Life has a way of testing our faith. Like Job, we might be doing all we know to honor God and care for those around us. Even so, things seem to unravel around and within us. Job’s story reminds us that even the righteous can face hardship. We can know loneliness. Our friends, family and the world can misunderstand us, too.

And in our lives, there are moments when God seems distant. Perhaps it’s a struggle to provide for your family. Maybe there's a marriage in difficulty, or an overwhelming grief. We might feel like all our praying is only met with silence from God.

Job felt abandoned and frustrated in all these ways, too. That's why his story is important for us. I'll offer to you Job's story is an invitation to the boldness that Hebrews 4:14-16 encourages us to have.

I've heard adults say that kids today know too much about anxiety. It feels like the anxiousness of the world is new. It is not.

In Psalm 94, the psalmist knows the reality of anxiety. He says that the cares of his heart are many. That feels familiar. We know what it's like to be awake in the middle of the night worrying about what could go wrong. We rehearse every negative scenario and we carry stress so much it carries into every conversation. Faith does not mean those feelings disappear. It means we learn where to take them.

Notice what the psalmist trusts, that his many cares are met with God’s consolations. I take “consolations” to speak to the ways God reassures us. It's the promises we read of in scripture, God's presence we experience and the affirmation that we are not alone. Faith is no magic trick and these consolations do not always erase our problems. But they steady us within them.

Notice, too, what the psalmist experiences from God's consolations. He says they "cheer my soul." Not just relief, not just a temporary break, but joy. The psalmist testifies that he has come to know that God’s presence can transform anxiety into delight. That doesn’t mean his worries vanish. It does mean he has discovered something greater than his worry: God's steadfast love.

As Christianity grew from a movement into a formal institution, the lines between church and empire began to blur. For some, this was evidence of God’s blessing. The faith was spreading. But others worried that, when tied too closely to political power, the church’s morality and witness would be compromised. Out of that tension came a deep desire for a purer devotion to God, which gave rise to the monastic movement.

One of the earliest and most influential figures was Anthony of Egypt, also known as Anthony the Great. Taking seriously Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:21, Anthony sold his possessions and gave the money to the poor. He then devoted himself to a life of solitude. While others before him had sought solitude for spiritual growth, Anthony became known as the father of monasticism because he helped shape and guide communities that embraced this way of life.

Now, I share this piece of Christian history as a reminder that asceticism has long been one path to grow closer to God. To be sure, it is not an easy path. Don't think those in the monasteries had it easy. Even Anthony, with his deep commitment, wrestled with memories of his old life and the temptations that followed him into the desert. Plus, monks and nuns took vows of poverty and worked to serve the poor and the church in other ways.

I shared a picture online this week I had seen making the rounds. In light of the week's tragedy, I had seen it posted several times and felt an inclination to say something. The picture compared the faith of Mr. Rogers and of a warrior for Christ type. Here is what I said:

"The picture suggests that being a “Mr. Rogers” kind of Christian isn’t enough, and that what we really need is to suit up as warriors. But that’s not the gospel.

Fred Rogers embodied the way of Jesus more than we realize. Kindness takes grit. Patience takes discipline. Loving your neighbor, even the one who offends you, takes real courage. That’s not weakness. That’s following the way of Jesus.

The call of Christ is not to put on armor and fight battles of our own making (Read that last part again!). The call is to love. To forgive. To show mercy. To walk humbly. That’s harder than swinging a sword.

So here’s the challenge: Don’t belittle the way of gentleness. Don’t dismiss kindness as soft. Empathy is not a sin or misguided notion. It is a doorway to our healing. The world doesn’t need more Christians who think they’re crusaders. The world needs more Christians brave enough to follow Jesus all the way to the cross."

And here's how I think that relates to our reading today. 1 Timothy 1 is one of those passages we misunderstand, perhaps. When we hear "fight the good fight," it's tempting to take this to mean combat. Taking up arms, putting others in their place and leaving no prisoners behind. But I don't think that's the fight that's supposed to come to mind.

Psalm 78 envisions an experience that churches can use to model intergenerational practices. The psalm underscores the importance of remembering God's past acts of salvation and deliverance. Included in that remembrance is the often unfaithful response of the people.

Most notable in this psalm is the insistence that this recounting be shared among all generations. The older generations have heard of God's deeds from their ancestors. Now, they shall not "hide" these experiences from their children but share them. This sharing will spread to the "next generation." As a result, they will "set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments."

Faith and discipleship take root in a community's shared experiences. Psalm 78 doesn't imagine an accidental gathering of the generations. Instead, it sees a deliberate effort to form young people in the knowledge and trust of God while also affirming and encouraging the faith of the older generation as well.

