The iingdom

 Because the Kingdom is not a spreadsheet. It is not a performance. It is not a brand.

It is a feast. A field. A family reunion.

And it starts, sometimes, with putting your feet in the dirt and remembering you are loved before you ever do a thing.

Playfulness, then, is not the opposite of reverence. It is a form of it.

It’s living in such deep awareness of God’s presence that you can stop posturing and start living.

It’s trusting so completely in God’s goodness that you can risk looking foolish.

It’s joining the Spirit in co-creating a life that overflows with beauty and imagination and joy.

Because in the end, that’s what the Kingdom of God really is.

Not another project. Not another performance.

But a wide-open space where the children of God get to play.

Easter 18

 I am guilty of minimizing the resurrection in my life. It’s one thing to not talk n much about this pivotal event in all of history, but it’s another to live my life ignoring the significance of Jesus overcoming death. I wonder how many funerals have talked about the direction but once everyone gets back into their car, life goes back to normal. The power of Jesus’ life is in us through the Holy Spirit. I hope we can stoke the fire, fan the flame, and ignite the light to others experiencing His resurrection. 

“Therefore, when a person refuses to come to Christ it is never just because of a lack of evidence or because of intellectual difficulties: at root, he refuses to come because he willingly ignores and rejects the drawing of God's Spirit on his heart. No one in the final analysis fails to become a Christian because of a lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God.” - William Lane Craig

“Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil.” - Andrew Murray, Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness

Easter 17

 Do we really understand the gravity of what happened at the resurrection of Jesus?  How would you and I live our lives if Jesus had not come back to life?  Can anyone detect the difference the resurrection makes by interacting with us?  Personally, I wonder what some of my extended family members think when Easter is celebrated. There seems to be no joy or peace in them, even though they have heard the same information I’ve consumed. Their hardened mind and heart seem to ignore the facts. I’ve interacted with students in the past that seemed consumed with culture, or their own exploration of life, not wanting to surrender to the Risen Sacrificed Lamb of history. The resurrection changes everything. 

“He has forced open a door that has been locked since the death of the first man. He has met, fought, and beaten the King of Death. Everything is different because He has done so. This is the beginning of the New Creation: a new chapter in cosmic history has opened.” — C. S. Lewis

“No matter how devastating our struggles, disappointments, and troubles are, they are only temporary. No matter what happens to you, no matter the depth of tragedy or pain you face, no matter how death stalks you and your loved ones, the Resurrection promises you a future of immeasurable good…..Few people seem to realize that the resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone to a worldview that provides the perspective to all of life.” - Josh McDowell

Easter 16

 The disciples waited and felt helpless, hopeless, filled with uncertainty. I’ve certainly had experiences of wandering in my mind - what next?  How could anything get worse?  How about you?  The documented story of the disciples give hope, because Jesus showed up. Through the trauma of seeing Him executed, they were at their lowest. Those times open our eyes and ears to His kingdom line we never thought possible. His presence does not erase what we have experienced, but He gives us the wisdom and grace to repurpose our hearts. 

“We aren’t called to be impressive but to be present. The heart of God isn’t moved by achievement but by honesty. In our weakness, we don’t repel God: we reveal the space where grace is most potent and welcome.  You’ll never find your identity in applause. It waits for you in the wilderness (the inner room or secret place), where no one is watching and only God speaks your name.” - Graham Joseph Hill

“The parable teaches us the nature of that union. The connection between the vine and the branch is a living one. No external, temporary union will suffice; no work of man can effect it: the branch, whether an original or an engrafted one, is such only by the Creator's own work, in virtue of which the life, the sap, the fatness, and the fruitfulness of the vine communicate themselves to the branch. And just so it is with the believer too. His union with his Lord is no work of human wisdom or human will, but an act of God, by which the closest and most complete life-union is effected between the Son of God and the sinner. "God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts." The same Spirit which dwelt and still dwells in the Son, becomes the life of the believer; in the unity of that one Spirit, and the fellowship of the same life which is in Christ, he is one with Him. As between the vine and branch, it is a life-union that makes them one.” - Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ: The Joy of Being in God's Presence

Empathy vs Progress

 Joseph Graham Hill

To call empathy a sin is to misunderstand both sin and empathy.

