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  Psalm 139:1-6 Click here to listen to today’s devotional This week, I have taken intentional time to journal about my inner life. It has been both challenging and necessary. I’m sharing these reflections with you so you can also ask God to search what temptations, worries, or burdens might be pulling you this week. As someone who spends much of my time thinking about God-related things, talking about God, and preparing others to encounter God, this week has been a reminder that there is a difference between working for God and being present with God. A question I have wrestled with is, What is happening in my soul while I am doing all the things expected of me as a pastor? I am entering a new season of ministry. New church. New community. New relationships. New expectations. There is excitement, but there is also uncertainty. I have been reflecting on the verse I preached on in my first sermon: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11...

  Isaiah 41:21-24 Click here to listen to today’s devotional Often, we are drawn to anyone or anything that promises to tell us what comes next. Just think of election season. Candidates promise they know what needs to happen next, and that they'll be the ones to make it happen. Besides that, we check forecasts, scroll through headlines, follow experts, and replay conversations in our minds, hoping someone can calm our fears surrounding the question: What's going to happen ? That's the tension behind God's challenge in Isaiah 41 when God speaks to the idols that people trusted. The Lord says, "Tell us what is to happen," and "declare to us the things to come." Of course, it's a challenge they cannot answer. Their promises are empty because they cannot see or shape what's next. They are nothing. And yet, not much has changed. Our idols may not be carved from wood or stone, but they still make oversized promises. You probably recognize them, ev...

  Matthew 13:10-17 Click here to listen to today’s devotional Maybe it's because my last name is Fletcher, but growing up, I always had a soft spot for Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote . She managed to solve every mystery in one episode. That's probably why, whenever I read the word mystery , even in the Bible, my mind wants to think, "Something to figure out." Like a puzzle waiting to be solved. But that's not what Jesus means. The Greek word mystērion refers to something that was once hidden but has now been revealed. The mystery isn't that God is keeping secrets from us. The mystery is that God is pulling back the curtain. For generations, God's people longed to know how God would set the world right. The prophets spoke of a coming kingdom. The people hoped and prayed for it. And there were times that they saw glimpses, but never the whole picture. Then Jesus came. The mystery, then, wasn't a code to crack, but a person to follow. And maybe ...

  Psalm 142 Click here to listen to today’s devotional People often ask how they should pray. Jesus told his disciples, "When you pray, say..." and then he gave them actual words to repeat. Likewise, many of us are looking for the "right" words to fill in what's in our hearts. The worry is that without the proper language, prayers aren't spiritual enough. Well, I think there are many, many more ways to pray faithfully than there might be wrong ways to pray. Psalm 142 reminds us that prayer doesn't have to be impressive. Sometimes, prayer is simply telling God your trouble. Tell God what's weighing on you. Explain what happened today. Name your disappointment and admit what you're fearful of. Talk about the frustrations. Say out loud what you're hoping for and what you're afraid might never happen. And just know that God doesn't need the information; God knows. But actually learning to tell God everything is an expression of your relat...

  1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 Click here to listen to today’s devotional The apostle Paul wanted the Thessalonian Christians to learn to please God "more and more." To appreciate what Paul might have had in mind, it's important to recall when he first preached in Thessalonica. The people there accused the believers of turning the world upside down because they said, "There is another king named Jesus" (Acts 17). Caesar was the other king. Living under a king like Caesar, "more" usually meant giving more. More taxes, more allegiance, more of yourself to an empire that always demanded something else. King Jesus is different. Paul's urging the church to please God "more and more" wasn't a call to appease a God who is never satisfied. No, he understood that the more we follow Jesus, the more we become the people God created us to be. We become more human, recognizing more and more the image of God within us. This growth is what we know as holin...

  Romans 15:1-6 Click here to listen to today’s devotional One of the marks of spiritual maturity isn't that nothing bothers you anymore. You just learn to decide what is worth being bothered about. Personally, I took the "pick your battles" advice to heart and have found less interest in fewer and fewer battles. I see this kind of spiritual maturity as a gift of the Spirit. The apostle Paul says it this way, "We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves" (Romans 15:1). That raises an uncomfortable question to wrestle with. Am I spiritually strong enough to let other people inconvenience me? Sometimes, I think our "standing for truth" is really just defending our preferences. Have you noticed the uproar that can happen when people get frustrated because someone is late, sings differently than they like, asks too many questions, or just doesn't see things the same way? Paul points us to a strength that...