beautiful.

As Christians, we often hear the encouragement to “grow to be more like God.” But that can’t be true. For starters, we will never be an infinite being because we haven’t always existed like He has. God’s incommunicable attributes are ones only He can possess. Some of these include His sovereignty, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence.

Maybe some of us are thinking, “Okay, but I know I’m not sovereign or omniscient like God.” Yet, don’t we act like it sometimes? We try to be our own little gods. When we do this we’re rebelling against how we were created to be. Eve paved the way for us when she bit the apple on the forbidden tree in the garden. She resisted the calling God intended for her.

What happened? Her eyes were opened to the reality of the world but through the lens of her finite human form. Unable to access God’s communicable attributes, Eve along with the rest of humanity will never be able to make sense of the world and the evil inside it. No matter how hard we try, we can never be God.

Jen Wilkin in a Following Faith podcast episode puts it like this, “Those who were created to reflect Him at the fall choose instead to revile Him.” We choose our own way when we deny God’s rightful place as our sovereign Ruler in our life. When He doesn’t do what we want Him to, it’s tempting to believe we know better than Him. God’s rules will seem obtuse and manipulative. The lie which Eve chose long ago springs up again as we believe we know better than God.

Not only will we assume morality for our own life, but also we bring God’s character into question. “How can God be good if He allowed this thing to happen?” We see Him as scary or cruel, someone who stands in the way of our freedom.

The more we resist how God created us, the more we will continue to determine life to be senseless or meaningless. We will be on an exhausting ride to find fulfillment and crushed when we fail to meet our own standards of morality. Of course, even if we pursue to be more like Jesus, we will still be operating in a life overrun with sin and evil.

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Once sin entered the world, God knew we would wrestle with His character. Which is why He sent Jesus as not only our price for salvation but to show us how we ought to emulate Him. We can only be like God in the ways which Jesus showed us while on earth. He exemplifies how we can live out God’s incommunicable attributes that we were designed to embody.

While imperfect on earth but perfected through our final sanctification in Heaven, we can still misuse and abuse these attributes too. Thankfully, we have a patient Father who waits to be gracious to us when we do.

“Therefore the Lord longs to be gracious to you, and therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the Lord is a God of justice; how blessed are all those who long for Him.” (Isaiah 30:18 NASB1995)

Instead of resisting God, we are able to see just how beautiful He really is. Jesus showed us how to care for others while loving God more. He lived for God’s approval and not man’s. Demonstrating kindness and gentleness in a world of hatred and injustice, He taught us strength.

When the sun rests, it doesn’t stop being the sun. Though darkness threatens to overshadow life’s joys, we can be sure that God’s character never changes. In His sovereignty, He will redeem what is broken and restore what is lost. The sun will rise again.

Haleakala’s Red Hill in Maui, Hawaii (Fall 2023).

This blame-game distracts from our own personal responsibility as a member of the church. As Christians, we are the church. If there’s a problem with the church, there’s a problem with each of us individually.

There are many ways the church is lacking where we have the opportunity to play a part in restoring what may be broken. I’ll name three:

1. Church neglect

Those who are in a place of need or in a place of receiving rather than giving can find that their church is ill-equipped to handle their care. For them, this may call for them to address this with their church leadership. Or in extreme cases, prayerfully find a new church home. If we’re a witness to this neglect, we have the chance to speak up for them. The church may not be aware of this ministry weakness. We can seek counsel from others and prayerfully consider how we might lovingly and clearly bring this issue up.

Perhaps, our recognition that there’s neglect happening is a nudge by the Holy Spirit to begin a ministry where there isn’t one. Our sense of justice can be redirected to a calling which God may be revealing to us. He created us with passion, we ought to notice what He’s gifted us to care specifically about. Whether we’re in a position to start and lead a group or ministry or we’re able to help serve those in need on an individual basis, there are many ways we can support.