Sin distorts love, isolates us, and turns our hearts inward in selfishness. But empathy—our ability to enter another’s suffering with compassion—is love moving outward. It refuses to remain untouched by another’s pain. It’s the willingness to carry even a portion of their burden.

If we’re called to love our neighbors as ourselves, how could we do that without first understanding their sorrows and joys?

Empathy isn’t the abandonment of truth. It’s truth made incarnate. It doesn’t mean losing yourself in another’s emotions but standing with them in solidarity, saying, “I see you, and I won’t turn away.”

That’s not sin. That’s the pattern of divine love.

If sin is separation, then empathy is communion.

Those who fear empathy often confuse it with passivity, as if feeling another’s suffering means condoning it or being swallowed by it. But real empathy isn’t an erasure of self—it’s knowing, deep down, that we belong to one another.

It’s the farmer kneeling to tend the soil. The poet listening before speaking. The friend lingering when words have run out.

It’s the way of the One who bore our griefs, who wept at gravesides, who refused to pass by untouched.

The heart isn’t meant to be a fortress. It’s meant to be a dwelling place.

And to dwell with another in their suffering isn’t sin—it’s love.

Lonely but not Alone

 Graham Joseph Hill

A Silent Ache in a Crowded World

We live side by side, screen to screen, yet something hurts in our souls. The world’s more connected than ever, with instant messages, always-on feeds, and endless social media updates. Still, the soul feels strangely unheld. Loneliness doesn’t just visit the elderly or the marginalized. It walks beside students in crowded lecture halls, professionals in packed elevators, parents at playgrounds, marriages and intimate relationships, and pastors and parishioners in full sanctuaries. There’s an epidemic under the noise: a widespread yearning to be seen, known, and loved. Does anyone see me? Am I valued and loved? Would I be missed if I wasn’t here? And in this crisis of connection, spiritual voices from centuries past offer unexpected guidance: you might be lonely, but you’re not alone.

What if solitude isn’t our enemy but a doorway? What if ancient wisdom, carried by desert monks and contemplative mystics, could guide us through the fog of isolation into a deeper, healing presence? The call of contemplation isn’t to escape loneliness by filling our lives with more noise, people, or activity. It’s to meet loneliness honestly and there, to discover a sacred presence that doesn’t abandon, even in the silence. God reaches out to our hearts in our loneliness and offers intimacy and comfort amid our heartache and suffering.

The Difference Between Loneliness and Solitude

Loneliness is the feeling, and often the pain, of disconnection. It’s what we feel when our desire for closeness goes unmet and when we sense we’re invisible or unnecessary. It’s not just being alone: it’s feeling abandoned, emotionally stranded in a crowded world. And loneliness is everywhere. Surveys show rising levels of isolation and mental health distress in nearly every age group and social setting. Something’s gone missing in our shared life: presence, depth, connection, warmth, and care.

But solitude is different. Solitude isn’t the absence of people; it’s the presence of God. It’s the sacred space where we learn to be at home with ourselves and the One who created us. In solitude, we’re not escaping connection; we’re deepening it. The early desert and contemplative Christians understood this.[1] They left behind cities not out of contempt for people but to strip away distractions and encounter God without filters. They believed the desert, wilderness, or secret place wasn’t empty but full of voices, struggles, angels, creation, belovedness, and most of all, divine presence. They faced their inner chaos not to be consumed by it but to be transformed within it.

Contemplative solitude invites us into that same journey. It doesn’t pretend away the pain of loneliness. It meets it with radical honesty, then gently holds it until something sacred emerges. The invitation isn’t to deny our longing for connection but to bring it into prayer and God’s presence. Solitude becomes not a sentence but a sanctuary.

When Loneliness Lingers

Not all loneliness is fleeting. For some, it lingers like fog, stubborn and unseen. There are those whose loneliness is wrapped in loss: a partner buried, a child estranged, a friendship vanished. Others live on the margins, made invisible by age, illness, disability, race, or difference. Some wake each morning to silence and aloneness not by choice but by circumstance, and the ache is not a doorway but a daily companion.

