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  Listen to today’s devotional Spilling Hope October 20, 2026 Romans 15:13 One of my nieces asked me if I knew Romans 15:13. I couldn’t call it to mind at the moment, so I asked her, "In the Greek?" I'm kidding, but have you noticed that when some people don't have an answer, they just make the question harder? My niece reminded me of this blessing: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Oh. That one. Maybe I needed to hear it. In English. I've used that as a benediction many times. Of course I know it. But is it still with me? The apostle Paul prays for a hope that fills us so fully that it begins spilling into the lives around us. Some people come in and spill all the latest news. They spill the beans about what's going on. Some spill their frustrations. Oh, but what joy to be around someone who spills a little hope. Paul prays that we will overf...

Genesis 45:25-28 “Don’t get your hopes up.” That’s something you’ve probably heard before. Maybe it’s advice you’ve given to someone. Usually, we mean well when we say that, because we don’t want someone to be disappointed by how things will most likely turn out. But if you hear it enough, “don’t get your hopes up” can become a way of life. Don’t expect too much. Don’t get too excited. Don’t believe things can change. That way, if things do fall apart, at least it won’t hurt as much. Like many of us, Jacob knew that kind of hurt. For years, he believed his son Joseph was dead. He had grieved him, mourned him, and learned to live with a hole in his life. So, years later, when his sons returned from Egypt, saying, “Joseph is still alive!” Jacob couldn’t believe them. Some translations of the Genesis text say that his heart became numb. He was stunned. Of course, that was something hard to believe, but I also wonder if Jacob had also been hurt too deeply to risk even hoping again. Then he...

  2 Corinthians 4:7-12 Listen to today’s devotional Hard times and hopelessness don't have to belong together. I've met a lot of people who've lost their jobs or received a diagnosis that felt like every good thing had disappeared from their lives. Sometimes, goodbyes feel like hope goes with them. But let's reflect on something the Bible tells us. The apostle Paul wrote some of the most hope-filled words in the New Testament while sitting in prison and enduring more hardship than most of us will ever know. True Christianity has never promised an easy road through life. But it does promise something better...the presence of God on every road. The word translated "hope" in the New Testament isn't wishful thinking. The Greek word elpis describes a confident expectation. For us, hope is a settled assurance that God will keep God's promises. So, biblical hope isn't crossing your fingers, but standing on a strong foundation. That's why Paul could w...

  Joel 2:28-29 Listen to today’s devotional Walter Brueggemann was a prophetic voice to the modern church. His idea of the "royal consciousness" helps us understand how every empire, every system, and every culture trains people to accept the world as it is. Royal consciousness says, "The pain, the disappointment, even the injustice, it's all normal. Nothing will ever change." And that is the world the ancient prophet Joel speaks into. God's people had experienced devastation. Besides losing the tangible aspect of life, their joy and hope were taken as well. But God promises a restoration that comes when the people return to God with all their heart (Joel 2:12). Much would be restored to the people, and they would also experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The first sign of the Spirit is imagination. Listen again to what Joel says, "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions....

  Ezekiel 1:1-3 Listen to today’s devotional I once read a scholarly article that asked a strange question. Was the prophet Ezekiel on drugs? If you've read his letter, you understand. I'll let you chase that rabbit trail on your own. In the meantime, recall that Ezekiel's name means something like "strengthened by God." And when you step into his story, you can see that is his testimony. Right now, our church is walking through the book of Lamentations. These are five poems written by the prophet Jeremiah, a contemporary of Ezekiel. Our worship series is titled "Hope in the Ashes." Usually, when we talk about hope, we talk about what comes after the ashes. After the grief. After the loss. After the valley. Of course, there is something to celebrate about that. But if we're not careful, that kind of hope always lives just out of reach. It's like something that's only on the other side of what we're going through. Lamentations doesn't ...

  Psalm 74:12-17 Listen to today's devotional Many of us grow up hearing the creation story as a simple fact. God made the world. End of discussion. As a result, Genesis 1 becomes something we accept rather than something we wrestle with. Reading the Bible, then, becomes like reading the fine print of a rulebook. But Scripture invites us into something deeper than memorization. It invites us into wonder, struggle, and hope. Biblical scholar Jon Levenson reminds us that creation is not only about God speaking the world into existence, but about God continually bringing order out of chaos. In Genesis, God doesn’t create in a peaceful vacuum. God speaks into darkness, confusion, and formlessness. When God does, life begins to take shape. In that sense, creation is not just a moment in the past; it is God’s ongoing work in a broken world. When you memorize Bible verses, do so as a way to give your soul language to recognize the chaos we still face. In our world, there is suffering...