2. Poor leadership

Poor church leadership can be a sign of abuse or non-Spirit led decision-making. It can also signal that our church is under-staffed and over-flooded with needs. Often when churches grow, those serving within the church don’t exponentially grow with it. As church attendance rises, so do congregation needs. The gaps widen and all the blame is pointed at leadership.

Do our pastors seem rushed in their sermons or flustered as we watch them pass by without so much as a “hello?” Perhaps, they’re tired.

Remember, our pastors and church staff are rarely thanked for their job but constantly feel stretched by the growing needs of the church. Pray for them. Write them an encouraging email. Offer them a meal or to babysit their kids for date night. Or maybe, we can pray about joining on staff and be a part of the change we want to see.

3. Cliques or lack of socialization

We’ve never outgrown our childhood tendency to gather in a closed-off group in the name of “finding our people.” Cliques are difficult to recognize from the inside but painfully obvious when experienced on the outside. Churches are unfortunately a popular place to find groups and never venture outside of them. This makes people feel like an immediate outsider, when maybe they’re attending for the first time.

Maybe we’re not involved in a clique, but rather we come in and out of church with the least possible resistance. We make a b-line for the back row, far left corner so we can interact with the least amount of people possible. I’m guilty of this. There have been times where I felt overwhelmed with my own life and let my introvert side excuse my behavior. But, is that really how we want to welcome people into church? Maybe we challenge ourselves to not only meet someone, but truly get to know them.

Our church is one of many home bases for us. It’s a place we come to every week, a chance to get to know and love our church. The people we’re around is not an accident. God has given us a sphere of influence to be His love to those at the grocery store, at work, and in the church pews.

If we’re always finding ourselves a participant of church and not finding our place in serving it, we may be part of the problem.

To re-caveat, this doesn’t refer to those who are not in a place to serve. But it doesn’t count those of us who are just busy with our lives. At my last church, I attended off and on for two years. I never found a place to serve and only attended on weeks we were in town. This is an area in which I’ve been convicted and hope to change soon as we find a church home in our new city. I confess, I was a part of the problem. We can’t excuse our lack of participation in our church home because we’ve filled our social calendar too much to fit it in. Rather, we should fit in our social lives around our ministry inside and outside our homes.

“For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,” it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body.” (1 Corinthians 12:14-16)

We are called to support the church not only attend.

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It’s popular to find a church with our preferred times of the day that fits our schedule so we’re the least affected by any inconvenience in our normal day-to-day life. We have a natural tendency within ourselves to choose what feels easy to do and won’t change our way of life.

We’ll choose a church that has sermons which align with our preferred inspiration and worship that we feel comfortable with. While there’s nothing wrong with having church qualifications, we tend to let them take precedence over where we see ourselves to fit within the church.

Where we can serve and make an impact on our community isn’t usually at the forefront of our minds. We often find a community which serves our needs first and foremost and many times exclusively for ourselves. When we get offended by what the church does or doesn’t do for us and quick to judge how it lacks in supporting others. But their failure should signify our failure as well.

Have we grown passive in our role in the church–waiting for others to move towards us and make us feel comfortable, useful, or entertained? It’s time to take the initiative and find our place in supporting our church.

In St. James Church in Kutna Hora, Prague this Summer.

Jesus wasn’t forced to serve, love and ultimately sacrifice Himself for us, He wanted to.

Life before ministry

Jesus’ ministry on earth began at the age of 30. Carpenter by trade, He held a lowly but respectable position in society. He loved to create and build with His hands. Those in His profession are gifted in finding potential in things which are often overlooked. Jesus found beauty and purpose in the ordinary.

Jesus’ mission in life was established long before He was born, but He didn’t begin until nearly the end of His life. Those first 30 years weren’t wasted. There are likely many untold stories of the lives He touched prior to His official ministry. Jesus spent years refining His skills in hard work and pouring His life into learning more about God while deepening His relationship with Him.

Notice Jesus didn’t overlook His day job while lost in a performative faith. God used Him through and by His work for an eternal investment. Instead of anxiously awaiting Jesus’ purpose, He found meaning in the everyday, carefully refining His craft. He didn’t view ministry apart from His work but rather as an instrument for it.