This kind of loneliness—chronic, complex, sometimes unnamed—asks for deeper compassion. It doesn’t always yield quickly to spiritual practice. And that’s okay. God isn’t impatient. God is particularly tender in those places where others pass by too quickly.

In the Gospels, Jesus sought out the lonely: the woman at the well, the bleeding woman, the forgotten leper, and the tax collector up in a tree.[2] Each bore a kind of loneliness the world didn’t know how to hold. But Jesus did. And still does.

If your loneliness feels unfixable, you’re not doing anything wrong. This isn’t about trying harder. It’s about letting yourself be seen. Even here—especially here—the Spirit says to your heart, “I’m with you.” The fog doesn’t lift all at once. But you're not walking through it alone.

What the Desert Taught the Soul

The Desert Fathers and Mothers left us a strange kind of map. Their wisdom is untamed and peculiar. Their stories are filled with silence, sweat, wanderings, seclusion, visions, and wrestling. They embraced solitude not as a spiritual flex but as a path toward communion. Alone in the wilderness, they confronted their fears, their illusions, and their hungers. These contemplatives found a deeper spring in the very place of barrenness.

Abba Moses once said, “Sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.”[3] (By “cell,” he means a prayer corner, inner room, personal retreat space, or spiritual hideaway). Abba Moses wasn’t prescribing isolation for its own sake. He described a kind of spiritual listening: staying put long enough for the heart to settle, the ego to soften, the desire for God to grow, and the still small voice to emerge. In that quiet space, not immediately but over time, they discovered they weren’t alone at all. God was there. Always had been. But it took solitude to learn how to see.

We don’t need to flee into the desert or wilderness to learn this. Our contemporary monastery can be the metro, subway, living room, library, university campus, office lunchroom, or corner of a city park. What matters isn’t the setting but the posture. Contemplative solitude is a choice to stop running, breathe deeply, face our interior life with compassion and curiosity, and trust that God will meet us there.

Practices That Transform Loneliness into Prayer

How do we enter solitude in a world that prizes noise and motion? How do we move from painful isolation to sacred presence? Here are a few spiritual practices that can help:

1. Breath Prayer

Choose a simple phrase, something like “God, you’re here,” “Jesus, you’re close,” or “I am held in love.” Repeat it slowly with your breath. Inhale the first part, exhale the second. Let it sink into your body, deep into your heart, not just your mind. When loneliness rises, return to the breath. This prayer doesn’t fix the ache but anchors you in something deeper than feeling.

2. Silence with God

Set a timer for five or ten minutes. Sit in stillness. No need to perform or speak. Let your loneliness be present. Don’t push it away. Imagine sitting beside Christ, saying nothing, just being together. You don’t need to impress or improve. Just be. In the silence, let your ache become a prayer. Let it speak without words.

3. The Examen of Longing

At the end of the day, take five minutes to name what you longed for most.[4] Was it attention? Touch? Belonging? Affection? To be seen? Rest? Offer those longings to God. Ask, gently, where they pointed. Sometimes, our loneliness is the compass needle of the soul, pointing to where love wants to meet us.

4. Sacred Listening

Reach out to someone you trust. Ask for a listening ear and offer the same. But don’t rush to fix or give advice. Just practice being with one another. Contemplative solitude teaches us how to be present to ourselves—from that, we can offer a deeper presence to others. Solitude strengthens community, not the other way around.

5. Touch Creation

The natural world is a companion. A tree doesn’t need you to be impressive. A river doesn’t rush you along. A beach doesn’t ask you to produce. Take a walk. Sit under the sky. Swim in the ocean. Let the earth remind you of something enduring and generous. Even in the heart of a city, the sacred still grows in soil and sky.

From Isolation to Intimacy

Loneliness can feel like exile. But in the language of the Spirit, exile is often the beginning of encounter, belonging, and formation of a new identity. The ache of absence can become the womb of intimacy. It takes courage to sit with that pain, to stop numbing, and to start listening. But if we stay with it—with open hands and a soft heart—we’ll find that our God hasn’t abandoned us. Instead, God’s Spirit invites us into a deeper and more holistic kind of knowing.

