The Neighborhood’s founding Pastor, Joe Liles, will be taking a four-month sabbatical over the summer of this year. I’ll be preaching, pastoring, and managing communications for the church during that time, and I’m already phasing into it so the transition is as smooth as possible.

Just a few months after we moved to Bentonville in the summer of 2011 so we could start planting Grace Hills Church, Joe and Jess Liles moved into a house just down our street to begin planting The Neighborhood Church.

We had coffee and discovered some common deeply-held convictions about why the world still needs more (healthy) churches, not less.

If you think two guys planting churches with somewhat similar approaches in the same town at the same time could create a sense of tension or cooperation, you’d be mistaken. I’ve never felt anything but “we’re in this together” from Joe. That’s what happens when leaders set aside ego to do “kingdom” work together rather than guarding and protecting our own little institutional corners of it.

If you know Pastor Joe, you know him as one of the most extroverted human beings on earth. One Sunday, when our church was meeting and Joe’s wasn’t, he and Jess attended our services, where Joe immediately became one of our greeters, thanking everybody for being there and encouraging them to come back again the next week.

When I stepped down as Pastor at Grace Hills in April of 2021, Joe reached out. We’ve met regularly over the last five years. Joe is one of several voices who have helped me heal from burnout and stay connected to the work of local churches.

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I’m excited about this because I’m still hanging onto hope that the church, as a localized gathering of people who follow the risen King Jesus, can change in healthy ways to meet the moment we are in with love, truth, and compassion.

I love people. Much of the communications work I do has be behind a laptop for hours every day. I may be an introvert, but one of the maxims I’ve learned to repeat is that when I am moving toward people rather than away from them, I know I’m on a healthy emotional track.

I believe that the next ten to twenty years are going to require church leaders to adapt like never before.

We must be willing to listen, rather than simply preaching and producing more content.

We must create spaces in which people with hard questions about faith, life, and relationships can show up with their skepticism and be welcomed.

And we must model real love for the world, embodying and becoming the very essence of God’s love to all of our neighbors.

I’m thankful to get to fill a new role and to keep cultivating a richer faith life, both in myself and in others.

On the wall of our dining room hangs a decorative banner with a quote from Ian MacLaren that reminds us:

BE KIND,
FOR EVERYONE
YOU MEET
IS FIGHTING
A HARD
BATTLE

Almost everyone I talk to is feeling the heaviness of the world right now. We’re all carrying the weight of the week’s headlines, the plight of those whose suffering is on display, and the tension of the cultural division we’re experiencing.

It’s just hard.
Especially right now.

But we get through, right? If you’re reading this, you made it to another day. We manage, somehow, to keep going.

Sam Fischer’s 2023 hit, Carry It Well, captures how so many of us are feeling these days…

Just because I carry it well
doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy,
and I don’t need some help
I know I keep it locked down,
but all I want now
Is somebody who can tell me
how it’s gonna turn out
‘Cause I thought I’d be
doing better by now

I thought I’d be doing better by now

But don’t I carry it well?

It’s understandable if you feel heavy right now.

Our circumstances are not new. We get to look back in time to the examples of our predecessors in the faith.

The world has always had struggles. If we rewind twenty centuries, we find Jesus and his followers trying to navigate life under Roman imperial rule. And this is where the early churches fascinate me.

Early churches popped up in homes along ancient trade routes in one community after another from Jerusalem to Rome before the closing of the Book of Acts. And in their turbulent surroundings, they managed to set aside their own need for power, wealth, and comfort in order to care for one another, help the poor, welcome the stranger, and grow in their faith.

Even when facing martyrdom, they loved their enemies, forgave their persecutors, and stood valiantly alongside all who were otherwise cast aside by the rest of society.

How’d they do it?

Three words: With. One. Another.

There is tremendous power in the realization that we need each other.

One of my favorite books from the last few years is Terry Real’s Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship. Terry addresses our cultural conundrum by digging into the physiology we all share:

Our nervous systems were never designed to self-regulate. We all filter our sense of stability and well-being through our connection to others. And yet the culture of individualism saturates our society. The idea of a freestanding rugged individualist is a cultural story having little to do with the truth.

Terry further dives into the science of why we need each other on a physical and biological level. When two stressed out people meet each other - even as strangers - their brains relax slightly.

The emotional load sharing and efficiency of the “group mind” leaves each individual’s prefrontal cortex with a lot less work to do than it would have on its own.

In other words…

God created you for connection and community rather than isolation. The world is heavy, but we get to do a team lift and carry it all together rather than separately.

In the early accounts of the church, we see Jesus’ followers huddling up together to share their fears and to carry each other’s burdens. The same happened in Black churches across the Jim Crow south and Bonhoeffer’s communities gathering secretly under the shadow of Hitler and the Nazis.

What is happening in Minneapolis-St. Paul right now offers an important lesson for all of us. The killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by ICE agents didn’t occur in a community completely ambushed by national tragedy. Just six years ago, George Floyd was murdered in the same town as Good and Pretti, sparking nationwide protests.

That period of social unrest in the Twin Cities instigated a kind of unified effort by local churches and organizations to build neighborhood networks that could spring into action.

Bishop Greg Loya, who leads The Episcopal Church in Minnesota, was recently interviewed by Bishop Rob Wright on his podcast For People and said this about the situation on the ground:

“On the one hand, we’re seeing a campaign of cruelty and intimidation and violence. On the other hand, we’re seeing the faith community mobilizing for love.”

I can’t carry it all.

You can’t carry it all.

But WE can carry it together, especially as followers of the One who took on the weight of all the world’s sin and brokenness and offered his life on the cross, proving that the Way of Love trumps political power and financial prosperity.

Yes, we must open our eyes, but we don’t have to see everything, everywhere, all at once. Our exposure to an avalanche of bad news, packaged for endless scrolling, is a relatively new innovation.

Yes, we must allow our hearts to break and to remain softened to the pain people are experiencing, but we can’t save everyone in the world from suffering.

Yes, we must get off the porch and into the work, but we can’t fix all that is broken in our own effort alone. It takes community, commitment, and time.

Caring about people, especially large numbers of people you can’t directly help, leaves us feeling alone and helpless, but here’s the good news:

You’re not the only one.

You don’t have to carry it all by yourself. We can lean into community and find strength in each other.

Angie and I recently attended a gathering hosted by White Men for Racial Justice (I highly recommend their Foundations course for a primer on the roots of systemic racism). The room was packed with friends and neighbors in Northwest Arkansas who were showing up to declare a readiness to act.

I walked out of the building that night feeling something quite powerful - solidarity. We may not be able to fix all of the inequalities we still see operating around us, but together, we can make a bigger dent. Together, we can do more.

This is one of the reasons I can’t give up on the church as an institution for hope and change in the world. While I am continually frustrated by the hijacking of the Christian message through the rise of Christian nationalism, I also see churches stepping up.

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned about myself in the last few years is this:

When I isolate and lean away from people, I struggle. But when I engage and lean into community with others, I find healing.

I’m convinced that’s true for all of us. Because we’re human. Because we’re all made in the image of an eternally relational God.

It’s hard. Healthy relationships require intentionality and discipline. Movements require leadership. Churches require shepherding. And none of it is easy.

How do you start?

Choose one person you know and encourage them with a text, phone call, or a coffee meetup.

Choose an issue that breaks your heart and learn about it, engage with it, and support those who are leading the way in that cause.

Show up in places of worship and service with a willingness to share your life with others in meaningful ways.

Create art, or music, or poetry, or write your heart out to inspire someone else, knowing that everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

When we lean into community and offer mutual sharpening and encouragement, the load gets a little lighter for each of us.

