What God Has Done

We spend so much of our time trying to get out of the lives we're actually living - trying to cultivate, trying to curate, trying to project this image that seems greater, more beautiful, more successful. All the while, we're missing out on the truly miraculous lives we're already living. 

And that makes faith harder. 

It makes it harder to believe in a good God if you believe that the life you're living is just a shadow of what you want or what you're capable of or what you think you deserve. If the picture-perfect life is supposed to be your life, if the highlight reel is supposed to be your life, if it's supposed to be only the best for you, then what does this mess that you're looking at mean? What do the piles of laundry and the doctor's visit and the car repairs and the eviction notices mean? 

It's easy to think that they mean that God isn't really good. Or worse, that He doesn't really love you. 

If, on the other hand, you remember the life you've been missing while you've been chasing the dream, if you look at all the little things that are actually going well and might actually be, well, beautiful, then all of a sudden, you remember - God is good. 

More importantly, He does love you. 

I get frustrated in the life I'm living sometimes. I'm human. I'm just like you. I don't have some kind of superhuman faith that prevents me from being disillusioned from time to time and falling into the same traps that we all do. Just look at my confession yesterday about how much time I feel like I've missed chasing something perfect when what I've had all along has still been good. 

But when I remember that the life I'm living is still good, even though it's hard - when I see all the little things that aren't just going right but that shouldn't be going right but still are - then I get my perspective back. 

The truth is that everything in my truly miraculous life is God's doing. It's all Him.  

And if that's the case, then He really is good. And He really does love me. 

There's absolutely no reason that my life should look the way that it does today. None. And I'm not talking about my life looking worse than it ought to; I'm talking about all the ways that my life looks better than it ought to. All the things that are possible for me today that shouldn't be possible for me. 

If you laid my story out on paper and followed it along, you'd think there's absolutely no way that it ends up here. Not a chance in the world. 

But...in heaven, it's certain. In God's plan, this makes perfect sense. According to His love, this life I live is obvious. 

It's not just obvious; it's good. I just have to remember that. 

And when I do, it not only makes faith possible; it makes it bigger. Deeper. More confident. More humble. 

God is good. God does love you. 

There's no better way to see that than to take off the filters, step out of the instagram, and put yourself firmly back into the actual life you're living. Right here, right now. 

Do you see it? 

It's actually...pretty epic. 

The Lost Life

Can I tell you what it does to always be chasing a life that you don't have? 

It makes you miss the one that you do. 

It's easy to see how rates of anxiety and depression are skyrocketing - it's because we create these beautiful pictures of our lives, these highlight reels, these computer-generated fantasies, and we post them online where our friends and family react just as we want them to, with proper awe and admiration. Then, we turn around and see the pile of laundry waiting to be folded, the floors that need vacuuming again, the dirty dishes that are stacking up, the oil spot in the driveway...and we feel like we've suddenly lost the life we never really had. You know, that picture-perfect life we've been projecting. 

But there's something even more insidious than that. It's that while we're busy trying to have that life, we aren't living this one. 

It's no secret that in 2020, I contracted "original" Covid - the Covid we had before we had treatment, before we had knowledge, before we had much of anything. At the time that I contracted it, we were in the middle of a surge of cases, so I didn't even get a hospital bed. (I'm actually thankful for that.) But Covid...wrecked me. 

It wrecked my body in ways that I still haven't recovered from. But that hasn't stopped me from trying. 

I spent the first few years after Covid running to doctors, pleading with them to figure out what was wrong, telling them that this isn't my life, that this isn't how I'm supposed to be. Insisting that I was not getting better. (I wasn't.) I made so many trips to the emergency room that I lost count. Every time something started happening again, I'd run to the ER thinking that this had to be the time we would finally catch it. This was going to be the batch of tests to show us what was going on. This was going to be the day I started getting my life back. 

But it never was. 

As I write, it has been almost six years since I contracted Covid, and I'm still not "better." That is, my body is still broken. And I keep thinking that I'm learning how to live with it, how to accommodate what is clearly my new life...but give me the opportunity to find something that will help, and I'll jump at the chance all over again. 

If I really slow down, though, and look at it and think about it, the thing I am most angry about in these whole six years is not getting sick. It's not not getting better. It's not the medical system that hasn't been able to help me. It's not the narratives that were told that were unhelpful. It's not the reputation I have, both with those who knew me before Covid and with those who didn't. It's not the idea of being "fragile." 

The thing I am most angry about is the increasing realization - this nagging feeling that I've had for the last couple of years - of how much of my life I have missed "trying to get my life back." Trying to get back the life that feels good for me. Trying to make things better. 

Honestly? They're pretty good. Aside from, like, randomly turning grey and almost passing out in my office and some weirdly consistent inconsistencies in my heart rhythm and the absolutely aggravating inability to drive safely, things are pretty good. 

I'm running 800+ miles a year...at a pace that pre-Covid me could only dream of. I am holding a full-time job where I am designated as the "lead" in my role. I had an amazing journey with my best friend...and am starting a new incredible journey with a new best friend. I'm not drowning in medical debt. I don't require portable oxygen. I've weaned off almost all of my medications and am down to just three prescriptions. I've lost several inches of weight around my waist, and I'm fairly solid muscle at this point. I have learned to breathe again, learned to control my heart rate, learned to walk again, learned to sleep more restfully, learned to eat better (most of the time ;) ). 

By every account, I'm a walking, talking, living, loving miracle...and somehow, I have wasted so much of this time trying to be more than that. I don't think I've taken full advantage of how incredible my story really is. 

Maybe one day, I'll forgive myself for that. 

But I tell that story to say this, because this is where we're at: this is what we're all doing to ourselves. We're cultivating and curating and highlighting and instagramming the lives we think ought to be ours, all the while missing out on the very real lives that we already have...lives that are already beautiful and wonderful and amazing and miraculous. 

And, mercifully, full of grace.

Even for a train wreck like me.  

Chasing the Dream

We're all chasing these epic lives - carefully curating what we show the world and sometimes, just making it up. 