Contemplative solitude doesn’t erase our need for people. It simply makes our relationships more honest. When we learn to be at home in ourselves with God, we bring less desperation into our connections. We have become less needy and more present, less frantic, and freer. Loneliness softens. And slowly, solitude becomes a friend.

You’re Not Alone

Louder media or bigger gatherings won’t solve the loneliness epidemic. It calls for something quieter, deeper, slower. This epidemic asks us to rediscover presence—with ourselves, with God, with creation, and with each other. The monastics knew this. Jesus knew this. And we can learn it too.

You might be lonely. But you’re not alone.

Right now, in this breath, the Spirit is near. The silence isn’t empty. It’s full. And the God who dwells in lonely, quiet places also dwells in you. You’re seen. You’re held. You’re precious. You’re loved. And even here, even now, you are being gently invited home—into God’s loving care and presence.

Easter 15

 What would it have been like to watch the agony of Jesus being tortured and executed?  Imagine the pain and brutality He experienced, all to be the sacrificial lamb promised throughout the Scriptures. I grumble and complain about the most petty and trivial, compared to our Lord. His love, His life, His sacrifice to be one of us, humbles us to be silent and worship Him. In light of the cross, Spurgeon once said, “If you aren’t hunble, you should be!”

“ Never for a moment forget that the most precious truth of all time and eternity is that there is a Redeemer.” - Diane Langberg

“The man who articulates the movements of his inner life, who can give names to his varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of himself, but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. He is able to create space for Him who heart is greater than his, whose eyes see more than his, and whose hands can heal more than his.” - Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

“I want more fear and trembling in my life as I consider the incomprehensible power that works within me (Philippians 2:13). I want for the mystery of “Christ in you” to really strike me as “the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27) and not just a bit of mysticism thrown into a faith that functions just fine without it. So I guess I should make sure I’m not settling for a mere rescue.

Life is profoundly holy if we let it be. So let’s let it be.” - Jon Hyatt

Gentle and Lowly

 Jesus is not trigger-happy. Not harsh, reactionary, easily exasperated. He is the most understanding person in the universe. The posture most natural to him is not a pointed finger but open arms. (19)

[The] high and holy Christ does not cringe at reaching out and touching dirty sinners and numbed sufferers. Such embrace is precisely what he loves to do. He cannot bear to hold back. We naturally think of Jesus touching us the way a little boy reaches out to touch a slug for the first time—face screwed up, cautiously extending an arm, giving a yelp of disgust upon contact, and instantly withdrawing. . . . This is why we need a Bible. Our natural intuition can only give us a God like us. (24)

As we go down into pain and anguish, we are descending ever deeper into Christ’s very heart, not away from it. Look to Christ. He deals gently with you. It’s the only way he knows how to be. He is the high priest to end all high priests. As long as you fix your attention on your sin, you will fail to see how you can be safe. But as long as you look to this high priest, you will fail to see how you can be in danger. Looking inside ourselves, we can anticipate only harshness from heaven. Looking out to Christ, we can anticipate only gentleness. (57)

We cannot present a reason for Christ to finally close off his heart to his own sheep. No such reason exists. Every human friend has a limit. If we offend enough, if a relationship gets damaged enough, if we betray enough times, we are cast out. The walls go up. With Christ, our sins and weaknesses are the very resumé items that qualify us to approach him. Nothing but coming to him is required—first at conversion and a thousand times thereafter until we are with him upon death. (64)

For those united to him, the heart of Jesus is not a rental; it is your new permanent residence. You are not a tenant; you are a child. His heart is not a ticking time bomb; his heart is the green pastures and still waters of endless reassurances of his presence and comfort, whatever our present spiritual accomplishments. It is who he is. (66)

Intercession is the constant hitting “refresh” of our justification in the court of heaven. . . . The Son’s intercession does not reflect the coolness of the Father but the sheer warmth of the Son. Christ does not intercede because the Father’s heart is tepid toward us but because the Son’s heart is so full toward us. But the Father’s own deepest delight is to say yes to the Son’s pleading on our behalf. (80)