You don’t have to carry it all.
We can all carry it together.

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If you haven’t seen James Gunn’s 2025 version of Superman, you simply must.

If you have seen it, you know about “the beach scene.” It’s one of my favorite of Gunn’s musical action edits (it’s right up there with Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. III fight scene featuring the Beastie Boys’ song, Brooklyn).

Mr. Terrific is calm and focused as he causes chaos and mayhem on the beach while taking out every single one of Lex Luthor’s goons. Do they get to Superman? You’ll have to watch and find out.

When you do see it, you’ll understand this particular look on Lois Lane’s (Rachel Brosnahan) face as she safely watches the entire scenario unfold…

The look on Lois’ face is how some of us are watching history unfold right now. It’s a mess out there. It feels as though we’ve experienced a year’s worth of global crises so far in 2026, and as of this writing, we’re only two weeks in!

Perhaps the coolest part of the Mr. Terrific - Lois Lane beach scene is the song playing through it. It’s entitled 5 Years’ Time, written by Charlie Fink and performed by his British indie group Noah and the Whale, which broke up back in 2015.

The song, which carries us through the chaos on the beach, is… whimsical. The first stanza of the song presents a scene that could potentially unfold five years into the future:

Oh well, in five years time we could be walking round a zoo
With the sun shining down over me and you
And there’ll be love in the bodies of the elephants, too
I’ll put my hand over your eyes but you’ll peek through

Sounds fun, right? But a later stanza offers a different prediction:

Oh, in five years time I might not know you
In five years time we might not speak
Oh, in five years time we might not get along
In five years time you might just prove me wrong

In other words, a LOT can change in five years.

Five years ago, my life looked very different. I was the Senior Pastor of the church Angie and I had planted in 2011, also serving pastors globally through Saddleback Church.

By April of 2021, I’d burned out. I wrote briefly about it in my resignation letter as I stepped away from vocational pastoral leadership in the church we’d poured ten years of our lives into.

I’ve described the condition of my soul during and after that transition with words like discouraged, disenchanted, and disillusioned. There were a lot of dark, lonely days spent battling depression while trying to find my footing again.

Aaron Niequist, in his book, The Eternal Current: How a Practice-Based Faith Can Save Us from Drowning, wrote about his rather similar experience in this way:

Most often, the despair came out sideways. My disillusionment with faith spread to a disillusionment with just about everything and everyone else. Rather than grappling with the terror of feeling the ground disintegrating beneath my feet, I mostly just poked holes in everything else. Everyone was stupid. Everyone was fake. Everything was a lie. This was essentially a matter of self-protection. If I could remain focused on how everyone was wrong, then I wouldn’t have to wrestle with the terrifying reality of my own wrongness. But in quiet moments, the unwelcome cries of my disintegrating faith sneaked through my cynic’s armor, and in those undefended moments, I felt truly lost.

As of this writing, it’s been close to five years since that transitional moment, and a lot of things haven’t changed. But internally, everything is different.

Having walked through the dark tunnels of this deconstruction-reconstruction journey, I’ve learned by actual experience that God doesn’t give up on us. He accompanies us even in the moments we couldn’t possibly be convinced that he cares.

What I’ve discovered is a faith that is more contemplative, welcomes mystery, and wrestles with big questions courageously. And as Richard Rohr declares,

We need to reconstruct, and not just continue to deconstruct. Then you will see angels everywhere.

If you’re reading this and you’re walking through the valley of disillusionment in which you can’t seem to make it all make sense, keep walking. Keep going.

It will be in your release of the need to fully comprehend and control your world that you will discover freedom.

Jesus taught this. Who really “gets” (sees) what the kingdom of heaven is all about? The poor in spirit. Who is comforted? Those who mourn. Who inherits the earth? The meek.

In the shadow of the valley of death itself - even what feels like the death of our faith as we once knew it - it is Jesus that ultimately gets us through. He’s among the sick and sinful and never gives up on any of us.

Brian Zahnd echoes this thought in another excellent book for those walking through a similar journey, When Everything’s on Fire: Faith Forged from the Ashes:

A dark night of the soul does not have to be the end of a faith journey but can be the beginning of a new journey that leads deeper into the mystery of God.

A lot can change in five years’ time. Here’s my challenge to you as you try to peer ahead beyond the next curve in life’s journey…

Be patient.

Be patient with yourself. You’ve gone through some stuff. You’ve come this far. You’re still here. Keep wrestling. Keep seeking. Commit to the long journey and leave room for God’s Spirit to show you things you couldn’t possibly understand back when you thought you had all the answers.

Be patient with others, too. Everybody is a work in progress. Everybody is a little stressed out. No matter how much you want to isolate from others, heathy community and friendship will be the channel through which you will experience real healing.

You and I don’t get the benefit of knowing what life will look like five years from now. But we do have the power to steer our own minds and hearts in the direction of love, grace, and mercy instead of bitterness and isolation.

They arrive
not with the swiftness
of storms
or the perthlunk-ity
of hail
or the gusto
of the cyclone,
but with hearts
fearing nothing
impressing no one
attuned to their destination
and diving headlong
into their purpose.

Their words
are whispers
and clicks
and taps
and drips,
and much pitter patter
but nothing’s the matter.

They boast
by cascading
and singing in harmony
the tune of their own crashing.

The violent raindrops
move the earth,
wreck the beauty,
drown the living.
They take
and take
and take.

But the Gentler Ones
are the generous sort
sharing, nourishing,
washing, caring,
brushing aside
the soot and sin.

I wonder if the gentler ones know
of the gratitude
of all the living things?
Or if they, like we,
wonder if it matters
whether or not
they rise or fall at all.

Keep falling,
and dripping,
and awakening
the dry and dusty soil,
oh Gentler Ones.

Keep making
just the right
difference.

Most of us, we like to think
we've nailed life down
and mapped its rhythms
and still we call it,
a roller coaster.

Most of us, though,
aren't feeling the thrills
or the violent hills
but rather just a train,
just on tracks.

And yet still the ride
can be so
wild.

What does it actually look like to be fully committed to God? A fully devoted disciple of Christ? To be “all in”?

I’ve had to honestly admit that my answer to this question was different just a couple of years ago when I was serving as Lead Pastor of a local church because I needed the definition to include certain commitments to the local church as an institution. Attending regularly, giving, and volunteering in some area of ministry would all be part of the description I would offer for a fully committed follower of Jesus.

And those aren’t bad things. Certainly, many fully committed disciples of Jesus attend church regularly, give financially, and volunteer in various programs and ministries.

I also would have included several personal disciplines, especially Bible reading and prayer. Throw in fasting and meditation, and you’ll show your commitment.

Those are all good things. In fact, without them, we reduce God's capacity to work in our lives. We should also include sharing our faith and doing good works in our community.

But… I’ve often made the mistake that I have warned others about, which is…

Don’t make activity the measure of commitment.

If your idea of a growing, mature disciple is one who does all the good things and doesn’t do the bad things, you may be missing out on something that lies beyond the activities we associate with an active faith. And what lies further down the road than the activities and disciplines of the Christian life?

True spiritual freedom.

Jesus invited people out of oppressive religion and into the “unforced rhythms of grace” (from The Message’s masterful paraphrase of Matthew 11:28-30). I've been struck by the sentiment Paul conveys to his protegé, Timothy…

God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline… I know the one in whom I have put my trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that day what I have entrusted to him.

2 Timothy 1:7, 12 NRSV

Paul had tremendous confidence that, in light of his experience of God’s goodness, love, and grace, he could fully commit everything to God and God would be faithful and trustworthy with it all.