But what the truly wise among us have learned is that the epic life isn't really all that great. The truly great life is in the things that can't be measured. 

I have worked in non-profits my whole life - with the exception of that season that I worked construction. I have worked in community organizations, hospitals, schools, universities - all of which had 501(c)3 status. And generally, that means I have spent my life working at the bottom of the community pay scale, with scant or non-existent benefits (with some exceptions). 

It also means I have watched many, many coworkers leave in search of all the things they thought they were missing - higher pay, more benefits, different hours.

With very few exceptions, I have later heard from many of those former coworkers who have said...they aren't as happy in their new place. 

In addition to finding the things that made them think life was going to be better over there, they found other things that can't be accounted for. Things like...toxic leadership, clique-y departments, longer commutes, facelessness in big systems, unfavorable hours, less benefit coverage, higher tax brackets...the list goes on and on. 

What they miss most about the places they have left are the intangibles - being known by name, having a sense of belonging, shorter commutes that mean more time at home with family and friends and active schedules, predictability of knowing your space well, being rooted in something. 

In other words, the things that don't make the highlight reel, but absolutely make life worth living. 

I mean, it's cool to post your bigger paycheck. And your new car. And your nice house. And your work badge. And all that. 

But what's worth more than all of that and can't be posted...is your peace. It's your well-being. It's your quality, not quantity, of life. 

And in all the years that I have been working at non-profits and watching folks leave for what they thought were greener pastures, I've also been watching them come back...for all the things they couldn't put numbers on. 

I've seen them take positions in other departments, take lesser pay, take fewer benefits, take unfavorable hours...just to come back to a place that they finally figured out might not have been the shiniest, but it was good. 

At the end of the day, that's what we're all really looking for. 

The dirty little secret is that if we look close enough at the lives we're living, most of us will find that we already have it.... 

Made-Up

When I was younger (think mid-teens), I had a season as a "poser," which was a pretty common accusation in the 90s. Basically, it meant that you were pretending to be something that you were not. 

I remember one time, I was shopping at a thrift store and ran across an old scrub top, two sizes too big for me, with "Medical Missions" embroidered on the chest pocket. This thing literally fell off my body when I tried to wear it, but I bought it anyway. It made me feel like I was part of something important. It made me feel like I could project a story bigger than the one I was actually living. It gave me this idea that maybe I could pretend to be something that someone would be proud of. 

So I wore that worn-out, two-sizes-too-big scrub top with pride. Yeah. Medical Missions. That's me. 

I was kind of disappointed that nobody ever asked me about it when I had it on. (And I was also secretly relieved that nobody ever asked me about it because I didn't actually have a story to go with it.) 

As kids, coming of age, we all kind of go through a similar period, some of us deeper into it than others. We're trying to figure out who we are in the world. We don't like our own story. We feel like we're too small for our space...or too big for it. We want to be something, someone, meaningful. We want to escape the trauma we're living with on a daily basis. There are all kinds of reasons we become "posers." 

Decades later, the internet is not helping us. 

We've been talking about the way that we curate our online presence, how we're all trying to make our lives epic in the way that we present them. How we're posting our highlight reels and pretending things are better than they are.

But now, we're in this dangerous age of AI and...let's be honest - some folks are just making it up. 

Completely. 

They're putting prompts into AI and coming out with photographic evidence of the life they wish they were living. It all started with stupid stuff like "potato yourself" (Remember that? You could upload a picture of yourself and AI would generate what you would look like if you were a cartoon potato...those were good times). Then, we started airbrushing our blemishes away. Then, we graduated to full-on filters. 

All of a sudden, we're at generated-from-nothing, completely-made-up existences. All it takes is telling a computer to make our lives better than the mirror tells us they are. 

It's sad, really. 

Because the truth is that there are a lot of things about each of our lives that are already epic, just quietly so. A lot of things we see as mundane are the very things that other folks are aching for in their own lives. 

Did you know there are folks AI generating houses? And families? And cars? And clothes? The most basic of things that seem so...ordinary to us. These things are someone else's dream life. 

I don't like AI. If you know me, you know that. I've never used it, not for anything - not even to potato myself. (A friend did send me a potato of myself. Full disclosure.) But man, it's just destroying our sense of everything. 

And every time I type "destroying," I accidentally type "destorying" first, and it's doing that, too. 

I just wonder what would happen if we lived our lives more authentically. If we gave each other the gift of being real. I think that's better than all the things we think AI is doing for us. I do. 

Maybe it's just me.  

True Community

Loneliness is rising. Depression is rising. Unhappiness is at an all-time high. And we think it's because we're just being bombarded every day by the headlines in the world, by more information than we can process, by problems and traumas and systems that we just can't solve. 

But that's not it. 

It doesn't matter how much you sit behind your computer screen and yell at me, how much you tell me I just don't get it, how firmly you insist that there are so many devastating problems in the world that of course, it's overwhelming...that's not it. 

Our problem is that we've pulled ourselves out of real community and settled for something fake, and we simply have no connection in the world any more. 

I don't believe any of us is called to address the headlines. I don't think we're called into the streets to protest what's happening half a world away. I don't think it's on us to try to fix the life of someone we've never met, based on nothing more than some principle that we claim to hold. 

I think we're called to hold our principles where we actually live. 

I think we're called to be in connection with our real community, with the folks right around us in our own little spaces where we can actually make a difference. 

I think if we spent more time loving on the persons God has given us - the ones we can walk down the street and talk with, the ones whose voices we know, the ones whose cars we see come and go or who we see walk by our porches every day - then I think we will make the biggest impact in the world. 

More than that, I think that if we were all doing this - taking care of our own persons in our own places, being deeply connected to and invested in our communities - then the headlines that we're so concerned about, that we're so consumed with, that we're so distracted by would start becoming fewer and fewer, too. 

I think that if we got off each other's pages and back into each other's spaces, we'd do a lot more good in the world than we ever can as keyboard warriors or, what is it we call ourselves? "Allies." 

The world doesn't need allies; it needs friends. And we can only be true friends in true relationship. 