In Jesus Christ, we are given a friend who will always enjoy rather than refuse our presence. This is a companion whose embrace of us does not strengthen or weaken depending on how clean or unclean, how attractive or revolting, how faithful or fickle, we presently are. The friendliness of his heart for us subjectively is as fixed and stable as is the declaration of his justification of us objectively. (115)

Left to our own natural intuitions about God, we will conclude that mercy is his strange work and judgment his natural work. Rewiring our vision of God as we study the Scripture, we see, helped by the great teachers of the past, that judgment is his strange work and mercy his natural work. He does afflict and grieve the children of men. But not from his heart. (144)

Not once are we told that God is “provoked to love” or “provoked to mercy.” His anger requires provocation; his mercy is pent up, ready to gush forth. We tend to think: divine anger is pent up, spring-loaded; divine mercy is slow to build. It’s just the opposite. Divine mercy is ready to burst forth at the slightest prick. (For fallen humans, we learn in the New Testament, this is reversed. We are to provoke one another to love, according to Hebrews 10:24. Yahweh needs no provoking to love, only to anger. We need no provoking to anger, only to love. Once again, the Bible is one long attempt to deconstruct our natural vision of who God actually is.) (148–49)

The Christian life, from one angle, is the long journey of letting our natural assumption about who God is, over many decades, fall away, being slowly replaced with God’s own insistence on who he is. . . . The fall in Genesis 3 not only sent us into condemnation and exile. The fall also entrenched in our minds dark thoughts of God, thoughts that are only dug out over multiple exposures to the gospel over many years. Perhaps Satan’s greatest victory in your life today is not the sin in which you regularly indulge but the dark thoughts of God’s heart that cause you to go there in the first place and keep you cool toward him in the wake of it. (151–52)

Our naturally decaffeinated views of God’s heart might feel right because we’re being stern with ourselves, not letting ourselves off the hook too easily. Such sternness feels appropriately morally serious. But this deflecting of God’s yearning heart does not reflect Scripture’s testimony about how God feels toward his own. God is of course morally serious, far more than we are. But the Bible takes us by the hand and leads us out from under the feeling that his heart for us wavers according to our loveliness. God’s heart confounds our intuitions of who he is. (166–67)

On the cross, we see what God did to satisfy his yearning for us. He went that far. He went all the way. The blushing effusiveness of heaven’s bowels funneled down into the crucifixion of Christ. Repent of your small thoughts of God’s heart. Repent and let him love you. (170)

Nowhere else in the Bible is God described as rich in anything. The only thing he is called rich in is: mercy. What does this mean? It means that God is something other than what we naturally believe him to be. It means the Christian life is a lifelong shedding of tepid thoughts of the goodness of God. In his justice, God is exacting; in his mercy, God is overflowing. (172)

The evidence of Christ’s mercy toward you is not your life. The evidence of his mercy toward you is his—mistreated, misunderstood, betrayed, abandoned. Eternally. In your place. If God sent his own Son to walk through the valley of condemnation, rejection, and hell, you can trust him as you walk through your own valleys on your way to heaven. (179)

That God is rich in mercy means that your regions of deepest shame and regret are not hotels through which divine mercy passes but homes in which divine mercy abides. It means the things about you that make you cringe most, make him hug hardest. It means his mercy is not calculating and cautious, like ours. It is unrestrained, flood-like, sweeping, magnanimous. It means our haunting shame is not a problem for him, but the very thing he loves most to work with. It means our sins do not cause his love to take a hit. Our sins cause his love to surge forward all the more. It means on that day when we stand before him, quietly, unhurriedly, we will weep with relief, shocked at how impoverished a view of his mercy-rich heart we had. (179–80)

There are two ways to live the Christian life. You can live it either for the heart of Christ or from the heart of Christ. You can live for the smile of God or from it. For a new identity as a son or daughter of God or from it. For your union with Christ or from it. The battle of the Christian life is to bring your own heart into alignment with Christ’s, that is, getting up each morning and replacing your natural orphan mind-set with a mind-set of full and free adoption into the family of God through the work of Christ your older brother, who loved you and gave himself for you out of the overflowing fullness of his gracious heart. (181)