We know that He prioritized His relationship with God, denying His own needs so that He could grow deeper with Him. After all, one doesn’t simply jump into a 40-day fast and prayer session with God merely from reading their Bible for 30 minutes every day while reciting a quick prayer. He didn’t accomplish this because He was God’s Son and had supernatural powers either. He chose God over the comforts and distractions of life the same as we can.

Modeled obedience

One day, Jesus knew He was ready for what God had called Him to do. 30 years of training, and the wait was finally over. Jesus set down His carpenter tools to build something bigger, the cornerstones of the first church.

This ministry was a calling from God which Jesus answered with obedience. Most of His life was spent living a quiet, ordinary life. But in His ordinary life, He chose to deepen His relationship with God into an extraordinarily rich and fulfilling spiritual life.

Jesus also showed us what true, Biblical obedience looks like throughout His ministry. While He served others to the point of exhaustion, He always found time to slip away and be with His Father. He couldn’t serve us without the spiritual strength given only through His Father. Again, we see His humanness here. Notice also that Jesus isn’t frustrated or short with those He ministers to, He doesn’t see them as chore but rather a delight to love.

In Matthew 14, Jesus is overcome with grief after hearing of John the Baptist’s death. He rowed off in a boat to a secluded place for some solitude. Yet, the crowds quickly find Him.

“When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.” (vs. 14)

Here, Jesus seems to be strengthened by His love. His desire to care for us outweighs His weariness.

As Jesus’ power in God increases, He doesn’t go to more places of prestige and honor, instead He’s found in the lowest places where people of power wouldn’t dare to be seen. We don’t see Him becoming more self-important as His fame increases, rather we see more of His humility. Matthew 9:36-38 records another interaction:

“Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.’”

Jesus was depleted mentally and physically from tirelessly serving and preaching to the crowds and constantly traveling to new cities. The motivation for His ministry was led through compassion for us. The more He obeyed God, the greater His heart was enwrapped in what God cared about.

Jesus obeyed God when He didn’t want to. The night He was betrayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He wept and grieved and asked God to remove this cup of wrath from Him. He knew what He was headed into: to be separated from God and completely abandoned by Him.

Before this point, Jesus had never not been in perfect community with God. He had spent an eternity loving and being loved by His Father. Even in those moments in the garden, He felt the impending separation. It’s more than we can comprehend yet Jesus’ body and soul faced the full reality of what this meant for Him in utter anguish.

All the while He said, “not my will, but yours” (Luke 22:42). He wanted there to be another way to accomplish salvation. But God’s holiness required that a sacrifice must be made in order for our sins to be wiped clean so that we could take part in His righteousness.

Jesus didn’t have to obey God, but He did. Because He loved Him more than what He got out of the relationship, even if it meant total separation from Him. Jesus obeyed God because He shared in His love for us. Knowing there was no other way to bridge the gap which sin had widened between us and God, Jesus willingly accepted to be our sacrifice.

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There was nothing in it for Him, God didn’t need us for more glory, power or love. He has an unending supply of this already. God sent His Son for the singular purpose of getting us. Think about that, He doesn’t need us for anything. Knowing everything He does about us, God simply wants us because He loves us.

We don’t have to feel the utter despair He did on the cross. Unlike Jesus, God will never abandon His children. Because He sees us as clean, with no trace of any sin. That is what it means for Jesus to take on our sin and shame. Our sin was swapped with His righteous. So that God would see His perfect Son when He sees us. Which means, when God looked on Jesus that dreadful night, He saw us and our sin and shame.

Jesus’ birth reminds us what He came for, what He didn’t have to do. Jesus lived a perfect life so that we never had to rely on our own efforts to be “good enough” for God’s love.

He was despised so we never have to live in shame. He was abandoned by His Father so we can always find communion with Him. Jesus was acquainted with grief so we might find joy.

