If you’ve been told you’re too much or not enough, if you’ve been carrying fear, shame, exhaustion, or rage, hear this good news. The Lord stands beside you.
And yet a door to another world still stands open to every moment. A door to a better way. Which is to see your life, not as an achievement of your savvy and your will, but as a gift. A gift from a loving God who doesn’t trick us into faithfulness or force us into submission, because that’s not
And so this little moment of counsel from twenty-five-some-odd centuries ago helps me learn how to do that. What to do when I find myself waking up in a strange place that I don’t recognize and can only mutter: I don’t understand this world, I don’t want this, I don’t know what to do with all this. “Build houses
What would it take for you to give up, at least a little, the credit taking game and step a little more fully into a deeper faith in your belovedness by God?
What is real life? It’s not one thing. It’s not just suffering. It’s not just joy. It’s not just fulfillment. It’s all of it, held together by love.
Especially when we can’t find it, when we insist that it is still true, that there is a balm in Gilead, we are making a bold and audacious proclamation: Proclaiming that all the while there is still beauty and kindness, that repair is just as real as destruction.
Imagine her thankfulness when she sees that there’s someone who loves her enough to sacrifice everything to go find her and bring her home.
Jesus came to love us beyond life and to show us how to love more. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Jesus will not be a cover story for hate, not for mine or yours or anyone’s.
One thing a little time away has made clear to this sinner is that I need you if the old patterns are to be broken in me. I need a community of people trying to listen to Jesus and to live by the light of his love.
“I invite you to see as Jesus sees. Because when you do, when you become the eyes and hands and feet of Jesus, I promise you that in that seeing, the seeing of others, you will see Jesus. And that sight will reorient your entire life.”