There is an entire psychological substructure that, due to the fall, is a near-constant manufacturing of relational leveraging, fear-stuffing, nervousness, score-keeping, neurotic-controlling, anxiety-festering silliness that is not something we say or even think so much as something we exhale. You can smell it on people, though some of us are good at hiding it. And if you trace this fountain of scurrying haste, in all its various manifestations, down to the root, you don’t find childhood difficulties or a Myers-Briggs diagnosis or Freudian impulses. You find gospel deficit. You find lack of felt awareness of Christ’s heart. All the worry and dysfunction and resentment are the natural fruit of living in a mental universe of law. The felt love of Christ really is what brings rest, wholeness, flourishing, shalom—that existential calm that for brief, gospel-sane moments settles over you and lets you step in out of the storm of of-works-ness. You see for a moment that in Christ you truly are invincible. The verdict really is in; nothing can touch you. He has made you his own and will never cast you out. (185–86)

God didn’t meet us halfway. He refused to hold back, cautious, assessing our worth. That is not his heart. He and his Son took the initiative. On terms of grace and grace alone. In defiance of what we deserved. When we, despite our smiles and civility, were running from God as fast as we could, building our own kingdoms and loving our own glory, lapping up the fraudulent pleasures of the world, repulsed by the beauty of God and shutting up our ears at his calls to come home—it was then, in the hollowed-out horror of that revolting existence, that the prince of heaven bade his adoring angels farewell. It was then that he put himself into the murderous hands of these very rebels in a divine strategy planned from eternity past to rinse muddy sinners clean and hug them into his own heart despite their squirmy attempt to get free and scrub themselves clean on their own. (191)

God made the world so that his Son’s heart had an outlet. We don’t use a word like benevolence much today; it means a disposition to be kind and good, a crouched coil of compassion ready to spring. Picture a dammed-up river, pent up, engorged, ready to burst forth—that is the kindness in the heart of Christ. He is infinitely benevolent, and human history is his opportunity to “open and pour forth all that immense fountain of condescension, love, and grace.” The creation of the world, and the ruinous fall into sin that called for a re-creative work, un-dammed the heart of Christ. And Christ’s heart flood is how God’s glory surges forth further and brighter than it ever could otherwise. (207)

“If you’re going to read just one book on Christian living and how the gospel can be applied in your life, let this be your book.”—Elisa dos Santos, Amazon reviewer.

In this book, seasoned church planter Jeff Vanderstelt argues that you need to become “gospel fluent”—to think about your life through the truth of the gospel and rehearse it to yourself and others.

We’re delighted to offer the Gospel Fluency: Speaking the Truths of Jesus into the Everyday Stuff of Life ebook (Crossway) to you for FREE today. Click this link to get instant access to a resource that will help you apply the gospel more confidently to every area of your life.

Easter 14

 Jesus suffered abuse and rejection to the point of taking on the sin and disgust of all of us. He was despised and rejected as worthless. How would you or I endure such pain?  His very identity was violated. Every time we feel that we do not belong, or that we yearn for love and acceptance are experiences that we are made for more. Our true home is with Him as Hks beloved. 

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. Let me know you as my loving brother who holds nothing—not even my worst sins—against me, but who wants to touch me in a gentle embrace. Take away my many fears, suspicions, and doubts by which I prevent you from being my Lord, and give me the courage and freedom to appear naked and vulnerable in the light of your presence, confident in your unfathomable mercy, and willing to listen to you at all times and places. Amen.” - Excerpt, Spiritual Direction by Henri J. M. Nouwen

“Listening to that voice with great inner attentiveness, I hear at my center words that say: “I have called you by name, from the very beginning. You are mine and I am yours. You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover, and your spouse. Yes, even your child. Wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.” - Excerpt, Spiritual Direction by Henri J. M. Nouwen