(You can read my message notes from that passage in this post entitled The God Who Has Proven Worthy of Full, Total, All-In Commitment.)

I think we would be better off if we shifted from seeing full commitment to God as being highly active to seeing it as being fully yielded.

By yielded I mean open. Accessible. Available. Transparent. Willing. Listening. Etc.

We often tell people that Christianity isn’t about having the right religion but rather about having a relationship with God. How many of your relationships are defined by a list of activities you’ve committed to complete? Checking all the boxes won’t necessarily make your relationship stronger. Relationships are matters of the heart.

Do fully committed followers of Jesus go to church a lot, give a lot of money, volunteer, pray a lot, etc? Often, yes, but the activity itself isn’t the relationship. The activity is merely the conduit, opening the capacity for God to show himself to us and lead us closer to his heart.

More and more each day, fully committed disciples discover what it is to be spiritually free. To walk in the unforced rhythms of grace and loosen their attachments to anything that prevents them from a richer experience of God’s presence.

I wouldn’t advise anyone to do less of any particular spiritual discipline unless the discipline has come to be seen as an end rather than the means through which we experience a greater depth of God’s grace and love.

In other words, rather than saying that the way to get closer to God is to pray, go to church, etc., we should instead say that the way to be closer to God is to be more fully open to him, which often happens when we’re praying, attending church, etc.

Sometimes I need the reminder that God is HERE for an ever-deepening relationship with each one of us.

By the way, if you want to read further in this area, I’d highly recommend these three books:

• Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God

• Skey Jethani’s With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God

• Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

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For me, it’s when I walk through a doorway.

That’s when I tend to stop in my tracks and ask that deeply reflective, soul-searching question…

“What did I come into this room to do?”

This is called the “boundary effect” or “doorway effect,” and researchers think it’s related to our mind’s filing system. Crossing a physical boundary triggers our brains to believe something has now been done and can be crossed off our to-do list.

Personally, I think I fall prey to the boundary effect in bigger ways in my life than remembering I was looking for scissors.

For me, the major events of 2020 were like walking through a series of doorways with no time to assess our changed environment between them. The changes (and losses) just kept coming.

And on the other side of each door we stepped through, I looked back with a growing disillusionment with my own set of assumptions about the world.

In my personal life, stepping away from the church we’d spent a decade planting was perhaps one of the biggest doors I’ve ever walked through.

On the other side of this door, life reminded me of the scene in Beetlejuice in which Adam and Barbara learn the hard way about being confined to their home. Stepping across the threshold in an attempt to leave dumped them into a scary desert where a giant worm was trying to eat them, and time passed more quickly.

Our Pastor, in her Easter Sunday sermon, talked about the “mini-deaths” we experience in life, and my mind immediately recalled the pain of that first year of post-vocational ministry life.

The crisis of identity I went through in that year was intense, and I was trying to navigate it all while burned out and depleted mentally and emotionally.

In some of my darker moments when the clouds of doubt have swirled, I’ve fixated on finding proof that would either turn my faith into certainty, or at least disprove my beliefs so I could stop trying to hang onto faith.

That difficult season taught me an important lesson: Faith and certainty aren’t the same thing. In fact, they aren’t on the same end of the spectrum of belief at all - they’re polar opposites. Certainty makes faith irrelevant.

At some point during those wilderness wanderings, I made a simple decision to keep following Jesus, despite my doubts and questions.

I don’t have all the answers today, and I try to conclude my opinions with the disclaimer, “but I could be wrong.” I’m not certain about much, but I’m learning to welcome and even love the mysterious nature and ways of God.

I can tell you from my own painful experience that you usually won’t find Jesus by searching for proof of him. That is, you don’t get to know him personally by analyzing him academically. You’ll wind up knowing more about Jesus than you did before, but you can only get to know Jesus by seeking him, and seeking him on his terms.

The question is, how will I know I’ve encountered Jesus?

On the eve of his departure from this life, Pope Francis’ Easter 2025 Homily was delivered by Cardinal Angelo Comastri. In his message was this reminder:

We must look for him without ceasing. Because if he has risen from the dead, then he is present everywhere, he dwells among us, he hides himself and reveals himself even today in the sisters and brothers we meet along the way, in the most ordinary and unpredictable situations of our lives. He is alive and is with us always, shedding the tears of those who suffer and adding to the beauty of life through the small acts of love carried out by each of us.

I’ve found deep comfort in these words. Thinking of Jesus “hiding himself” all around us in the form of other people causes me to look at others a little more closely.

When I’m faithfully seeking Jesus, I can see him so much more clearly than when I’m distracted by other pursuits and less-than-worthy searches.

But this isn’t new information. Just consider this portion of the prophecy of Isaiah:

Seek the LORD while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake their way, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the LORD, that he may have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. [8] For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. [9] For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

~ Isaiah 55:6-9 NRSV

Or as Pope Francis put it, “we must look for him without ceasing.”

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When I was a kid, my father occasionally burned all the grass on a portion of our lawn. He did this, in part, because he was a volunteer firefighter, and it was fun for him to practice controlling a burn.

More importantly, though, burning the grass was a way of clearing the thatch and old clippings and releasing nutrients back into the soil so that new grass seeds could have a better headstart in growth.

St. Paul the Apostle uses this imagery in connection with the work that God is doing and will continue to do between the here-and-now of our earthly lives and our yet-to-come experience of heaven (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15).

I’ve come to believe that we can willingly submit ourselves to the process of burning away the waste now, or we’ll endure the process in the future on our journey to maturity in eternity. The earlier, the better.

We have a tendency to get lax in the maintenance of our character. When we do, the intrusive weeds of sin and cynicism grow and choke the life out of the better parts of ourselves.

Ash Wednesday (today, as I write this) reminds us of our condition and opens the gate to the season of Lent, during which we will give special focus to confession, contrition, and repentance.

Of repentance, Eugene Peterson says in his excellent book, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction,

The usual biblical word describing the no we say to the world’s lies and the yes we say to God’s truth is repentance. It is always and everywhere the first word in the Christian life. John the Baptist’s preaching was “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 3:2 RSV). Jesus’ first preaching was the same: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17 RSV). Peter concluded his first sermon with “Repent, and be baptized” (Acts 2:38 RSV). In the last book of the Bible the message to the seventh church is “be zealous and repent” (Rev 3:19 RSV).

We all want new life. Resurrection. Victory. If we’re not careful, we’ll live on the assumption that our character will just naturally mature over the course of life. So we trek onward on what we perceive as a path of unbroken upward spiritual movement.

But growth doesn’t happen in a straight line, does it?

All of us need moments of self-examination, seasons of clearing away the clutter.

We need to do the painful work of tallying our wrongdoings, seeing the ways in which we’ve brought harm to others, forgiving those against whom we’ve stored up resentment, and receiving again the gracious work of God’s forgiveness of our sins.

Repentance is continual. Daily. Sometimes moment-by-moment.

Ash Wednesday comes around once per year in the Christian calendar as an abrupt reminder that this work of dying to self and burning the waste needs to be done regularly.

A great place to begin this deep work of repentance is meditation on King David’s great Psalm of repentance:

Psalm 51:1-17 NRSV

[1] Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
[2] Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.

[3] For I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
[4] Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
[5] Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me.

[6] You desire truth in the inward being;
therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
[7] Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
[8] Let me hear joy and gladness;
let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
[9] Hide your face from my sins,
and blot out all my iniquities.

[10] Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
[11] Do not cast me away from your presence,
and do not take your holy spirit from me.
[12] Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and sustain in me a willing spirit.