In St. James Church in Kutna Hora, Prague this Summer.

But, for some of us, this cheerful time is difficult to resonate with. While we’re regular church attenders, the joy of salvation isn’t so dear to us as it seems to be for others. Christmas acts as an annual reminder of this. Maybe we find it curious, silly, or even annoying to watch the parade of excitement over this particular holiday.

Do we really believe in the Christmas message or have we been more interested in the extended time off and festive activities?

Whether we’re generally known in our church or typically slip in and out through the back most Sundays, there’s a tension growing inside of us. We have a longing that isn’t being fulfilled through God anymore.

Maybe we’re bored or tired of waiting on unanswered prayers. Perhaps we’ve grown weary of hearing how good He is when it doesn’t seem to add up with the constant chaos going on in the world. We question His character. Or, dare we presume to question His very existence? Perhaps humans long ago made Him up in an attempt to make sense of a ruthless world and bring peace to those who suffer.

There may be some of us who have embedded ourselves into church engagement. On a spiritual high we leapt into service, chasing the feeling of being needed or being important. Now that our doubts are catching up on us, we aren’t sure what to do with them. We’ve dug too deep to now admit our challenges with God and His church.

Finally, most of us don’t feel the church would welcome our concerns about God. We’re worried we’ll lose social status or be judged. It’s easier to keep our feelings buried deep inside rather than expose them.

On the outside, we sing, we smile, we politely nod in agreement. All the while, our minds wander to what we’ll do next. We save our focus for other things that offer us more immediate fulfillment–our jobs, passions, projects, family, and friends.

Ah yes, Christmas. Another reminder of the misalignment we feel growing inside our hearts. With each carol sung, the gap widens. How can we worship a King we aren’t sure is good?

Some of us will go on like this for years, decades even. We may take on leadership roles or just continue ticking off our church attendance in our morality check-list.

May I suggest taking a different approach this year? Afterall, if we spend a good amount of time associating with the church, we may as well check in on this time investment.

Perhaps, we can challenge ourselves to not force ourselves to be joyful about something we don’t understand or trust. Instead, let’s allow ourselves to re-examine the Gospel, as if it was the first time hearing it. What if we were honest with our questions instead of hiding them?

God knew we would doubt Him. Which is why He left us with His story through the Bible, a wealth of knowledge on His character. Jesus’ birth is the middle part to a larger story, a covenantal love fulfilled by God. It’s a story which began when the world came into being. It tells us why the world was created, how evil and sin tainted it and our purpose in it.

The Bible is meant to be questioned and studied.

We must ask ourselves, what is it about God that we don’t understand? We can walk alongside a trusted person to guide us through these questions. Afterall, that is the point of the church. Not to congregate as those who pretend to be always happy and good.

Jesus Himself welcomed doubts. They serve as a sign that we are thinking through what we believe. If we bring our questions to God, we allow Him to answer them. But if we keep silent about them, we will only drift further away. We may be surprised at how many others have struggled with the same doubts once we voice them.

Will we follow alongside others before us, trailing behind a faith we don’t fully trust? Or will we let this Christmas pause our religiosity and reflect on what we truly believe?

Photo of our first Christmas in Seattle in 2023.

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What does having a relationship with Him really look like? How is it supposed to change our day-to-day life? It seems as many who claim a relationship with Him, not all reflect a life any different than anyone else.

So, why should we even care? When we think about a relationship with God, it starts with what we get out of the deal. We all have an innate desire to be loved and to love, we want to know and be known. Finding these desires fulfilled in a God who claims to answer all our needs and fulfill our longings is attractive to us.

God’s holiness and goodness existed before He created us. He didn’t need us to be those things. He doesn’t get holier because we worship Him. Or become more pure, good or loving because of the attention we give Him. God receives nothing from us but enjoyment of our enjoyment of Him.

He is endlessly explorable. Since we are the only one receiving anything, His goodness is endlessly available to us.