And I wake up in the night and feel the dark

It's so hot inside my soul

I swear there must be blisters on my heart

So hold me Jesus, 'cause I'm shaking like a leaf

You have been King of my glory

Won't You be my Prince of Peace

- Rich Mullins

Easter 13

 What is your view of serving those who are of lesser status than you?  What if you and I are with someone suffering leprosy, or with the one who is accused of a terrible crime?  Jesus confronts my ‘uppity’ attitude over and over. He openly talked with those with the worst reputation and complimented the Samaritan in the parable.  He complimented humility far above self promotion and grand standing. Jesus demonstrated and modeled humility by washing dirty feet. I want to be approachable, not above talking to the marginalized, or the least and the last on everyone’s list. May Hod empower me to change. 

Christ Has No Body But Yours - St. Teresa of Ávila (attributed by Henri Nouwen)

“Christ has no body but yours, 

No hands, no feet on earth but yours, 

Yours are the eyes with which God looks Compassion on this world, 

Yours are the feet with which God walks to do good, 

Yours are the hands, with which God blesses all the world. 

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, 

Yours are the eyes, you are His body. 

Christ has no body now but yours, 

No hands, no feet on earth but yours, 

Yours are the eyes with which God looks compassion on this world. 

Christ has no body now on earth but yours. Amen.” 

• Henri Nouwen

"We are commanded to live a life of submission because Jesus lived a life of submission, not because we are in a particular place or station in life. Self-denial is a posture fitting for all those who follow the crucified Lord. Everywhere in the world, the one and only compelling reason for submission is the example of Jesus." - Richard J. Foster, The Celebration of Discipline

Easter 12

 How much love does our Triune God possess?  I often think I’m so smart in wanting to know answers to unanswerable questions. The pondering begins with ‘why’?  But reading Isaiah 53 is a profound reflection that God is beyond our understanding, yet He has Huber us the wisdom and grace we need to trust Him. We aren’t taught much about the mystery of letting God handle our unanswerable questions. 

“Faith is in the middle of adversity, re-aiming the affections of our heart on a superior reality.

Denial and denying the existence of problems is flat out unbelief. How do we get cultured into that?

We read in the scriptures that all of our human experiences can, under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, through an open heart, lead us to a place of deeper faith. I believe that with my whole heart, even our deepest grief. But what happens when you can't feel God's presence in your suffering? How do you survive the long stretches where you have felt like he was silent or distant?” - From Win Today podcast #433: The Art of Lament: Aubrey Sampson on Our Weird Pressure to Perform for God, and Why We Have Yet to Be Formed by Mystery in Loss, Mar 26, 2025

“A life deeply rooted in Scripture is absolutely essential for a healthy relationship to God, self, others, and the world at large. Equally essential, though, is a life deeply rooted in the Holy Spirit, who leads by experience and functions in partnership, not competition, with the explanatory Holy Bible.”- Excerpt, The Familiar Stranger by Tyler Staton

Easter 11

 How much of our faith today rests on our comforts?  How much of our church going experience relies on our consumer mentality - what can I get out if this?  But when the dark nights, the worst of life happens, when grief and loss gut our normalcy, where is our faith?  Today’s study and Scripture point to our Savior who experienced the worst that our world could throw at Him. He knows exactly that our world is lacking a long list of corrections. He came to redeem and reconcile and we wait for our full redemption and reconciliation. It will happen but we wait. We move forward with His presence in us as the deposit of what is to come. 

“So, we need not fear the dark. It’s not the absence of God but the refining of our sight. It’s not death but gestation. The Western soul may be aching and disoriented, but hasn’t been abandoned. It’s being gently led into mystery.

The question is: How do we remain faithful in the dark? How do we listen when there’s no sound? How do we trust when the path disappears?