[13] Then I will teach transgressors your ways,
and sinners will return to you.
[14] Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.

[15] O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.
[16] For you have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering,
you would not be pleased.
[17] The sacrifice acceptable to God
is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God,
you will not despise.

We spend plenty of time looking around at all that is wrong in the world.

We look back with fondness on the highlights of our lives that stand out in contrast.

And we look ahead and daydream of better times to come.

Today, however, is a day to pause and to look within at our own character and all that needs to be cinged away in the refining fire of God’s truth so that we are prepared to witness the springing forth of new life within our broken spirits.

From the ashes of repentance, new life always promises to emerge.

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Want to change the whole world with small, bite-sized steps?

Affirm people.

We’re starving for it.

We live in a highly critical age when civility has been replaced with sharp-tongued sarcasm.

We celebrate witty criticism far more than we celebrate affirmation. But affirming people is a missing ingredient in deeper relationships, mutual emotional healing, and a better world.

You can most likely identify with what it feels like to live in a vacuum of praise, where affirmation is hard to come by. Statistically (and hopefully, you’re an exception), you probably grew up lacking genuine affirmation from Mom and/or Dad. You’ve probably worked in an atmosphere where correction was far more plentiful than congratulations on a job well done, especially when the “performance review” rolls around. You may have even been labeled a rebel or a juvenile delinquent by teachers, school administrators, or even the local police.

Let me clarify, first of all, what affirmation is not.

• Affirmation isn’t empty flattery – words with no foundation in truth.

• Affirmation isn’t appeasement or agreement, especially with actual error.

• Affirmation isn’t saying words without action, but saying words plus action.

In other words, correction isn’t always bad. Criticism can be very valuable, especially when it comes from friends and family who are seeking our best interests. We all need to face our faults now and then so we can work on our habits and patterns for a healthier life. But almost nothing is more powerful in changing our direction than affirmation.

One of the most important moments in Jesus' life was his baptism, which initiated his official, public ministry. John the Baptist felt unworthy of the occasion but reluctantly immersed Jesus in the waters of the Jordan as an example to every future follower of the Messiah. When Jesus emerged from the water, something incredibly meaningful happened, but we often overlook it as we read the gospel accounts.

After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my dearly beloved Son, who brings me joy.”

Matthew 3:16-17 NLT

When Jesus was just getting started in his public ministry, God showed up to speak into his life, words of affirmation, words that celebrated their Father-Son relationship, words that conveyed value. And he did it publicly, in front of people who would then decide to follow Jesus forever.

God didn’t just do this with Jesus. He did it through a burning bush to Moses, through multiple anointings of King David, and through the prophetic word to Jeremiah about his calling. He did it through Jesus in the life of Peter, the “rock,” Paul, the “missionary to the Gentiles,” and John, the “disciple whom Jesus loved.”

God sees past our faults and present messes to what he desires for us to be and calls us by that name. He tells us that because of what Jesus did on our behalf, once we’ve placed our trust in him, he is pleased to call us his children, no matter what.

I have an adult daughter and two little boys. When I read this passage, I am reminded of just how vital it is to their heart development and future success that they hear their dad repeatedly say, "You’re my kid… I love you… and you bring me joy!" 

Even when they’re in trouble for something, like whacking each other, telling a lie, or drawing weather maps on the wall in permanent marker, they still ought to know that I love them, that our relationship is solid, and that they bring me joy… even though they’re going to be punished in the short run.

I encounter grumpy, depressed, agitated, scared and discouraged people in public, and you do, too. We find them checking people out in the grocery store line, pumping gas, paying bills, and trying to make it through life.

They often need to know from a fellow human being that

they matter to God…
they are loved…
and they can make a difference in this world.

We are a divided people. We divide by race, religion, political platforms, and cultural differences. And while words of affirmation won’t necessarily stop wars or settle all conflicts, they can go a long way to add value to the lives of the people we meet every day. But even the people you can’t stand are… human.

They are beautifully human. All humans share one thing in common: the imago dei, the image of God. We all reflect the goodness and glory of our Creator in some way to the people around us. 

You can affirm the dignity and value of someone’s existence even when you vehemently disagree with them.

And perhaps our affirming spirits may just be contagious, go viral, and change the whole world!

So… who’s up next for you to affirm?

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This piece is a polished-up version of a post I wrote a decade ago. I’ve rewritten it because it’s even more relevant now than it was then.

Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash.

I love learning from the Stoics, despite their stubborn insistence on being loyal subjects of a vast and oppressive empire. That aside, they offer some pretty unique insights into handling life in all of its complexity.

In my inbox today was an email from The Daily Stoic that challenged me:

David Brooks, writing of our moment, recently talked about the 'moral inversion' of contemporary politics. Instead of scandals ending someone’s career in today’s world, it’s almost a badge of honor. Lawsuits, convictions, divorces, affairs, sexual harassment, damning on the record comments—these things swirl around our public figures who shamelessly shrug them off. Not just in politics, but business and tech and entertainment all have their share of unrepentant cheaters and monsters.

Is this what it takes to get ahead these days?

We have to remind ourselves, as Marcus Aurelius did, that no matter what other people do (or what other people get away with), our job is to be good. Our job is to resist this moral inversion, to not fall prey to what psychologists have called the 'What The Hell' Effect–tossing up our hands and going along with something because everyone else is, because nothing matters anymore.

Like Cato, we might be living in the dredges of Romulus, but we don’t have to be bottom feeders. We don’t have to be corrupted or degraded by the moment we are living in. Marcus Aurelius didn’t. He rose above it. He shone through it. He stayed true.

And so must we.

I remember some headlines from the 1990s that made me think the world was going off the rails. I found reading the general epistles in the New Testament helpful because they were mostly written to people trying to follow the Way of Jesus while living under the rule of Rome surrounded by a culture hostile to Christian values.

I started saying these four words to myself as a reminder of what I could control and what I couldn’t.

We live in Rome.

That is to say, we live in a world where empires rise and rule, where people on the margins suffer, and where the values of our surrounding culture constantly shift like the wind.

People with disproportionate amounts of power and wealth will continue to rig the system in their own favor economically, politically, and otherwise.

Nations will continue to rise against other nations, sometimes with bombs and sometimes with unfair tariffs. Racism, nationalism, despotism, imperialism, and all kinds of other isms will continue dominating our thinking despite how much we see ourselves as enlightened or evolved.

Why?

Because we live in Rome.

Knowing that we live in Rome doesn’t make any of it better, but it does give me clarity about the game plan. It helps me know what I can and cannot control.

I can’t control the outcome of elections, but I can vote.

I can’t make other people live by the ethical standards I believe Jesus prescribes for us, but I can live within those guardrails myself.

I can’t take away the anxiety that I and the friends around me are feeling, but I can model what it looks like to stay healthy and be steady in the middle of it all.

I can’t singlehandedly defeat evil, but I can take my place in God’s subversive kingdom and share the words and ways of Jesus.

I can’t stop racism, but I can link arms with those working toward a racially just and equitable society.

Jesus taught his disciples to forgive, turn the other cheek, and care for the sick, the poor, and the broken. He challenged them to love God and ALL of their neighbors in spite of existing cultural and religious prejudices. And he sent them out to share the good news of the kingdom, promising his presence until the end of the ages.

James urged Christians scattered around the empire to endure trials patiently, put their wealth to work for the poor, and stay faithful no matter what.

Peter encouraged “God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the (Roman) provinces… when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”

And my personal favorite, John wrote letters to churches scattered around the empire (the second and third chapters of Revelation) and told each one of them to stay faithful and to overcome, even the severest of persecutions, on the basis of a prophecy…

The Lamb will indeed reign and the Way of Jesus, though highly countercultural, is the Way through which God is redeeming all that is lost and broken today.