Things in this world bring us joy, but only shadow the primary source of it. The world can’t give more than the One who created it. While lesser joys of the world bring us additional joy, only He will give us what we need.

Because God didn’t create us for anything other than enjoyment of Him, it only makes sense that we would be innately needy of Him. We were created to need God.

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We don’t usually enjoy the word “needy.” It reveals our own weakness. Our continual search for meaning and purpose in our lives can only be found in Him. It’s on one hand relieving to hear there’s a reason why we were created but on the other hand frustratingly too simplistic. And it doesn’t seem to align with our day-to-day experience with God and in this world.

Sin disrupted how God intended us to fully experience Him, we live in a cruel and unfair world. Our daily lives are filled with betrayal, corruption and hurt. A relationship with God feels conceptual rather than tangible.

What if we’ve been searching for a relationship with Him, but our experience of Him is very different from the glamorized spiritual picture which is thrown in our faces? Where is this God who supposedly wants a relationship with us? We’re calling, but He’s not answering. Is He even there?

How can He be good if He created us to be needy only to leave us waiting endlessly for His reply? How can He be good if He’s silent when we need Him the most?

There’s many more “how can God be good if..” statements. But what if our comprehension of His goodness isn’t the evidence of it? What if His goodness stands outside of our existence?

And yet, our experience of Him remains the same. We’re still left wondering why He seems to be offering the world but isn’t there when we search for Him. It seems as if He’s dangling a treat in front of our faces while maliciously moving it further back as we grasp for it.

This feels malicious because if He’s the Creator of this universe, shouldn’t He be responsible with how He created us? It’s as if He created the problem and not the solution. If He created us so needy in a world so cruel and unfair, isn’t this unquestionably unjust?

I’ve agonized over these same seemingly incongruous ideologies about God.

In a very dark time in my life, I was desperate for God. Having spent the majority of my life in faithful service to Him, I’d slowly slipped away from my once close-knit relationship with Him. Alone, afraid and hopeless, I turned to Him in what felt like my darkest hour and was met with a deafening silence.

I wrote Him off that night. Not His existence, or even surprisingly His goodness. Instead, I deeply questioned and distrusted His goodness and love towards me specifically. He was fully God and fully good, but only certain people seemed to experience Him in this way. It felt like God was playing favorites and I couldn’t understand how to be one of them.

The next few years I spent in search of filling the void from my felt abandonment of God. Seeking life apart from Him, I found what Hell feels like. When I’d exhausted my own resources, I took my chance on Him again. Truthfully, God was my final resort.

My return came out of a need I hoped He’d fill, not out of a love for Him.

Instead of expectations for what I thought I was owed, I brought my hurt, sin and shame. I had nothing to offer. Slowly, I grew the desire to know Him, and not what He could do for me. A genuine desire to lean in and discover Him. The deeper I leaned in, the more I grew to actually enjoy Him.

Maybe some of us have been following God for many years, but have been struggling with what “delighting in Him” really looks like. We feel stuck in a habitual relationship with Him, wondering how we got here in the first place. After years of faithfulness, tensions are high as we begin questioning what God has been giving us in return.

Or perhaps, some of us are doubting God’s character. We’ve been searching for Him and are done waiting in the still silence. Who is He really? And why did He bother making us? We’ll have to make sense of the world without Him, we conclude. If we choose God, we may miss out on the freedom and joys of this world.

Either way, God feels like a gatekeeper to true fulfillment or a bystander to our pain. We all search for this belonging and purpose, but what if we’re spinning our wheels in the mud to find freedom, but when we’re only digging ourselves into what will hold us back from it?

More thoughts to follow.

No matter what we’ve done, God can make all things beautiful.

This final verse in Isaiah 55 paints a vivid picture: instead of thorns and thistles of sin in our life, God transforms us into thriving cypress and myrtles trees. When we choose to follow Christ over our sin, not only do we find peace and joy (vs. 12)–He makes us completely new (vs. 13).