There is a point about the goal of Christian teaching made clear in 1 Timothy 1. The goal is not knowledge for knowledge’s sake, and it's not rule-keeping even for order’s sake. The aim is love. It always has been. And, as we are faithful, it always will be. Everything God reveals, every word of instruction, every act of grace, draws us deeper into love. The love we experience in Christ is love rooted in God's goodness and leads to a faith that is genuine.

Ilia Delio, in The Unbearable Wholeness of God, describes creation itself as moving toward unity in God’s love. She sees the universe not as random fragments of space matter but as a whole. The universe is bound together in divine energy, divine love that always leans toward connection and communion. What Paul said to Timothy two thousand years ago, Delio reminds us again today: the point of it all is love.

Now, our temptation, then, is to fragment. To separate faith from daily living. To split knowledge from wisdom. To let convenience dull greater conscience. But love resists this pull. Love draws together what is divided. Love heals what is broken and brings wholeness.

A wealthy ruler came to Jesus with a decent question. He asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The Lord pointed him to the commandments. That seems appropriate enough. Who wouldn't tell you to remember what God has commanded? Confidently, the man assured Jesus he had followed God's commands since his youth.

But Jesus didn't stop where most teachers might have. It's good that the rich ruler remembered the commandments. Then came the hard part: “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

You can almost see his smile disappear in that moment. Luke tells us the very rich man walked away sad. He did because his wealth meant more to him than the invitation to follow Jesus.

Now, you and I hear this story and we might want to excuse ourselves. We think, "I don’t have that kind of wealth, so it doesn’t apply to me.” It's been highly noted that Jesus talked a lot about money. In reality, though, Jesus’ words aren’t solely about money. They're about whatever we hold tighter than him. For this man, it was possessions. For us, it might be success, control, reputation, security or even our idea of how life should be.

The first week of football season didn’t disappoint. My favorite team faced that other team, and the rivalry was alive before kickoff. Sparks flew when one of our star players was ejected for spitting. As a loyal fan, I jumped to his defense. If I say, “Dak spit first,” you know exactly what I mean.

But let me step back from fandom for a moment. I remember a teacher who did not put up with our excuses growing up. We had a tendency to blame other people for our misbehavior. We'd say, “He made me do it.” Our teacher's answer was always the same: “No one can make you do anything you don’t want to do.” She was teaching us something powerful, that we always have a choice. We decide how we respond, no matter what someone else does to us or says--or even the direction they spit.

Psalm 2 says that in a different way. First, the psalmist acknowledged that “the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain.” People have always schemed, resisted and rebelled against God. Many of them even succeed at what they do. That hasn’t changed. That won't change. But the psalmist reminds us we don’t have to join in. Instead, the call is clear: “Be wise…serve the Lord… and happy are all who take refuge in him.”

My teacher was right. There are few moments when someone makes you do anything. The choice is yours. Even we adults (and professional athletes) still need to hear that lesson. So today, choose wisdom. Choose the way of God over the vanity of the world. Don't let what others do make you think you don't have a choice to walk faithfully with God.

Stay blessed...john

Our family recently watched a documentary that had us hooked. I’d call it a drama-mentary. It was full of twists and turns that made us question everything we thought we knew about what was happening. At one point, each of us had our own theory about where the story was heading. None of us guessed right. Part of what made it so unpredictable was that, no matter the contradiction, there was always someone ready to affirm a particular version of “truth.”

That’s how life works, too. You can always find someone who will agree with you. It’s tempting to wait until you hear that one agreeable voice that confirms what you already believe. That’s why seeking wisdom and discernment is important. Yes, affirmation from others can be a good sign. You might even sense it as confirmation from God. Many times, it is.

But what about the times we just want agreement? What do we miss when stubbornness dictates what we’re willing to hear?

I'll confess that I'm more of a watch-the-movie than read-the-book person. That's mainly because of my difficulty with reading. But I have learned there is something lost when we forget the story first written.

That's not to say there isn't creativity and depth in the movie. The movie, though, has a timeline it needs to stick to. No one's watching twelve-hour movies--unless it's broken up into episodes on Netflix. Even then, there can be a richness of the story that doesn't come to light without the reading. A movie condenses a book. Characters are trimmed, plots get simplified and details need to be skipped.

I wonder if we try to get the movie version out of life, too. We look for shortcuts, hoping to avoid the hard parts and rush to the end. In doing so, we miss the depth of what God has written into our journey.

Reading takes patience, focus and imagination. These tools help you step into the author's world. Life, as God's gift, asks us for the same. Attentiveness, reflection and full participation help us live into the life God unfolds. Trusting God, then, means leaning into the full story, not just the easy or exciting parts.