I mean it. It doesn't mean I'm not concerned about what's going on in the world. It means that I recognize my limitations as a finite human being and I respect God's plan for one anothering, for the kind of love that happens only with real connection. 

I think we all recognize that. That's why the headlines outrage us. We look at what's happening, and our gut instinct says...why isn't someone loving that person? Why isn't justice happening over there? 

But if we are loving where we are and if we are offering justice where we are, nobody will be able to say that about the space where we live. And if everyone was doing that, well, there would be no places that would need our far-reaching love and justice; they'd already be taken care of. 

God really knew what He was doing when He gave us to each other. ...We just have to remind ourselves that that was the plan and stop trying to give ourselves to the whole world.  

Beautiful Spaces

I think at its core, life is just as beautiful for each one of us as it was in the 90s. Yes, the way the world goes has presented us with a new series of challenges, but at the end of the day, I think that if we were to actually walk into each other's sacred spaces, we'd have the same reaction. 

It's so cool in here. This is so you. 

Because your life is beautiful. It is. It doesn't matter what it's thrown at you or what you've had to face or what you're facing now, your life has been cultivating its own little touches that are uniquely yours. And that makes it beautiful. 

I think that was part of the draw for me as a kid in the 90s. Yes, my space was distinctively my space, but it was neat to walk into someone else's space and see how they lived. To learn something about your friend that you didn't know before, that you never would have known if you hadn't seen their inner sanctum. 

And that's what's happening. We have these lives that are so curated online, these highlight reels, these picture-perfect sorts of things that we're trying to project, but our real stories are in our inner sanctums, in the places shaped in our lives by the living of it. Anyone who might dare to walk into such a space would find something more of us than they thought they knew, something more true about us than all of the curated spots in all the world could ever show them. 

That's where we're most connected to each other. 

The vacation pictures, the neat-and-tidy kids, the clean house, whatever else we're projecting, it does nothing but keep us apart. It does nothing but present the image that we're not living in the same world, you and I. But these inner sanctums remind us that we are. 

More than that, they give us a glimpse of how someone else is navigating a space similar to our own. They show us what it might look like to approach life, and its challenges, a different way. To embrace joys in a different way. To shift our perspective and find something else to see in this mess of a thing we call life. 

Our testimony lives in these spaces. It lives in our actual lives. In the quiet place where we're actually living...the ones we don't think we want anyone to see. 

But what a breath of fresh air it is to see one of these. What an encouragement. What a boost to my faith and to yours. 

If someone like you is doing it in the quiet place where you live, then there really is hope for someone like me in the place where I'm living. If you're figuring it out in a place just like the one I'm trying not to let anyone see, then maybe I can figure it out, too. 

Maybe we need to spend more time these days in each others' bedrooms (not literally). We need to see the posters on the walls and the pictures in the frames and the tears on the pillows and the color choices and the hard nights and the long days and the everything...the everything that shapes our own lives, too, but only in our private places. 

Maybe if we saw more of each other's spaces, we'd be reminded all over how beautiful they really are. And, well, if your space is that beautiful...

...maybe mine can be, too. 

Relatable

Being human has never been about being cool; it's been about being...

Relatable. 

We were formed to be in relationship with one another, and we are not at our fullest until we are connected. And we are not connected until we recognize that we're sharing the same basic human experience. 

This is why we're in what some experts are calling a "loneliness epidemic." Self-reported feelings of loneliness are at an all-time high...at least since we started keeping track of things like how many persons are self-reporting feeling lonely. 

And it's because these curated lives are not lives that we can connect to. I mean, it's cool to look at a bunch of pictures of beaches and mountains and foreign places, but if you can't afford a vacation or have responsibilities or disabilities that keep you from getting away, it's not a life you can live. It's neat as an idea, but it's not meaningful. 

And there it is...meaningfulness.

Stuff becomes meaningful when it applies to our lives, and it applies to our lives when we're connected to things and to other people, and we're connected to things and to other people when we are honest about the human experiences that we're having. 

Not our highlight reels. 

See, we look around at what our friends are posting or what our family is posting or what our community is posting and for whatever reasons, big or small, we know that's not going to be us. We're infertile - that baby is never going to be ours. We're uneducated - that corner office is never going to be ours. We're drowning in debt - that new car is never going to be ours. We're disabled - that adventure is never going to be ours. And it doesn't take long before we feel like we're living in a world totally different from the one everyone else is living in. 

And it all blurs together. It's not like we're looking over here thinking everyone else is living in their own little world. No, we're looking around and thinking everyone else is living in one great, big world, and we're the only one stuck in our own little world - a world filled with laundry and bills and commutes and all the things that make a life mundane. And...isn't there anyone who knows this life? Isn't there anyone who can make this kind of life beautiful? 

Of course, we're all actually living that life. We're just not talking about it. And because we're not talking about it, we're creating those feelings of loneliness in others...and ourselves. It's a lot of pressure to try to live up to the images that we're curating. When you're staring at your fourth pile of laundry that still needs to be folded and everyone else is looking at your picture perfect family at the beach, who do you reach out to when you need someone? You can't...it will shatter the image you've created. 

So we're all living in our own little bubbles in which we think we're the only ones, but the one thing that actually connects us is that most of our bubbles are actually the same. They're full of the same stuff - the same regular, daily, human stuff that we desperately need to know that we share. 

Only then can we look at each other's walls and truly say, "It's so cool in here! This space is so you!" Because when we have that common foundation, it's okay for you to be you - I don't feel jealous about that. You're really just like me. 

But if you're not just like me, now we both have a problem....  

MySpace

I really think the whole rabbit hole of trying to make our lives epic and trending started way back in the late 1900s with a little something called "MySpace." 

The Internet was still relatively new, at least for public access, and here comes this platform that tells you that you can have your own little piece of it...to do whatever you want with. 

Listen, I grew up in the 90s, and my room was my sanctuary - as it was for pretty much everyone else that I knew at the time. There was a period where my walls were literally plastered with music posters. And cut-outs from magazines. And for a brief period, a giant mural that I painted literally floor-to-oops-onto-the-ceiling-a-little of Jonathan Taylor Thomas's face. Yes. His 8-foot-tall face. (And it was not well done.) 