Where We Came From

We can’t produce fruits on our own. Only God transforms our wasteland of thorns into a flourishing tree. When we allow sin to reign in our life it destroys good things and makes them harmful to us.

But what does it mean to let “sin reign in our life”?

Anything we choose to love more than God is sin. It’s not always obviously wrong. In fact, it’s often a very good thing. But every time we give into the desires of that sin, we feed it. As it grows in our life, it will eventually overwhelm our thoughts and desires until it owns us completely.

If we desire to love people, but we choose to love them more than God—that good desire will turn sour in our lives. That desire will grow deeper and deeper within us. Suddenly, we’ll do anything at all in order to get what we want out of people. What began as a pure desire is now distorted.

What We Offer

This is what we have to offer God—our sin and our shame. Yet, He gladly takes us in and gives us a new life. He doesn’t make our thorns less prickly–He removes them by the root. He takes it out by the root and kills its power over us.

While God removed the power of sin over our life, sin still has the opportunity to keep us from a close relationship with God. Sin wiggles its way back in, doing as much damage as it has power to do: to take our joy and peace.

But what happens when we let God be our object of worship and we fight against the desires that compete for our love and affection? He brings life to the death of sin in our lives.

Where God Brings Us

We thrive. We grow. We become more like Him. We delight in Him and He delights in us. Slowly, we’ll find the joy and peace which comes in knowing Him closely. Even though the temptation of sin won’t be completely removed from us until we’re fully renewed in Heaven one day.

God brings beauty out of darkness, and He sets us apart as His. His children who He loves. The closer we become to Him, the more joy we’ll give Him and find for ourselves.

When we choose God, the promise He’s made to us is fulfilled in us as His covenant. For all eternity, we’re His. We’re a testament to His redemption, a picture of His grace.

This verse has a lot of personal meaning for me. A few years back, I tattooed a tree on my forearm to symbolize this verse.

I chose death and sin over God time and time again. When I finally chose Him—He offered me life when all I could give was my debt of sin. But He brought me out of what was enslaving and destroying me and into a life with Him.

Are you choosing death or life? What have you allowed in your life that is maybe overtaking you? You can either let death (sin) or life (God) produce in your life.

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What does it really mean to thrive in a life with Christ? We hear it all the time in church. But it often feels like a mystical, pie-in-the-sky idea with no real substance.

Continuing our Isaiah 55 study, we see that all the previous verses lead up to this moment:

• An invitation to choose life abundantly with Him (vs. 1-2)

• An extended invitation towards those previously unchosen (vs. 3-5)

• A call to choose God over lesser things because He’s ready to forgive (vs. 6-7)

• A reminder He’s infinitely better than we could imagine and worthy of our trust (vs. 8-11)

Verse 12 says, “for you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace.” Everything God is calling us to accumulate in this promise of fullest joy and deepest peace. This is what it means to accept the offer to live a “life abundantly” with Him. God reveals our need for Him and how He alone can satisfy it beyond anything we could dream up.

But remember—this is an invitation, not a given. The joy and peace God offers come to those who choose Him instead of settling for lesser things.

Sure, we can find joy and peace apart from Him, but it will never last or truly satisfy. We’ll be left wanting more and often feel more distraught than before. Our sorrow deepens when we see a taste of the joy and peace within reach but unable to fully grasp onto.

Imagine waiting all year to your long-awaited favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. Arriving to the dinner, your eyes can hardly believe the delicious spread which covers the entire table. Taking your first bite into the cranberry sauce, your lips pucker with satisfaction as you grab a spoonful of gravy to drizzle over perfectly tender turkey strips.

Sitting back in your chair you sigh—finally. But as you reach for your hot apple cider, you blink and everything has vanished. Not realizing your first bite would be your last, you’re left more hungry than before.

We can taste the joy from things around us, but they will only give us an illusion of the satisfaction they can give. Life without God can give us moments of enjoyment, but never the full feast. We might grow used to it and even feel content with what we have—but Isaiah 55 invites us to experience more.