Stevie Wonder's song Isn't She Lovely celebrates the gift of his newborn daughter. The joy of the song comes out of life born out of the action and communion of love. Love through connection.

That's what we believe about God, too. Wherever God is, whatever God is, God is with you. God is with us. That's an astounding tenet of our faith. John Wesley said that it was the best of all things on his deathbed. Our faith proclaims a God who is relational, communal and present. That shows us what love truly is.

Often, we reduce love to a feeling. Culture depicts love as mostly emotion. But scripture pushes us deeper. Love isn't less than feeling, but it is so, so much more. Love is connection.

And God is that connection. In the Trinity, for example, we glimpse a God who is love through eternal relationship. That God is willing to connect with us is the greatest signpost to love. God is not distant. God is here, connected to and woven into our lives.

In 2020, we didn’t travel much. After months mostly at home, one day I looked in the mirror and asked myself, “Why am I shaving every day?” That’s when I decided to grow my pandemic beard.

A few months later, I had dinner with friends. One of them wore a beard. He brought me a gift. It was a bottle of beard oil. I had never heard of that. Having a beard was new to me. Then he began to explain the culture I had just joined: beard festivals, beard groups, even beard etiquette. My understanding of beards and the people who wore them grew that night.

When we’re new at something, we often need guidance. Mentors and guides help us navigate unfamiliar territory. Faith is no different.

In Luke 14, Jesus tells the parable of the great dinner. A rich man planned a feast and sent invitations to his peers. For various, almost trivial reasons, they declined. In that culture, refusing an invitation like this was a serious insult. Angered, the man instructed his servants to invite others. People who normally wouldn’t be invited: the outcasts, the poor, the socially overlooked.

It’s easy to imagine that these new invitees didn’t know how to respond. What was expected of them? How could they offer anything in return? Yet they accepted. One subtle detail of the story stands out to me. When the man first becomes angry, he tells his servant to go find new guests. The servant responds, “Sir, what you ordered has been done.”

It's important to remember the infidelity of God's people in the Bible. God made covenant with them, but time and again they turned away from their part in that union. Repeatedly! It makes you wonder what we'd have left in the Bible if they didn't.

Time and time again, the people chose their way of living life over God's wisdom. Scripture also tells of the consequences of those choices. You get what you get when you turn from God. There's no blaming God for letting us face the consequences of our choices. That's on us.

And yet, time and time again God pursues God's beloved. In Jeremiah 3, for example, the Lord describes a vision of an adulterous people. They have taken "many lovers." Still, God says, "Return." To make sure they understood God knew exactly who they were, God says, "Return, faithless Israel."

Faithless. Stubborn. Greedy. Prideful. Spiteful. Petty. Arrogant.

What qualifier might be in front of your name?

No matter what it is or how accurately it describes you, the invitation from God remains the same: Return.

Return to God because the Lord isn't waiting for you to clean up yourself first. So, you don't have to either. God's love isn't reactive. Genuine love always creates deeper love. So, God loves you where you are in whatever condition you're in and makes you new. And if you have to return again tomorrow, God will make you new again.

I recently began a new educational journey. It's something I’ve been considering for a while but only now had the chance to pursue. Several people have asked me how it’s going. Well, I'll answer that by asking you: Have you ever heard of imposter syndrome?

Reading the thoughtful reflections my colleagues are already sharing, I sometimes feel like I’m behind. Maybe even like I don’t really belong.

Do you know that feeling? Many of us do. We’ve all had moments where we felt unprepared, unqualified or unsure of ourselves. And when it comes to faith, we can have those same feelings.

That’s why I love how the letter of Hebrews ends. The entire letter is a call to renewed faith. And it ends with a powerful benediction that reminds us of God’s ongoing work in our lives through Christ. The prayer is that God would “make you complete.” The King James Version says “make you perfect,” but a better sense of the word means to be fully equipped. Made ready for every good work God desires. It’s not about flawless perfection here and now, but about being prepared with everything we need to live faithfully to God's call.

Jeremiah 12 begins with a question many of us might ask: Why does the way of the wicked prosper?

His lament is honest. "You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit. You are always on their lips but far from their hearts” (v. 2). The prophet is naming the frustration and anger we all feel when wrong seems to thrive while good struggles.

This week, we had another school shooting. Another day of loss, grief and heartbreak. Another day of asking Jeremiah’s question. And, once again, explanations. In years past, when people said we need to take mental health seriously, some scoffed and called it an excuse. Now, mental health is a prominent part of the discussion. But then we also say it's not a gun problem it's a problem of evil.

Sure. I agree.

But what if our evil is also our gun problem? What if our evil is refusing to take seriously what needs to be done, just because we don’t like it, or it doesn’t fit our politics or it requires us to change?

