The world wants you to believe in stark black and white. We’re told we must choose between freedom and safety, right and left, equality and merit, individualism and community. We’re told there’s always a correct answer, that compromise is weakness, and that any nuance means moral failure. But the real world doesn’t live in absolutes—it lives in shades and gradients, in the slow work of discernment.
It’s no wonder so many always wants to go back to “the good ol’ days”, because when we have it great, and we’re the ones riding high on power and wealth, the only things we see through our rose-tinted-backward-facing lenses are the high points. Not the individuals or people groups whose lives were destroyed to get there.
Society doesn’t improve when the naysayers stand by and proclaim “I told you so.” It improves when, as a community, we decide that we’re better than the sum of our parts.
I live daily nestled between the beginnings of an existentialist crisis and the precipice of a nihilistic void. That’s not a cry for help, just a statement of fact.
They continue, “We had hoped he was the Messiah who had come to rescue Israel. This all happened three days ago.” (Luke 24.21). Three days ago. Because depression focuses on the past. Hope screams “three days later”.
I dislike Christmas. But this year, I’m writing a series of Advent posts. Irony? Maybe. Adventure? Certainly.
If this were a movie scene, this would be the point where the camera would begin to swirl around Jesus and all of the other sounds in his immediate vicinity would become intensified. Mary crying, his disciples nearby murmuring “we tried to tell him”, Martha nowhere in sight, and hundreds of villagers all throwing themselves down and screaming in “solidarity” with the grieving sisters.
No. One. Gets. It.
What I wanted to write about, then, was my own personal observations from my time “behind the curtain”, as it were. There are a lot of old traditions and longstanding institutions that need closer scrutiny, and there’s a lot of decisions being made with good intentions but poor destinations…
Many of you know that I’ve been working on writing a book for the better part of two years now. And, to be honest, the content has been brewing inside of me in various ways for closer to a decade now. This is truly a work of the heart and represents both my deepest frustration […]
Your job as a church leader may seem daunting. But you have one of the most beautiful callings known to mankind. You get to constantly and consistently remind people about the freedom they have in the forgiveness and sacrifice of a loving Savior who has promised to return one day.