Why is God different from other things we might enjoy in life? And how can He claim joy and peace in a world which operates in sin and injustice?

Every good thing we enjoy in life is created by God—for our delight. He cared very deeply that we wouldn’t just live in freedom but to enjoy life. He gives us gifts purely for our joy. But since we can see them and usually touch them, it’s easy to misuse them.

We begin to expect those gifts to do what they weren’t made for—and they begin to break. People, animals, food, nature and possessions can bring joy—but they will never give us our identity.

When we place our meaning and purpose in anything other than God, we start worshipping those things instead of Him. And when this happens, sin disrupts our lives.

Because sin is anything which keeps us from being with God—and what will give us what we want and need.

God designed us to worship Him and enjoy His gifts—not the other way around. Asking a telephone to wash your face or a rock to feed you makes no sense. Until we recognize what we’re worshipping besides God, we’ll only find fragments of joy and peace.

We’re not alone. All creation joins in to worship God and find joy in Him:

“The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,

And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.”

When we find our purpose in God, we get to join all creation in worship of Him. Like the lilies of the field, the horses on the hills, and the fish in the sea—we move in joy and find our rest in Him.

Have you ever exaggerated while telling a story? Or said things that don’t really matter or have much use?

I’m sure we can all admit to either of those tendencies. It’s easy to talk, but not everything we say is productive. But that’s not the case with God.

In today’s verse, we’re learning about the power of God’s words.

Every single word He’s spoken in Spirit and Word is productive: it produces something. Not only that, it produces precisely what He planned from the beginning.

That should make us all do a double-take at our Bibles. God has told us plainly what He will do - and it will happen. Imagine that was true for you and me, everything we said would happen.

That might be a terrifying thought. We don’t always have good intentions. We’re angry and say things we regret or speak when we should be listening. These aren’t our greatest moments and we like to forget that side of us exists.

But that isn’t true of God: what He says will happen. And His intentions are always pure, loving and good.

Some of His promises He’s already fulfilled in our life and we don’t always see it, while others are yet to come.

What does this make you feel? Excited? Maybe, scared?

Our response to this truth reveals what we feel about God. If we don’t believe He’s fully good, we won’t trust Him. So, when we hear all His promises - they fall flat on us. If we believe Him to be true that His words will come to pass, that may terrify us because we don’t believe Him to be really good or loving. Or maybe we don’t believe Him at all, and His promises sound as empty as the answers to our prayers we used to throw at Him.

If He can’t be for us what we need now, how can we expect Him to come through for future things? I get this line of thinking, I’ve been there myself. Many years of crying out to Him, seemingly with no response.

I believed that if He was good, it was only to those “other people” – not for me. While resisting Him, I pushed Him away. Since He didn’t answer my prayers in the way and timing that I wanted, I didn’t trust Him.

Years later, I realized all the ways He was protecting and loving me from afar. I thought He left me, but He there all along.

Truthfully, I still struggle with what He’s doing now. I still have moments when I want to scream at Him asking Him “why?” I don’t understand a lot of what He does and the timing in which He does it.

What changed for me was my realization of His character. He is patient when I demand Him to answer my prayers in my ways. He’s gracious when I leave Him and come crawling back. He waits for me, even when it hurts Him, while I look for other things to satisfy me.

But He’s always there. He never changes. He is the same today as He was yesterday.

When we know God to be true to His character, Him accomplishing what He set out to do should be very good news to us. It assures us that no matter how long, difficult and unjust this world can be - He remains the same.

He’s promised many good things to those who choose to follow Him. Here’s just a few examples:

He will never leave youHe will give you peaceHe will guide youHe will strengthen youHe will provide for youHe will return for His peopleHe will forgive youHe will make all things new

When we feel He’s too preoccupied or has forgotten about us, these truths remind us that He will do what He’s promised to do. He cannot lie, it’s against His character.

Maybe, He hasn’t left us afterall. Perhaps, we’ve stopped looking for Him.

How can we learn about His character if we never take the time to discover Him?

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