Evil isn’t only in the act of violence itself. Evil festers when we choose inaction. Evil spreads when we turn God’s call for justice into shallow words that never reach our hearts. Evil thrives when children keep dying, and we keep shrugging.

This morning, I watched a video someone sent me. It was the day after Hurricane Harvey hit our area. The electricity had been out, but we had invited anyone who felt safe to come to the sanctuary for worship. By the time we gathered, the lights came back on. The church doors stood wide open because the air conditioner hadn’t yet cooled the building.

The video showed us singing _Leaning on the Everlasting Arms_. Between verses, we read from Psalm 46. In that moment, the words were not just familiar phrases in our worship book. They were living truth for us: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

That day, we were grateful simply to have made it through another storm. Others in our community weren’t as fortunate. We faced the hard work of cleaning up at church and at home. There were things to repair, things to replace. That’s the reality of a storm's aftermath. 

But we all know not every storm comes with thunderclouds and wind. Some storms are quieter but just as fierce. The storms of life that unsettle us and frighten us. And those storms often demand long, painful recoveries, too.

Who doesn't love The Lion King? Hakuna matata, if you don't. It's a classic story and a great movie. One of my favorite scenes comes right after Simba sees a vision of his father, Mufasa, in the sky. "You have forgotten me," Mufasa says. A lot has happened to separate Simba from his past, his family and, might I say, his calling.

Then Rafiki shows up. He listens to Simba wrestle with his past, and suddenly bops him with his staff. You don't see that coming. That hit on the head becomes a part of a larger lesson and wake-up call for the soon-to-be king.

We all need those kinds of moments.

Ezekiel can be our Rafiki today, though without the jokes and singing. There's a lot in his writings that might shock or surprise you. In chapter 20, God gives the people their own bop, saying, "Go serve your idols, every one of you now and hereafter." That's not what you expect God to say. But that's what they were already doing. God's point, then, becomes clear: Don’t pretend you can serve idols and me at the same time. Don’t imagine I’ll be satisfied with your offerings if I’m just one more option among many. Those idols didn’t make you who you are. You have forgotten me.

And don't we forget God sometimes, too? We'd rather keep doing what we want, sprinkling a little Jesus on top. But that's not our calling. Thankfully, God promises to gather us back, just as the people could regather to the holy mountain. For us, it's Jesus who calls us home. When we turn back, God says, "you shall know that I am the Lord when I deal with you for my name's sake, not according to your evil ways or corrupt deeds."

In AD 17, a massive earthquake struck modern-day Turkey. Known as the Lydia earthquake, it devastated more than a dozen cities. Some were completely destroyed. Thousands of people died, and the ruins stood as haunting reminders of what some considered to be the worst earthquake in history. Even more traumatic, tremors continued for years afterward. One city especially marked by this was Philadelphia. Imagine surviving the terror of the “big one.” Now think about having aftershocks stir that memory again and again.

I’ve never experienced an earthquake. I’ll take a hurricane over that any day, and I’ve been through several. Growing up in Galveston, even though I was eighty years removed from it, the great 1900 storm still shaped part of who I thought I was. In the same way, I can imagine how the Lydia earthquake continued to shape the identity of Philadelphia for generations.

By the time Philadelphia is mentioned in the book of Revelation, the city had been rebuilt. The church there, apparently, was small and poor. But Jesus praised them for their faithfulness. He encouraged them to hold fast to their faith, promising, “I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God. You will never go out of it.”

That image would have been powerful. After the earthquake, many Philadelphians moved to the countryside, never certain when the next tremor might strike. And yet, here was God’s promise: You are not fragile. You are a pillar in my temple. You are a part of the strength that will not be shaken.

It’s easy to underestimate the power of a kind word or a gentle reminder of God’s presence. But haven't you had some experience where those kinds of little things have inspired you? We all need that from each other. Hebrews might call that every day encouragement. 

The Bible shows us that this daily blessing is not optional to a life with God. It's essential in keeping our heart focused on God's goodness and faithfulness. In keeping our faith strong.

Life wears on us. We all face challenges, disappointments and temptations. If left unchecked, they can slowly harden our hearts. That's why daily encouragement isn't just nice. It's necessary.

Now, encouragement doesn’t always have to be some grand gesture. It can be a text to a friend, a quick note of gratitude to a coworker or a willingness to just listen patiently to someone. I always thought people were being nice when they responded to the daily text messages I send. But I've come to realize people appreciate not just the words, but the thoughtfulness behind them.

All our small acts remind those around us, and ourselves, that God is alive and at work in our lives. Each act of encouragement pushes back against doubt, fear and the hardness that the world can bring.