The collective voices of Jesus and his earliest church leaders is consistent in at least two veins:

#1: Don’t follow the way of Rome, which is the way of empire, violence, oppression, and corruption.

There is far more to life than achieving power, collecting wealth, and protecting privilege.

Be different. Be selfless. Be kind and compassionate. Show empathy. Practice love. Share resources. Join the marginalized. Remember the forgotten. Visit those in prison. Speak up for the voiceless.

#2: Don’t let the power of Rome overwhelm or discourage you - stay faithful to the Way of Jesus.

You’ve probably heard the old adage, “If you can’t beat’em, join’em.”

But what if following Jesus means knowing you can’t beat them and determining not to join them anyway?

What if it’s just about bearing witness to the power of love in a world governed by fear, anger, and hate?

Yes, it’s hard right now to watch the dismantling of progress toward a more just, peaceful, and equitable society. It’s hard to watch the most wealthy and powerful benefactors of predatory capitalism wrecklessly reshape whole governments to retain their position and privilege.

But this is where we are.

We live in Rome.

And when in Rome, don’t do as the Romans do. Do as Jesus did.

From a more timeless, even eternal perspective, the work hasn’t changed. The Great Commandment to love God and all of our neighbors hasn’t changed. The Great Commission to invite others to learn the Way of Jesus hasn’t been rescinded.

And if it helps you to remain stubbornly hopeful, add these two words…

We live in Rome for now.

But we’re building something better, in partnership with God, than any earthly empire could ever promise to become.

We’re making earth more of a place where God’s will is done, as it is in heaven, by loving one precious soul at a time.

You can’t fix it all. But you can follow faithfully. And when you do, no matter how odd, weird, or alone the surrounding culture tries to make you feel, you’re actually surrounded by a cloud of faithful witnesses and living in good company today.

Today, be faithful.

Tomorrow? Do it again.

Recommended Reading While Living in Rome:

• Postcards from Babylon: The Church In American Exile, by Brian Zahnd

• Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire, by Preston Sprinkle

• Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies, by N. T. Wright and Michael Bird

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Here’s the scene:

Some Jesus followers were standing around arguing with some Jewish leaders about who knows what. Sabbath rules. Fasting. Hand-washing. Etc.

Maybe they got into discussions about whether living under Roman imperial rule was a good thing for the average citizen or not. The Sadducees seemed to think so. The Pharisees didn’t.

Even among the disciples of Jesus, there were likely disagreements. We’re told Simon was a Zealot. They hated and sought to violently overthrow the Roman occupiers. Levi (Matthew), on the other hand, was a tax collector. For Rome. His paychecks were signed (proverbially speaking) by Simon’s worst enemies.

There were plenty of issues to argue about. Systemic oppression, slavery, poverty, taxation without representation, etc.

Meanwhile:

Off to the side, a man approaches Jesus with a deeply personal request.

Can you heal my boy?

And I paraphrase… He’s really sick. We think he’s possessed. It’s bad.

I asked your disciples to help. But in spite of their keen ability to articulate their stances on religious doctrine and argue wittily about partisan politics, they couldn’t do anything.

Jesus expresses frustration.

Jesus said, “What a generation! No sense of God! How many times do I have to go over these things? How much longer do I have to put up with this? Bring the boy here.” They brought him. When the demon saw Jesus, it threw the boy into a seizure, causing him to writhe on the ground and foam at the mouth.

~ Mark 9:19-20, The Message

Whatever your beliefs might be about demons and demon possession, this boy’s sickness consumed the heart of his father. He was desperate for healing - probably far too desperate to join in any of the arguments taking place.

The boy’s Dad issues two different, seemingly conflicting professions of his faith.

Profession #1: “I believe!”

And in the very same breath…

Profession #2: “Help me with my doubts!”

In response, Jesus healed the boy.

Later, the disciples asked Jesus why they couldn’t heal the boy themselves.

Jesus’ answer connected back to his previously expressed frustration about the times in which he was living when people had strong opinions about all kinds of religious and social topics, but little actual connection with the living and ever-present God.

“This particular kind of healing only happens through prayer.”

There Is a Time for Arguing

We’re living through some hard moments in our culture. In my own context as an American, we’re in the middle of a tug-of-war between forces most people fail to fully understand.

We tend to immerse ourselves in opinions and arguments about immigration, reproductive rights, racial justice, poverty, taxes, and the role of government in our daily lives.

Thank God prophetic voices, capable researchers, organizers, and activists are working on all of these issues and more.

We need advocates and allies to speak up on behalf of those who experience systemic discrimination and oppression.

We need scholars who devote hours to researching the history and origins of movements that are clashing before our eyes.

We need politicians (bear with me) who will write and implement policies that give everyone freedom and upward mobility.

We need prophets who will boldly call out injustice and inequality and point us to a better way.

But people who are suffering each day, trying to survive, are asking a very different question.

Can you heal my boy?

It’s Always Time for Prayer

Whatever headlines might have our attention today, someone in your office is secretly drinking way too much to cope with the pain of a failing relationship.

Someone in your neighborhood is facing bankruptcy because of mounting medical bills that exacerbate the problem of their chronic illness.

A teenager on the bus riding past your window is struggling with depression and anxiety to the point they’ve considered the worst of all possible ways to end the pain.

You can fix some problems with policies and protests, but the deepest kinds of pain need a God-sized solution.

The church - the vast, diverse collection of people attempting to follow Jesus - has the spiritual resources to address human suffering on a level that invites the supernatural Creator of the universe to intervene.

We don’t always have an awareness of those spiritual resources or a sensitivity to how God wants to partner with us to bring healing.

A Mister Rogers quote that has pulled me back from the abyss of fatalistic thinking time and again (my wife reminded me of it just last night) is this:

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’

~ Fred Rogers

It’s inspiring, isn’t it, to notice humans loving and caring for other humans in tangible ways? We need more of that.

I want the world to see the Christian church as the solution rather than the problem, as a body of helpers who show up with healing in various forms rather than a source of pain and judgment.

And unless we’re cultivating a relationship with God through prayer, we’ll miss the bigger story that enables us to show up for people who are suffering.

I don’t mean prayer as repeating words at certain times of the day to keep God happy, though regular prayer is definitely a worthy discipline. Jesus modeled it and encouraged us to continue with it.

What I mean by prayer is that we need to recapture a sense of awe and wonder at the invisible, divine power at work in the world. We need to spend time listening, observing, and connecting with the ways in which God is already at work in the world around us.

And then, in our prayer, we should commit to joining God in that work.

It is in this kind of prayer that we discover the solutions people need. (And I believe the solutions people need are many and multi-faceted.)

It is in these secret places in which we meet with the Almighty that we regain the strength to keep marching.

It is in prayer that we commune with our High Priest about all that burdens our heavy hearts.

It is in prayer that we hear the gentle whisper of the Spirit reminding us of the ways in which God’s heart is even more broken than ours.

Well-formed arguments can help shape a better, brighter future for the next generation. But well-formed theology, refined by time spent in communion with God, will open the eyes of the blind to the deeper realities of life.

I want to be ready when someone asks me why I care so much about the issues that break my heart.

But I want to be even more prepared when someone hits me with the only question they care about in their deepest moments of pain.

But can you heal my boy?

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Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash.

Stuff is going down.
All around us.
All the time.

There is always news breaking.
There are always more alerts.

Headlines are written to make us worry. If we worry, we’ll keep reading. And reading keeps us worrying.