*I also invited him to my birthday every year, but he never even sent a card. Hmph. 

But my room was "cool" to me. I would walk in, and I would feel comfortable in my space, and I would know there was one place in the world where I felt like I made sense. 

And actually, the same is true as an adult. We cultivate our houses and our living spaces so that we're comfortable there. So that when we come in weary from the world, we feel like we make sense again. Something is right. 

Then...MySpace. 

It gave us the opportunity to turn our own little piece of the internet into a "home" - a reflection of who we were. A reflection of what we liked, what made us comfortable, what made us feel like we made sense. 

And for awhile, it was just like we were walking into each others' living spaces. We would ooh and aah and say things like, "That's totally you!" or "That makes perfect sense." We would marvel over each other's spaces the way we'd marvel over a friend's house when we spent the night - it's so cool here. 

Until we'd start browsing around a little more and find other places that were also cool. And then, all of a sudden, it becomes a contest. "But mine is the most cool, right?" And it became an exercise in trying to learn things about the world, but without context. You can look at someone's bedroom and learn quite a few things about them, but none of it will make sense until you actually meet the person and form a relationship with them. 

All of a sudden, we found ourselves in a context-less void where we were looking at things that we thought were cool, but we couldn't possibly understand them. And if we could not understand them without knowing the person, then it slowly occurred to us that others couldn't really understand our thing if they didn't know us, so we started putting ourselves out there a little more, trying to provide context to our little corner of the digital world. 

You can see how this sort of thing spirals. And now, here we are, 30-ish years later, still trying to cultivate context in a world that doesn't actually exist when our real lives are so much more than what we can show of them. We're more human than our digital presence allows us to demonstrate, and yet, what has happened is that we've fallen into the trap of believing that what is epic is what is most human and we couldn't be further from the truth. 

See, being human was never about being "cool." It has always been about something way more important than that...

(Come back tomorrow; I'll tell you more.) 

Epic and Trending

Here's a question I have: who told you that your life has to be epic? 

It's a bit rhetorical because I know it stems from this social media world that we live in, where we're carefully curating our lives to be, well, beautiful. And exciting. And awesome. And full of all the things that we really don't feel like they're full of when we're sitting on our couches for the majority of our day, finishing off another bag of potato chips and letting our streaming services auto-play the next episode. 

I mean, let's just be honest here - that person who is always posting their runs (me! it's me!) isn't running all day; running is maybe an hour of my life on a good day. There are 23 hours I'm not doing anything else. That person who is out for a hike with their best friend...spends the bulk of their day not with their best friend. The one who is playing with their dog, their dog eventually has to take a rest. 

We are presenting our lives in moments, and they are swallowed in wholes, and we're all just trying to make our lives look epic. 

But...why? 

This morning, I was logging into my computer for the day and saw a new "trend" - presented with the idea of having a porch goose, which is becoming pretty popular again these days. It was all about having a porch goose, dressing it up in outfits, making a statement in your neighborhood...and of course, on social media, where you'll probably post your goose every time you change its outfit. 

They called this - are you ready for this? - "whimsy maxxing." 

Because we can't just call it "fun." 

Or "joy." Or regular "whimsy." It's got to be whimsy "maxxing." 

Because we live in a world where we don't do anything unless it's epic. Absolutely everything to the max. Oh, wait...the maxx. With an extra x. 

I just rolled my eyes. Can we seriously not just have fun any more? Good ol' plain fun?

Who told you your life has to be epic all the time?

There are a couple of outcomes to this. First, as has been well-documented, mental anguish is at an all-time high. Depression, anxiety...we're riddled with them. Mostly because our lives are not epic enough. At least, we don't think they are. Or because we're trying to find ways to make them more epic all the time. 

But second, we don't have normal experiences any more. We live in a world where nothing is regular. Nothing is just naturally human. Nothing is part of living. Everything is, by some measure or another, extraordinary...and if it's not - if it's really just a porch goose like half a dozen other families on our street have, too - then we desperately try to make it sound extraordinary to the point of exhausting ourselves with all the extraordinary things we are doing, which are not really extraordinary at all. 

Our trip to the grocery store - extraordinary. Look at me meal prepping (uhm...cooking), and getting a great deal (uhm...using coupons). Our drive to work - extraordinary. Cruising down the road, one hand out the window. Our job - maxxing out. Extreme paperwork ought to be the newest Olympic sport. 

And at the end of the day, we're tired...and we're craving to just do something quiet, something simple. Something "mundane." Something...human. 

We spend so much energy trying to make our lives epic that we neglect to live the epic of our lives and we look around and it feels more normal than we've tried to make it and we have the sudden realization that we've missed all of it. Every bit of it. By trying to make it more than it is and make it bigger than us and make it awesome to the maxx. 

...all when what we really want, deep down in our souls, is simply something good.  

Their Own Time

Have you ever wanted someone to do something "on their own time"? 

We usually say this when we believe that something someone is doing is infringing on our own time...or on our sensibilities. 

We say this more often than we think - let him talk about politics on his own time; let her breastfeed on her own time; let them practice their religion on their own time. 

We say it when the person in front of us in line is having a class reunion with the cashier, who they haven't seen in 10 years. "Reconnect on your own time." We say it when the patient wants to wait for their pastor to arrive and pray before moving forward with the procedure. "Pray on your own time." We say it when the gay man wants to talk about his new date. "Talk about your love life on your own time." 

It creates a lot of tension. We don't understand why the world insists on interrupting our time with their time. We have a schedule to keep, professionalism to maintain, relationships of our own to value. Don't they understand the trouble and the inconvenience they are causing to the way the world works by doing private things in public? By insisting on bringing what's meaningful to them into a space that wasn't built to hold it? 

Friends, let me tell you - the trouble isn't folks who refuse to operate on their own time. The trouble is our spaces that don't value it. 