Faithfulness in the night means letting go of what no longer gives life, practicing unseen acts of love, turning toward God even when God feels absent, and waiting with hope, even when there’s no guarantee of dawn.” - Graham Joseph Hill

“Oh, that you would come and begin simply to listen to His Word and to ask only the one question: Does He really mean that I should abide in Him? The answer His Word gives is so simple and so sure: By His almighty grace you now are in Him; that same almighty grace will indeed enable you to abide in Him. By faith you became partakers of the initial grace; by that same faith you can enjoy the continuous grace of abiding in Him.” - Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ: The Joy of Being in God's Presence

Easter 10

 Have you ever been scared beyond belief?  Afraid that all that you had hoped for was in ruins?  Our pastor used to say that you are either coming out of a crisis, in one, or about to have one. I don’t think that is a cynical statement but a realistic one. Whatever we have faced or will face, Jesus knows every detail and our Triune Hod is right beside us. I’m praying that I will be much stronger, much more present with His presence, for my next traumatic situation. I want to train my heart and mind to take refuge in Him, not me or my circumstances. 

“The Kingdom is where everything is turned upside down. Those who are marginal, those considered not respectable, are suddenly proclaimed as the people who are called to the Kingdom. The part of us that is weak, broken, or poor suddenly becomes the place where something new can begin. Jesus says, “Be in touch with your brokenness. Be in touch with your sinfulness. Turn to God because the Kingdom is close at hand. If you are ready to listen from your brokenness then something new can come forth in you.” - Henri Nouwen 

“It is only into the thirst of an empty soul that the streams of living waters flow. Ever thirsting is the secret of never thirsting.” - Andrew Murray, Abide in Christ

Fatherless World

 Hero Worship Is the Symptom of an Orphaned Generation

A fatherless world makes idols out of men.

And the weaker the man, the more he worships them.

Hero worship is counterfeit masculinity.

It’s a mask for helplessness. A cloak for insecurity.

It’s what boys do when they’ve never seen true fatherhood in action.

Men of God don’t bow to other men.

They honor. They respect. But they don’t worship.

Because they know the only Hero worth imitating died on a cross.

Let a woman see you hero-worship another man?

You’ve just told her: “I’m not enough.”

You’ve shown her weakness in disguise.

There is only one model: Christ.

And He doesn’t ask for fanboys.

He demands followers.

Never forget that.

Walk like you’ve been adopted by the King.

Eyes up. Chin firm. Spine unshaken.

Easter 9

 How have you viewed the promise of the Holy Spirit?  I’m certain that I haven’t encountered enough teaching from the Bible even though I’ve encountered multiple viewpoints. I’m trying to learn more, especially from respected authors, current and classic. His presence is with me, in me, protecting me, providing the mercy and grace needed each day. The Spirit points to Jesus, and in essence is Jesus in me. The mystery of His presence, invisible, untouchable, can only be experienced by following the Way of Jesus.

“The Creator who breathed life into dust to create people filled with his Spirit is also the Re-Creator who breathes life into the lifeless, refilling people with his Spirit.” - Excerpt, The Familiar Stranger by Tyler Staton

“The Holy Spirit is not courage, or energy, or the personification of all good qualities, like Jack Frost is the personification of cold weather and Santa Claus the personification of wanting to give someone a tie. The Holy Spirit is not a personification of anything, but the Holy Spirit is a person just the same as you are a person. He has all the qualities of a person. The Holy Spirit has substance but not material substance. He has individuality. He is one being and not another. He has will and He has intelligence and He has feeling and He has knowledge, sympathy, and the ability to love and see and think and hear and speak and desire and grieve and rejoice. And Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of Me” (John 15:26” - A.W. Tozer

When God Became Man

 Many men have tried to become God.

Only one God became man.

Not to conquer.

But to serve.

Not to be worshiped.

But to bleed.

The Pharaohs built empires.

Caesars claimed divinity.

Dictators demanded worship.

But only Jesus Christ—

“the Word made flesh”—

humbled Himself to be rejected by the world He made.

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

(John 1:10-11, KJV)

He did not cling to His throne.

He descended.

Put on flesh.

Walked among traitors.

Died for them.

“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant…”

(Philippians 2:6-7, KJV)

That’s not weakness.

That’s the highest authority wrapped in humility.

And one day?

“At the name of Jesus every knee should bow… and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

(Philippians 2:10-11, KJV)

Don’t bow later.

Bow now.

Before the God who became a man—

So you could become a son.