Awareness of what is happening in the world is a good thing. Air Force Colonel John Boyd introduced us to the “OODA Loop,” a decision-making model for navigating scary things that teaches us to 1.) observe, 2.) orient, 3.) decide, and 4.) act.

Or there’s the contrasting PDCA model, which tells us to 1.) plan, 2.) do, 3.) check, and then 4.) act.

The problem is that we’re often overly aware yet underprepared to act.

We collect data on threats all around us, but we run out of energy to address them meaningfully.

In light of all the headlines, we desperately need more hope.

We need imagination to find solutions to the problems that plague us.

We need energy to keep doing things that move the needle toward a measurably better world.

We need community because we can’t possibly fix it all without working together.

We need faith that things actually can improve.

And none of those resources will be discovered in the paralysis we experience when we’re absorbing more headlines.

We have to withdraw long enough to seek deeper wells.

We need to pause, close our eyes, and force the pace to slow.

We need to recall and rehearse what we know to be true about our place in all of it.

We need to remind ourselves of our intrinsic value, our ability to handle more than we thought we could, and our need to rely on the strength of others.

We need to collaborate, dream together, hold each other up, and share the load.

Saint Peter wrote a letter to Christians who were scattered and suffering for their faith under the Roman Empire. As followers of King Jesus, they were motivated to act redemptively in the world, but the list of things to worry about was daunting.

So Peter encouraged them…

If with heart and soul you’re doing good, do you think you can be stopped? Even if you suffer for it, you’re still better off.

Don’t give the opposition a second thought. Through thick and thin, keep your hearts at attention, in adoration before Christ, your Master.

Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you’re living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy.

~ 1 Peter 3:13-18 MSG

There will be more headlines tomorrow.

Do you have enough hope on hand to handle them?

There is no well from which to draw so infinitely filled with hope than Christ.

Photo by Austris Augusts on Unsplash.

There are tests and assessments you can take to help you determine which of the listed gifts you possess and how to enjoy and utilize that gift.

But what if the real point isn’t the gifting you get to experience but the way other people get to experience a gifted YOU? In other words, maybe you ARE the spiritual gift.

And if you are a gift, everyone else must be a gift, also. Perhaps the real point is that Jesus started the church to be this incubator of selflessness, where a diverse group of people would stop fighting to possess the best gifts and, instead, find ways to give their lives away to one another for the benefit of everyone.

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The first time I heard the phrase Lectio Divina (Latin for “divine reading”) was in a small group to which we once belonged. We were fairly new, and one of the members said, “Sometimes, we don’t study the Bible in this group. We just practice lectio divina and see what God says to us.”

After he explained that Lectio Divina was essentially just reading a brief passage of scripture repeatedly while listening intently and prayerfully for what God might be saying to us, I thought, Well, that’s not right!

In my personal faith background, I had been raised and trained by the wing of evangelicalism that was skeptical of any practice that merely tried listening to God without the aid of Bible reference materials or study aids to ensure a proper exegesis of the text.

I’ve found Lectio Divina to be one of the most beautiful and productive ways to ingest the words of the scriptures and hear from God. It’s an ancient, contemplative practice that I hope to pass on to my own children.

There are a couple of different ways to approach lectio divina, but my way is this…

Read

The goal isn’t to read large passages or get through the whole Bible in a year. The goal is to read something more narrow and distinct. I usually start at the beginning of a chapter and when something catches my attention and arouses my curiosity, I stop, wherever I am, and I read that verse or short passage again.

And then I read it again. And again. Sometimes I read the passage in several different translations (I like to underline in my NLT, but then I use Tecarta’s multi-column feature to put several translations on my laptop screen).

The point of reading, in Lectio Divina, is to listen—to keep our hearts and spiritual ears open to any whisper of the Spirit’s voice inside the holy temple, the secret recesses of our most vulnerable and real selves.

And then, I listen more. I try to spend at least five minutes just sitting, with my eyes closed, listening for the Spirit’s leading.

Hearing something isn’t the point. The Spirit isn’t an object to be sought but a person to know. Silence is okay. It’s uncomfortable, but we only grow when we’re uncomfortable.

Reflect

After reading the passage, I reflect on it. I avoid asking what this passage means to me because that question is a bit too existential and tends to lift it from its context. Rather, I ask myself, what jumps out at me? What do I notice?

I consider the context as much as possible—who wrote it, where in the scripture they wrote it, and the historical context in which they wrote it—but my main concern isn’t scholarly in nature. It’s devotional.

Meditation has been defined as “focused thinking,” and that’s my goal here. I want to focus all of my thoughts on the lesson about life that the Spirit is enlightening me about through the reading of scripture.

Sometimes, I write and journal during this time (I use the Day One app, Apple Notes, or a Moleskine journal), but I’m not legalistic about this. Sometimes, stopping to journal might interrupt what’s happening at the moment, so I just keep reflecting silently.

Respond

After reading, listening to, and reflecting on the reading, I respond. I pray. I articulate to God, either verbally or silently, my commitment to remember and put into action whatever I’ve sensed from the reading and reflection.

I ask for the Spirit’s help in applying whatever it is God has revealed throughout my day. And I try not to think too much about tomorrow. In other words, I’m not collecting one more thing to do on top of all the other things I think I need to do every day for the rest of my life. My concern is living it out today, and when days stack up upon days, this way of living becomes a lifestyle.

Rest

I end my period of lectio divina by sitting in silence, with my eyes closed, and resting. I try to quiet my mind and dwell in God’s presence.

Rest is antithetical to everything our culture pressures us to do. While I’m tempted to get busy, be productive, and conquer the world, I remind myself that having a calm, quiet soul is of immense value in the craziness of our world.

And that’s all. Read. Reflect. Respond. Rest. Sometimes that takes a few minutes. Sometimes it’s an hour. There are no quotas. There is simply an open invitation to enjoy the presence of God.

An Example

Just this morning, I was reading in Matthew 21:33-46, the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. There are many observations to make about the passage, but what stopped me and caught my focus was when Jesus said to the Pharisees, “The kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”

And then I focused more narrowly. To whom is the kingdom of God going to be given? A people that “produces the fruits of the kingdom.” Fruits of the kingdom.

And I dwelt upon that phrase – fruits of the kingdom.

My mind went to all the ways Jesus kept trying to teach and model the values of the kingdom of God. I thought about the ways in which I might or might not be bearing such fruit. I prayed for the Spirit to help me bear that kind of fruit because I sincerely want to enjoy the kingdom of God in the everyday minutia of my life.

And then I rested. And I’m still thinking about how I can bear the fruit of the kingdom of God.

And that - to still be thinking about what we’ve read - that’s the point, isn’t it?

Recommended Reading

• Conversing With God In Scripture: A Contemporary Approach To Lectio Divina, by Stephen Binz

• The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus, by Rich Villodas

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash.

Note: This was originally published on my blog on October 3, 2023.

You may have grown up in a religious atmosphere that considered activity and rituals to be the primary marker of spiritual maturity, where those who were most active and involved in their church attendance and volunteerism were seen as the most spiritual.

Perhaps you saw as most mature those who kept the most rules and avoided vices and visible sins - who didn’t cuss, drink, smoke, chew, or run around with those who do… er… did.

Plenty of us also had the impression that knowledge was the marker of maturity. Those who knew the most about the Bible were the closest to God.

If so, you probably feel guilt and shame about not knowing enough, not doing enough, and breaking rules you don’t even believe in keeping anymore.

There has to be a better way to assess how you’re doing spiritually than going through a performance checklist.