Because here's the truth that we so often forget - every single second that they're breathing is their own time. Their life is theirs to live as they see fit. If that harshes your mellow, then too bad. It's their time, and they can do whatever they want with it. (Obviously, it's all God's time, not ours, but follow me here.) 

And that means that if the person in front of you is chatting it up more than your liking, then you're going to have to find a way to deal with that. Move lines. Or reassess your priorities. You're in public. That space is theirs just as much as it is yours.

If the patient wants to wait until their pastor arrives before you sedate them, then you wait for the pastor to arrive. That prayer they are waiting for is just as life-giving to them as whatever intervention you're about to perform. If you claim to be taking care of that patient, then you have to give them the space to receive the kind of care that's important to them. 

If the gay man wants to talk about his love life, guess what? He gets to talk about his love life. You can express your opinion, walk away, ignore him, whatever, but you can't tell him what to do with his time in his space just because you happen to share it and think it's yours. 

I'm growing weary of a world that wants to compartmentalize all of our lives, as if there's a certain time and space for everything human that we do. Of course, I'm not advocating for no boundaries at all; that's silly. But I'm advocating for us to assess our boundaries. How do we decide what's relevant and when and where? Is it just an annoyance to us or is it an actual threat? We have to stop asking ourselves what we're losing when our time is interrupted and start asking ourselves what others are gaining when we allow them the freedom to use theirs the way they want. 

Nobody just does things without a reason, and that reason is usually deeply meaningful to them. I just think we'd be better off as a people - as a community, as professionals, as neighbors, as families, as one anothers - if we'd take the time to consider that more. That's all. 

God Gives Life

Have you ever wanted to rescue someone? 

Not necessarily from something dramatic like a house fire or a car crash or a neighborhood pond, but just from the quiet little things that we don't tend to notice until it's too late. There's something in all of us that likes to play the hero, that likes to point out danger before someone else sees it, that wants to be the person who saves someone else from the troubles of this world. 

The problem is...we can't. Not really. Even if we know the risks and see them clearly, we still have to get someone to believe what we're saying. They not only have to believe us; they have to know that we have their best interest at heart. And most of the time, we just come off as a busybody or a know-it-all, someone who wants to feel superior to them. 

But even if we convince them that trouble is on the horizon and we can get them to steer away, we still haven't saved them. Because stopping someone from getting themselves into trouble isn't actually the key to saving someone.

Giving them life is. 

And we're even worse at that. 

We may stop someone from making a bad decision. For awhile. We may stop them from doing something stupid. This time. We might convince them to look for something else. But the truth about the bad things we do to ourselves and to each other is that we do them while we're searching for something...and when someone or something stops us from the bad things, we're still searching for the same thing that led us down that road in the first place. 

As long as that empty space or that hurt space or that broken space remains in our life, we'll keep searching. 

And it doesn't really matter what we suggest or offer or provide, we're just not capable of filling that emptiness for each other. 

John tells us we're not supposed to be. John tells us to stop trying to rescue each other. Rather, he says, when we see someone in sin - someone in trouble, someone heading down the wrong road, someone headed toward sure destruction, we should pray for them. We should get them to God.

Because God gives life to sinners (1 John 5:16). 

He's the only one who can. 

So the next time you want to rescue someone, the next time you want to play hero, the next time you really want to make a difference and keep someone from the pain and the troubles and the heartache that their waywardness, weariness, and wantonness is about to cause them...pray for them. 

It's the best thing you can do. 

God of Real Love

I've been wrestling a lot lately with the idea of love. It's not the first season that I've wrestled with it, and it probably won't be the last; it's such a hard idea in a world like ours. 

Most of the things that we call "love" aren't really. They're usually something much less. 

A lot of times, what we call "love" is actually appreciation - we love what someone else does for us, so we say that we love them, but the truth is...we don't. Not really. We just love what they do for us. We love the functions and the tasks they perform. We love the gifts that they share with us. 

The trouble is that when they stop performing, stop sharing, stop giving..."love" falls apart real fast. 

Sometimes, we "love" the idea of someone or something more than we love it. This is true especially for anyone who doesn't like to be alone or doesn't know how to be alone. They cling to someone or something else and call it love, but it's not really love - it's a filler. It fills the empty space in their lives so that they don't feel it so profoundly, and that creates good feelings that we call love. 

The trouble is that when we realize they're just filling a space without any valuable connection..."love" falls apart here, too. 

There are times when we love what someone or something else brings out in us. Often, this boils down to loving them because they need us, because they make us feel strong or smart or powerful in what we are able to offer them. We're at our best when we're with them because they're at their worst, so we love them...

...but looking down on someone isn't love. And using someone else to look up on ourselves isn't love, either. 

When we get down to it, very few of us know how to truly love or to be loved. Very few of us know what real love is. 

But John tells us this is what real love is: that God loves us. That's real love. (1 John 4:10)

It's real love because God isn't captivated by our performance or our gifts or our offerings. It's real love because God doesn't need us to fill an empty space for Him; He's complete just as He is. It's real love because God's not using us to puff Himself up or to feel good about who He is. 

Real love pours through until it pours out. It is offered freely, with no strings or definitions or expectations attached. That's why God is so good at it and we are so not. We're so busy trying to soak up love that we tend to hold onto at least a little bit of it instead of letting it pour through us and to those who really need it. 

The only way to truly love someone else, or ourselves, is to start with knowing that we are truly loved. We have to be full before we can let love pour through us, and that's really hard. And that's what John is saying - real love isn't our love. Not even our most pure love, the love we are supposed to have for God. 

Real love is God's love. 

The rest only makes us hungrier for it. 

God is Patient

You've probably heard it before - God is not slow; He's being patient (2 Peter 3:9). 

And there have probably been times that you've heard that, put your hands on your hips, started tapping your foot, and asked, "How much longer is He gonna be patient?" You're ready for God to move. 

Now. 

Sometimes, I find that my reflexes work faster than my brain. Someone will say something to me, and I'll immediately reply with a "huh?" or a "what?" only to have their words actually register with complete and full understanding just a few seconds later, and I have to say, "Oh, no. I got it. Sorry." Based on my interactions with other human beings, I'm not the only one who does this; it is a very human experience. 