  Acts 1:1-5 Listen to today's devotional Recently, a group of colleagues and I were asked to reflect on whether we thought racism could ever end. Out of that conversation came the idea that many Christians do not believe it could. Not that it would not, but that it could not. As a pastor, that's disheartening. If we say something is impossible, we're likely to stop worrying about it. We learn how to live with it and maybe even stop praying about it. That leads me to wonder what kind of faith do we think God gives us. Many Christians pray "the prayer Jesus taught us," asking God to deliver them from evil. Is our deliverance only an escape? The biblical story assumes there are spiritual forces of evil. It names injustice, violence, and sin honestly. Again and again, though, God’s people are invited to see a future that does not yet exist. It's the paradox of now and not yet. That kind of imagination is not naïve optimism. It is hope. As an act of resistance, ho...

  Isaiah 60:1-6 Listen to today's devotional There are moments when God does something so good, so unexpected, and so redemptive that it feels like your heart skips ahead of your words. Did you know there's a bidi bidi bom bom moment in the Bible? Selena fans know what that means. It's the sound your heart makes when you're in love. As the prophet Isaiah saw it, it's what your heart does when you're in awe. In Isaiah 60, God's people heard the promise that God's light would shine on them. It would shine so much upon them that nations would come to honor God. They would bring their wealth with them, and the people would see it as a sign of God's blessing. No more would they see exile or know desolation. The Lord would bring prosperity to them. As a result, the prophet says their heart "shall thrill and rejoice." That's not a generic sense of happiness. It is a deep joy that moves your whole being. There's a sense that their heart wou...

  Titus 3:4-7 Listen to today's devotional Christmas is not just the celebration of a birth. It's certainly more than Jesus' birthday. It is the celebration of an appearance. Titus tells us, "When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared..." God stepped into our world, into flesh, and into history. Now, notice what Paul emphasizes: not because of righteous things we had done. That's how we win contests. When I was in middle school, I had the opportunity to meet Chuck Norris. He came to our school as a reward for our participation in his new karate program. And, somehow, our family even got a Christmas card from him! But Christmas confronts our instincts to try to earn our way to God. The manger reminds us that salvation begins not with our effort, but with God's mercy. Before we could ever clean ourselves up or figure everything out, God came near to us. Jesus arrives as love embodied. God's grace with skin on. Marcy wrapped in swaddling cloths...

  Isaiah 9:2-7 Listen to today's devotional I've been through many blackouts, and I think every time I eventually do the same thing. I'll walk into a room knowing the lights do not work. Still, I flip the switch, and for a split second I'm surprised when nothing happens. Some of that is muscle memory. That's what you do when you enter a room. You reach for the light because darkness isn't helpful. My body remembers the light, even when I know it's not there. I'd like to think that's something God can teach us to be: light expectators. That is, people who live with the expectation that God will shine. We aren't people who deny darkness. But we are people who refuse to believe it gets the final word. We are people who still reach out, still pray, and still show up, expecting God to act. Not because our conditions have improved, but because God has been faithful before. Of course, the switch isn't the source of light. Flipping it doesn't res...

  Isaiah 54:1-3 Listen to today's devotional In a patriarchal society, barrenness carried deep shame, a failure to continue the husband's family name. It was also seen as a kind of divine punishment. Today, most of us don't think of barrenness in the same way. But that doesn't mean we haven't found new ways for shame to mark our lives, name us, and follow us around. You may not relate to the Bible's concept of barrenness, chances are, though, you know shame. In Isaiah 54, the barrenness of the people was their exile. It was their suffering, their displacement, and being cut off. As a pastor, I can tell you many of us feel like the things we go through are too embarrassing, too heavy, or too complicated to share. So, yes, we know shame well. That's why God's promise in Isaiah 54 remains such a beautiful reflection point. God told the people that their past humiliation would not define their future. At one point in the chapter, God says "You will forg...

  Genesis 8:6-12 Listen to today's devotional I'm not sure I've ever thought too much about Noah's raven. Most of us remember the dove and the olive leaf. After sending the dove out again, it never came back. That was the sign the great flood was over, for sure. But before that, Noah initially sent out a raven. Now, there's no consensus on why there are two birds in the story. That's often a part of Bible study. We don't get answers to every question. There is much we are left to reflect on and wonder about and muse over. Today, I'm reflecting on the idea that ravens are known to be scavengers. Maybe Noah expects the raven to return with a piece of carcass, suggesting where he was wasn't going to be a good place for him to live after leaving the ark. But a dove brings back an olive leaf. And that was a small enough sign of life. Ravens can live off what's dead. They hover over old losses and old wreckage. I wonder if we sometimes do the same. We ...