When I coach a leader through spiritual burnout, I like to offer a different kind of assessment. Instead of measuring spiritual growth by the number of services attended or Bible verses memorized, I suggest asking three introspective questions and then giving time to listen for the Spirit’s confirmation contemplatively.

The answers to these questions are more felt than spoken. They are simply:

Question #1: Are you moving toward God by praying regularly, believing that your prayers mean something?

Spiritual progress is certainly contingent upon spending time relating to God in prayer. And prayer takes on plenty of different forms, but as Richard Foster says in his book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home:

Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence.

The first and greatest sign of spiritual thriving is a dynamic, active relationship with God, and the most basic way to fan the flame of that relationship is through prayer.

But it isn’t just that you’re doing the praying and saying the words. It’s that you choose to exercise the faith that your words actually mean something to God.

Question #2: Are you moving toward people and forming deeper connections? Or are you isolating yourself?

While solitude is certainly a worthy spiritual discipline, we should, in general, open our lives to others by intentionally forming deeper connections.

You were formed for fellowship with other people. Relationships are nourishment for the soul. Terrance Real says in his book, Us: Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship (one of my favorite books on the subject of marriage):

Looking more broadly, the price we pay as a society for our toxic individualism and patriarchy is our permanent estrangement from one another. If I can’t connect to you, I can’t connect to us. Whether it’s racism, class differences, or any of myriad other social plagues, its cost is always the same: a broken and dysfunctional system that prevents us from recognizing and caring for our neighbor with a flawed but full heart.

Spiritually maturing people are moving toward others. Spiritually stagnating people are moving away from vital relationships in isolation.

Question #3: Are you able to experience joy and peace within yourself in spite of your circumstances?

This is not at all to minimize the reality of any pain or suffering you may be enduring in the present season of your life. It’s not a question of being able to feel the warm fuzzies while ignoring pain, loss, or grief.

This, instead, is a question of whether you’re living at peace with who you are more and more with each passing day.

It could be that you grew up in a religious atmosphere that shunned any talk of self-love or self-acceptance. It’s taken me years to unwire some of the toxic theology that led me to self-rejection. One voice that has helped me tremendously is that of the late Henri Nouwen. One of my favorite quotes comes from his book Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life:

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us God’s beloved. Being the beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.

If you ask these questions and they lead you to the conclusion that your spiritual growth is indeed stunted, here’s the very good news…

The Father awaits you. He longs for you to long for him. He washes away our sins, sees past all of our shortcomings, and welcomes us home with grand celebration when we return to his presence once again.

Thriving spiritually is less about doing and more about being.

It’s not about running through a checklist. It’s about running into the waiting arms of God once again.

As you finish reading this final line, close your eyes, breathe deeply, and lie asoak in the goodness of God’s love. That’s where the thriving begins.

Guaranteed success? Seems impossible.

If your goal is to make a certain amount of money, get promoted to a certain level in your company, or build a public audience of a certain size, good luck!

There’s nothing wrong with those kinds of goals, but your success in reaching them is at least partially beyond your own control.

I remember having a goal as a pastor on New Year’s Day of 2020 to increase the size of our congregation. Then a pandemic hit, political division intensified, and our surrounding culture shifted significantly.

I do believe that there is a way to approach life in the upcoming year that will give you full control over the results and virtually guarantee your success. Here it is:

Give your life, this year, to making life better for other people.

That’s it.

If you decide today to give your life – and by “life,” I mean your time, your attention, your resources – to making the lives of other people better, you’ll be successful.

The people you probably admire most are people who have devoted their lives to the betterment of life for peopel around them.

This is what Jesus did, teaching, feeding, healing, and serving others to the point of laying down his life as a ransom for all. He came not to condemn the world but to save it, and he succeeded.

It’s what the Apostle Paul did, which he explained this way,

“We are not preaching about ourselves. Our message is that Jesus Christ is Lord. He also sent us to be your servants.”

(2 Corinthians 4:5 CEV)

It’s what King David did, which is summed up in Psalm 78:72,

“With unselfish devotion David became their shepherd. With skill he guided them.”

(GWORD)

History has been shaped by the better by people who gave their greatest energy to making the lives of other people better.

That doesn’t mean you have to quit your job and do humanitarian volunteer work for the rest of your life.

It simply means that you build relationships, show love to people, and always be looking for ways to add value to the lives of others.

The late Zig Ziglar, successful salesman and trainer, said, “You’ll have everything in life you ever want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.”

It isn’t that “success” only happens for people in certain professions, or with certain personalities, or with certain advantages and privileges.

It’s that success comes to those who see their job, their neighborhood, their church, or their community as a realm in which to serve people.

If your only pursuit in life is your happiness, you’ll miss out on success because you’ll bypass opportunities to bear pain with and for others.

If your only pursuit is financial gain, you can get rich and still miss success because you’ll sell stuff without serving people’s deeper needs.

If your only pursuit is power and authority, you’ll miss out on success because you’ll see people as a means to fulfill your own agenda.

But if you give your life to helping people,
serving people,
loving people,
meeting needs,
being a friend,
providing resources,
answering questions,
fixing problems,
educating minds,
and encouraging hearts,
you’ll have all that you ever really want and need.

The more you forget about yourself, the more fulfilled you’ll become.

I’m convinced about this! I would even challenge you to an experiment.

For the next week of your life, think relationally in as many situations as possible.

How can I encourage this grocery store clerk? How can I give a little hope to someone at the end of their rope? How can I show grace where someone is fully expecting judgment? How can I speak positively about someone’s future when they don’t have very high aspirations for themselves?

Charisma is great, but it’s subject to too many changing variables.

Talent is helpful, but talent alone is never enough.

Skills are useful, but they’re really a small part of the equation.

The one big key to real success in life is living the rest of your life to make the lives of other people better.

Also…

Why This Email Feels Different

I’ve been blogging and publishing online content for over twenty years now. And while I’ve always done so on my own websites, this year I’m taking a leap and moving my writing and podcasting over to Substack.

If you’re already subscribed to my emails (if this is in your email inbox, you are), you don’t have to change anything unless you’d like to take a break and unsubscribe (which you can do at the very bottom).

As 2025 unfolds, I’m going to be writing much more frequently about life, faith, leadership, and ministry. I’m also going to be recording new Walk Humble podcast episodes, and you’ll get them all in your inbox.

I’m also going to be offering some bonus content along the way - deeper dives, insider discussions, coaching content, etc. - to anyone who wants to become a paid subscriber. But I’ll be totally happy if people just read for free.

In the meantime, thanks for reading and may 2025 be a year of real success for you as you find ways to help make life better for other people!

What qualities does a great leader possess?

Talent?

Charisma?

Confidence?

Typically, great leaders are smart. They’re good connectors. They’re good decision makers and, even more importantly, decision managers.

In most of our thinking about great leadership, we often skip over one particular characteristic that has a surprising influence on a leader’s ability to lead better… great leaders are great listeners. (Tweet that!)

I still remember the funny movement my stomach made when Pastor Rick Warren asked me to address the staff at Saddleback Church about the in’s and out’s of using social media to minister to more people. (This was 2010, by the way – digital ages ago.)

There were several hundred people on staff who would gather in the Refinery theater weekly to hear Pastor Rick share lessons about leadership and observations about his vision for Saddleback. And on this particular week, he asked if I’d speak to everyone in his place.

Speaking to hundreds of people doesn’t get me too worked up, and I felt confident in my knowledge of the content. What had me a little stressed out was a single person who would be there, in the audience listening. Yeah. Pastor Rick Warren.

Pastor Rick is one of my generation’s greatest pastors and Bible teachers. He has a way with words that’s a bit magical. He can state profound things in extremely simple ways and systematize the most complex concepts to be digestible. And I’d be speaking to him.