But it also often turns into a series of interruptions, where the other person has already started repeating themselves and is now trying to clarify while I'm trying to wave them off and indicate that I already understand and am ready to move forward with whatever it is. 

If we had both just stopped for half a second before getting ourselves deeper into this, we could have avoided a lot of it. 

That's what I think of when I think about God being patient. I think about hearing Him, having that immediate reaction that I don't think I heard or understood, but then God, in His patience, gives me that little moment, that small bit of breathing room, and I realize I got it. Yup. Heard. Understood. Processed. Or, at least, processing. 

God's giving me time to let it sink in, to figure it out, to put it down into my bones and make it part of my own story. 

And quite honestly, I'm thankful for that. 

Because I'm a person who learns by doing. I learn by being actively involved in the learning and the doing and the execution of things. I learn by putting the pieces together and applying them specifically to my own heart and story so that I see how the threads weave together to make sense. 

I have plenty of book knowledge about God. I went to seminary, for Christ's sake (no, really - I don't get to make that joke often enough; I really went for Christ's sake). I have read millions of words about Him. I have a rolodex of factoids and truths and tidbits of stories tucked away in my head. (Does anybody still know what a rolodex is?) 

But the things that I treasure most about God are the things that I have learned in my heart the hard way, in the time it takes for me to learn them. In that patient little moment He gives me to figure out how it makes sense and how beautiful it is. 

Sure, He could just tell me, but I wouldn't get it in the same way. And He knows that. He knows it's better if I experience it...and I can only experience by engaging...and I can only engage by understanding...and I can understand through patience, by giving me that extra little moment to "get it." 

Got it? 

God of Right

This doesn't feel right. This life, I mean. 

In a world in which we know that God is good, that God is gracious, that God is loving, why is it that we have to look in our mirrors every day and see someone so broken looking back at us? Why is that we have to look around our dinner tables and see so much struggle? Why is that we have to talk to the empty chair next to us when for so long, our best friend sat there? 

This isn't the old question, why do bad things happen to good people? because at the core of it, that's not the question that most of us are asking. 

Most of us are asking: why do bad things happen to me? 

When I was coming of age in the youth group, the tongue-in-cheek answer to nearly every question was, "Pray. Read the Bible. Go to church." But it doesn't take us long to figure out that that's not "working." That's not changing our circumstances. That's not changing our struggle. We might know God better, but it's still a struggle to feel Him near us. Loving us. 

That's particularly true when we get stuck in a season we didn't ask for. In times like these, we usually shift our focus and start talking about things like...thorns in the flesh. Those insolvable little nagging realities of life that we can't seem to get rid of and that God apparently isn't going to take away. Paul speaks freely of his, including how he prayed for God to remove it, so this seems like the Christian approach to trouble...doesn't it? 

Maybe. 

Or maybe it's Peter who has the right mindset for all of this. 

In the first epistle bearing his name, the disciple-turned-apostle writes: And the God of all grace...after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast (1 Peter 5:10). I like the way that the NCV says it: And after you suffer for a short time, God, who gives all grace, will make everything right. 

Doesn't that just breathe fresh air into your lungs? 

Listen, it's tempting to misread that. It's tempting to hear it in your heart as an assurance that God will make everything all right - and then we go right back to verses like the one in Romans, where God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him. 

But that's not what Peter says. Peter doesn't say God's gonna make this all okay, that He's going to make it worthwhile, that He's going to give you some new perspective on it that makes it seem less horrible or miserable than it's been. 

Peter says God's going to make it right. Put it back in its place. Restore you. Make you stronger. Hold you up. Let you stand again. And it's not just going to be the best that God can do with it; it's going to be God's best. It's going to be right - the way you've just always wanted everything to be right with the world. That's what God is doing. 

Isn't that good news? 

Embodied

I was reminded again this week - in multiple ways - about how nothing in this world really matters until it is embodied. That is, until it's human and we can interact with it. 

Truth is truth and facts are facts, but the fact that an apple falls from a tree doesn't matter at all unless you have a vested interest in that apple. Truth is, stuff happens in nature all the time that doesn't affect us because, well, because it doesn't have an effect on us. It's only when it becomes pertinent to our lives that it really gets some skin on it. 

I'm talking about engaging with headlines. It's great to be informed about the world, but until and unless you can have an impact on it, it doesn't really matter. Christians are being slaughtered in Nigeria; young children are being raped in England; Muslims are being targeted in America. And on and on and on we go, but there's nothing that any of us can actually do about it...

...except love the one right next to us. 

The only real, legitimate impact that any of us stands to have when it comes to the headlines and to the problems of humanity is to make sure they're not happening in our neighborhoods. That's it. You can't solve Nigeria. You can't solve England. You can't solve America. You can only do your little part right here in Heresville. 

I'm talking about healthcare. We get all these young nurses coming in with textbook knowledge, but none of it matters until you're looking at the patient. Until you're interacting with them. Doctors have studied for years and know lots of things, but no patient is a textbook; they're a living human being. So that thing that you think you know everything about...isn't a paragraph on a page; it's a lived experience, and that changes it. 

And if you can't recognize and adapt to the ways that embodiment changes facts, you're dangerous. You can be smart - you might even be the smartest person in the room - but you lack wisdom. And wisdom is the thing that teaches you how to react, how to respond, how to engage. 

I'm talking about faith. You can read the Bible and go to church and buy the T-shirt and say all the right things and these are facts, but you can't really understand God unless you live Him. In your heart, in your actions, in your experience - you have to live faith to truly understand it. 

I saw a post online a day or two ago where someone was complaining about the popular quiz show Jeopardy! having categories about the Bible. The Bible, this person said, shouldn't be on a trivia show because you can't create trivia based on peoples' perceptions and beliefs and ideas. Several came to defend the category, explaining that the Bible is a static thing that exists just like any other piece of literature exists and therefore has legitimate concrete answers based in facts. It is written... 

And yet, there's a certain point to it. There are plenty of folks who are pretty good at Bible trivia, but they aren't good at faith...because they haven't lived it. They aren't living it. It's not embodied for them, so it's really nothing but a good idea. 

Embodiment is what makes it dynamic. And beautiful. And amazing. 

So we have to understand that any time we're interacting with the world, it's not this objective thing that's just out there and exists and is static and factual. It doesn't really matter how much you know...because even what you know is changed by the living of it. We have to keep our eyes - and our hearts - open to this living. It's the only way. 

The Cup

Earlier this week, I came across a Facebook memory that reminded me that a number of years ago, I said this: 

Whether the cup is half-empty or half-full depends on whether you're drinking or pouring. 

That was so profound that I actually shared that thought again. Because, hey, it sounds right...right? 

If you're pouring, and the cup has substance in only half of it, then it's half-full. If you're drinking, and the cup has substance in only half of it, then it is half-empty. Easy-peasy. 

But herein lies the difficulty that we have with facts. See, the half-measure in the cup is a fact. Pouring or drinking impacts this fact in a certain way...kinda. 

But here is language, too. Because it still depends on your perspective. 

If you are pouring and the cup has substance in only half of it, it could still be half-empty. That is, how do you feel about pouring? 

If pouring is a chore, if you're running low on your own measure, if you're weary or irritated or bored or whatever, then the cup can still be half-empty. Like, Ugh...I still have half a cup to go. If pouring is a delight, if it's going well, if you feel like you're doing good work, then maybe it's half-full. I'm almost there. I've got this. If you're enjoying it a little too much, if you're really thriving in the work of pouring, maybe it's half-empty again. I only have half left to go, then I'm going to have to find something else to do.

The same is true, as you might imagine, with drinking. Maybe you like what you're drinking, so you're sad it's about to be over. In that case, the cup is half-empty. Maybe you don't like it and don't want to drink it, so it's still half-full; there's still that much more to go. 

Life is complicated. It's complex. It doesn't lend itself to easy ideas or images, even if on the surface they seem beautiful and good. Or even profound. 

Life isn't found in stuff like that. It's found in the living of it. What the cup is or isn't, how much it has or doesn't have, is irrelevant until you are interacting with it. Then, you bring your own experience and perspective and attitude to the cup and so define it in those terms. 

And if we can do all of this with a metaphorical cup, imagine what we can do with the rest of our lives. 

So the question is...how are you living these days that you're given? Are you drinking or pouring and...what difference does it make?  

Babylon

In the wake of Texas passing a law requiring Bible reading in public schools, the internet exploded as you might expect it would have - in an eruption of both cheers and objections. 

But one thing caught my eye. 

It was a preacher, the head of a large church in Texas, who said something to the effect that "these Christian nationalists won't be happy until they've completely destroyed the Constitution." 

Where do we even start? 

First, let's just say, yes. It's a problem. It's a problem that a preacher who calls himself a Christian and calls his body a church is more concerned about the Constitution than he is about the idea that a whole new generation of kids will be exposed to the Bible. It's an...odd...position to take from the pulpit (although this particular preacher very rarely comes down on the side of historical Christianity anyway). 

This is basically living in Babylon and forsaking Jerusalem. It's being so invested in the country you're in, in your physical place, that you forget your heavenly place and the place that you come from. 

To be sure, God has told us we are all exiles here. Not only that, but we are supposed to pray for the "peace and prosperity" of Babylon. We are supposed to want the nations in which we live to thrive. But that doesn't mean that we forsake our Home for a place like thing. It doesn't mean we forget that this is temporary and something eternal still holds our hearts. 

It doesn't mean that we live like Babylon is the thing that's supposed to be more infallible in our lives.

We cannot love Babylon more than we love Jerusalem. 

I mean...who is the real nationalist here? 

But here's the thing - I don't think these things are at odds as much as some folks present them to be. The Constitution and the Bible, I mean. Yes, there's a whole demographic that raises a stink about the "separation of church and state" (which doesn't mean what most of them want to tell you it means, but they cry about it anyway), but here's what I think: 

I think that the Constitution is fulfilled by our Christianity the same way that the Old Testament law is fulfilled by the grace of Christ in the new. 

The founding fathers of our country were Bible-believing folks. They formed our Constitution on ideas that they took from the Bible and their understanding of God. That means that in order to live out what they imagined for this land, we have to live from our Christian convictions. Having Christian leadership at the forefront of our culture isn't a hindrance to the "separation of church and state;" rather, it is the fulfillment of the state by the church, which is what they had in mind in the first place. 

Only when we are living as Christians can we truly guarantee the dignity of every human being as made in the image of God. Only when are are living as Christians can we truly offer equality to all of our neighbors. Only when we are living as Christians can we extend true freedom to the other. Only when we love one another are we actually caring for one another, and what has God always called His people to do? Love one another. 

When we live in grace and truth and love, we don't threaten the Constitution of our country; we fulfill it. That doesn't make us Christian nationalists. 

It simply makes us exiles, working for the peace and prosperity of Babylon, where we so happen to live for right now. Doing exactly what God has called us to do here...and what our Constitution requires of us, too. 

The Hypocrisy

Texas has passed a law making the Bible mandatory reading in its public schools. As we talked about yesterday, there's plenty in the Bible that can be informative without being religiously-specific. That is, we can read the Bible to understand the historical perspective of those who founded our country without requiring our children to become Christians or even, necessarily, suggesting the idea. 

Still, there are cries against what some believe will be obvious "indoctrination" - you just want to make all of our kids Christian. 

Don't look now, but the hypocrisy is showing.

If you haven't been paying attention, there have been battles over book bans for many years now. Decades. It's picked up a lot of steam lately as religious parents and conservative parents push for books with certain content - LGBTQ content or sexual content in general - to be removed from school and public libraries because they are introducing our kids to concepts that these parents disagree with or believe should be left to families to discuss or...whatever. 

And those in support of these books push back and say, "It's not indoctrination. It's just a book. It's just an idea and kids should be allowed to be aware of all kinds of ideas, not just the ones their parents agree with." 