When I stepped up on the stage and started sharing what I’d prepared, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye… Pastor Rick had gotten out a notebook and a pen. He kept his eyes on me throughout the talk. He took notes. He stepped up on stage after I was finished and echoed some of my major points back to the rest of the staff.

In other words… he listened.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that the smartest people in the room are rarely the most vocal. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the best leaders don’t always take charge.

I think it’s because the best leaders know their limitations. They stay real about the fact that they don’t have all the answers. And therefore, they are teachable. And when we’re teachable, we listen.

If you want to lead well today, go on what you know. But if you want to lead well long term, admit you don’t know it all and commit to listening and learning daily.

Evaluate your listening skills…

Do I tend to make eye contact with whoever is speaking and respect them with my attention?

Do I regularly consume valuable content rather than simply being a producer?

Do I invite diverse voices to speak into the direction I’m taking?

Great leaders are learners, and learning requires listening. So open your ears, take notes, and learn to lead a little better!

The Book of Revelation isn’t about the end of the world as we know it, although that’s a fascinating subject. It’s really about how to live life hopefully in the world in which we currently live. It’s about how Christians can be stubbornly hopeful no matter how bad things seem to get.

Maybe the world is getting worse. A bunch of atomic scientists seem to believe we’re 90 seconds from Doomsday and The United Nations warns that we’re entering “a new era of conflict and violence.”

Maybe the world is getting better, too. After all, we’re living longer, eradicating diseases, and decreasing global poverty.

When I was a college student, I took a course on the Revelation and we held a panel discussion about the three major branches of Christian eschatology.

Postmillennialists believe the world will become more “Christianized” over time, ushering in a thousand years of peace at the end of which, Christ will come again.

Premillennialists see us on a continual downgrade into a seven-year period of tribulation. Then Jesus will come again, defeat all of his enemies, and commence a literal 1,000-year reign of peace.

And amillennialists (which means “no” millennium) see it all as figurative and leave Jesus’ second coming more unpredictable, if literal at all.

I’m not nearly as certain as I was back then as a college student, firmly convinced of my particular theological convictions. I’m far more curious than certain about the future.

But I do know one thing for sure. The key to thriving in the world, whether things are getting better or worse, is to be stubbornly hopeful.

When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. witnessed racial and economic injustice proliferation society, he kept stubbornly hoping that love and nonviolence could make things better.

When Mahatma Gandhi surveyed the economic conditions under which millions were living in India, he kept stubbornly hoping that things could change.

And when Israel’s leaders were calling for the crucifixion of Jesus and Rome was content to oblige them, Jesus kept stubbornly hoping that the cross (and of course, his insider knowledge about the empty tomb) would save the world.

And that’s it for me. That’s all I need. I just need the message of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ to reverberate around in my head and heart to remind me that no matter how hopeless things might feel at any given moment, I get to be stubbornly hopeful, too.

I like the way the late Tim Keller put it in his excellent book The Prodigal God:

This world is not simply a theater for individual conversion narratives, to be discarded at the end when we all go to heaven. No, the ultimate purpose of Jesus is not only individual salvation and pardon for sins but also the renewal of this world, the end of disease, poverty, injustice, violence, suffering, and death. The climax of history is not a higher form of disembodied consciousness but a feast

I’m convinced that our stubbornness about our hopefulness is an act of rebellion against the cultural norm of pessimism. And I think this stubbornly hopeful rebellion just might flip everything on its head and change the world.

So no matter what happens today, tomorrow, or the next day, don’t stop hoping. Sometimes, hope is all we have. But to keep it, you’re going to have to be stubborn.

John 15:9-17 NRSV[9] As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. [10] If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. [11] I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. [12] “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. [13] No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. [14] You are my friends if you do what I command you. [15] I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. [16] You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. [17] I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

That word “complete” can leave us feeling so needful of so many things.

Back during the holidays, my wife was having a conversation with someone from a completely different culture and it was right before Black Friday. She asked, “Anything you’re hoping to buy on Black Friday?” And his response, with great kindness and through a smile was, “Oh, we need nothing.”

And he meant it. And his response has challenged us again and again to need nothing upon this earth except the things that really matter – relationships.

We have to first understand that the biblical idea of “joy” is never dependent upon:

• Our circumstances

• Our emotions

So I want to redefine “complete joy” NOT as only having joy and never having pain or grief or suffering but rather, joy and peace in the middle of life’s pain, grief, and suffering. In spite of the hard parts of life, real joy is possible.

“Complete joy” is within reach when you…

1. Trust that you are completely loved.

(vs. 9-11)

KNOW that you are wholly known, loved, and valued.

This is not the same as feeling lovable. This is a matter of accepting, by faith, that God loves you because he is love and because he created you to be an object of his forever love.

2. Transfer your love to other people.

(vs. 12-13)

• It’s a matter of focus. Others instead of myself.

The more I focus on myself, my wants, my needs, my shortcomings, the more needy I feel for things and life and other people to prop me up.

But the more I focus on my life on other people, the better off I am.

• It’s a matter of obedience to God.

We often think of obedience to God as a simple matter of obeying God’s rules so God doesn’t “get” us in a disciplinary way. But what if we substituted another word.

What if we looked at obedience to God as alignment with God’s will?

• It’s a matter of attunement with God and with others.

3. Value your friendship with Jesus.

(vs. 14-15)

Jesus is willing to call us his friends. Not mere acquaintances. Not merely disciples or followers, but friends. He is forever personal.

Do you know what fridge friends are? They’re the people who feel so comfortable with you that they can come into your house, open your fridge, and grab a snack.

“The whole world needs a pastor right now.”

~ Pastor Joe Chambers

That simple Facebook update – “The whole world needs a pastor right now.” – caught my attention when Joe Chambers, Pastor of Mountain Heights Baptist Church in Buena Vista, Colorado first shared it a couple of days ago.

I thought about it all morning.

And all afternoon.

And as I went to sleep that night.

I thought back to advice I heard Pastor Lee Roberson share with other pastors once about the need to show up and be a pastor for anyone and everyone in your town who might need one, whether they’ve ever heard of your church or not.

I thought about Matthew 9:36, which says, “When he (Jesus) saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

I thought about God’s complaint about the spiritual leaders in Israel through the Prophet Jeremiah and his promise to give them better pastors (shepherds):

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD. Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD. Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.

~ Jeremiah 23:1-4 NRSV

And I thought about some of the amazing pastors I’ve known.

Pastors are often written off in our culture because the stories that get attention tend to focus on those who are abusive or corrupt. But the fact is, most of the pastors I know love Jesus, love people, and want to help the hurting.

If we are to believe that the church (that is, the church when it is the church Jesus envisioned) holds the solutions to some of the biggest problems people face in the world, then we must also see that pastors are the messengers of those solutions.

The weary world needs a Word from God. And while every follower of Jesus carries around the good news of the gospel to share with others, pastors are called to a special ministry of equipping and empowering God’s people to share that message.

If you’re a pastor, please know that you matter. Your work matters. The fact that you seek to serve Jesus matters. Your desire to apply the message of the gospel to the deepest needs of humanity, and that’s a very good work.

The only practical step in this article is this:

Go be a pastor to the world.

Sometimes, someone won’t want you to be their pastor. That’s okay. Respect that and let them leave gracefully.

But anyone who will allow you to do so, love them, pray with and for them, counsel them, minister to them, and share the saving message of Jesus with them.

Recommended Reading:

• Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry, by Ruth Haley Barton

• The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor's Heart, by Harold Senkbeil