So on the one hand, we have a segment of the population pushing for freedom of information, for the unhindered availability of all kinds of content in the marketplace of ideas, even for young children...

...and then they cry foul when we introduce the Bible into that marketplace. 

Because you can't indoctrinate our kids like that. 

If this is going to be the argument, then it's time for us to address it head on. 

Why is it that some folks believe that kids can read books with cultural concepts and not be persuaded by them in a meaningful way...but those same kids cannot read books with religious ideas and similarly not be persuaded? 

Perhaps they understand that the truth presented in the Bible is so powerful that it presents a challenge to those cultural narratives they are trying to push without restriction. Perhaps they are afraid that the more that children read the Bible, the less they will be willing to entertain culture's nonsense. Perhaps they are afraid of raising true critical thinkers in an age where power is wielded through volume and not reason. 

Whatever the case, the person who says the Bible has no place in schools, in libraries, in the hands of children has no ground to stand on when they argue against a parent who feels the same way about, say, Nineteen Minutes. Either you believe the marketplace of ideas is open to all content...or you're a hypocrite.

At the same time, for those excited about introducing the Bible, I don't think you can believe the Bible is authoritative and true and powerful...and support banning other content for not being in line with it. If the Bible is as powerful as you believe it is, its content will cast shadows on all other content and it will be easy to see what is legitimate and what is not. So if you support the Bible but still want The Fault in Our Stars banned, you are also a hypocrite. 

There is no easy solution here, except, of course, that there is - we encourage our young people to read everything. We open the marketplace of ideas and trust what's powerful, authoritative, and real to win out. We teach critical thinking and encourage open conversation and ask our teachers to put things into proper context for our kids - tell them where it came from, how it has impacted our society, what it means to those who fight for it. 

As a Bible-believing Christian, I'm not afraid of that. In the honest marketplace of ideas - in the agora - we point to the unknown God and make Him known, just like Paul did. We don't have to tear down the other altars. We don't have to destroy the other gods. We don't have to refute the other ideas. We just have to make this One known. 

About the Bible

Last week, news outlets reported that the state of Texas has made parts of the Bible "mandatory reading" in its public schools. 

And the internet lost its mind. 

Immediately, there were calls for separation of church and state. There were cries about indoctrinating our children. There were concerns about what they would learn, about which portions of the Bible would become required reading. 

I even saw one comment that said something like, "Okay, but make sure they start with Song of Solomon." 

To be fair, I think the Bible is important reading. But I also think it doesn't have to be presented in a religion-specific way to be valuable. And I think that's the angle that most, if not all, public schools in Texas will take. 

Because whether you are a Christian or not, the truth is that this country was founded by mostly Christian individuals who derived their concept of the value of human beings from the Bible. Their thoughts, their passions, their dreams for this new land were shaped by what they understood from having learned about God and Jesus. 

That whole thing about all men being created equal? That wasn't our idea. 

That thing about working together for the good of all? God's idea again. 

That bit about worrying more about your own worship than what everyone else is doing? God's command. 

Religious freedom itself is founded on God's ideas. The actual teaching of the Bible is that God's way is best, but if you want to go off burning your children for Molech, then...whatever. Just don't do it while you're pretending you belong to God. 

So yes, I think it's important to understanding who we are as a country, as a people, as a nation with the laws and principles and founding ideas that we have, to know where those ideas came from. And like it or not, the truth is that they came from the Bible. 

I highly doubt that the public schools are going to be building lesson plans around, say, Passover. Or Purim. Or doing poetry units out of the psalms. They're going to be addressing the fundamental ideas of equality, dignity, and freedom that are foundational to our country. 

That's important. 

And if we're being honest, most of the persons saying otherwise are digging themselves into a hole they didn't see coming.... 

Poison

Yesterday, I told you the secret to getting rid of an ant problem - patience and poison. And this is, in fact, the answer to getting rid of some of our other problems, too. Some of the things that just drive us crazy and keep us up at night. 

I'm not saying that this approach always works, but what we know is that the aggressive, immediate response kind of approach doesn't always work, either, so here's an alternative. 

Here's what makes this generally effective, though: 

Ants are dumb. 

They are. The other morning, I woke up to ants crawling all over my bathroom sink and, having done this a time or two in the past few years, I immediately just got a little ant poison and set it out in the middle of the countertop with nothing else around it at all. 

Know what the ants did? They rushed for it. Every single ant on the sink turned around and made a beeline for the poison, then started carrying it happily up the wall and back to their anthill to share with all their ant friends, probably bragging along the way. You guys, I found a great big pile of food just sitting there! 

Before I knew it, there were hundreds of ants helping themselves to the poison. 

This is also great news for those of us trying to solve our other problems with the poison-the-anthill method. Because you know what? 

Problems are dumb. 

Problems will jump at anything that looks like a solution. Problems will jump at anything that looks like an opportunity. Problems will jump at any opportunity to feed themselves. So when you set something out in your life to try to address a problem, your problem will be like You guys! and make a beeline to help itself. 

Ah, yes, the problems that try to help themselves. Haven't they figured out by now that never works? 

If they do figure it out, it will be too late. The trap you've set, the poison you've introduced, the patience you've demonstrated will all be worth it because your problem will take what looks like the easy answer back to its core and destroy itself. 

Sometimes, it's the small, little, patient, faithful steps that you take that will eventually destroy your problems, not the full-frontal assault that we often try first. Sometimes, it's just doing things consistently and making the opportunities available that will take the trouble right out of a situation. And problems, always looking for an easy answer, are far too willing to just take what you lay right out there. Right in the middle of nowhere. Like they just hit the jackpot. 

You guys!

...I'm dying. 

Ants

We have ants. About this time of year, it seems we always have ants. 

It can be really tempting when you wake up in the morning and see a bunch of ants crawling all over your beloved spaces to, well, just start smashing them. One by one by one until they're all gone. 

But the thing about ants is that if you smash them one by one by one until they're all gone...they will never be all gone. 

You can't effectively kill ants that way. 

To successfully get rid of ants, you have to poison the anthill. And that means, you have to have a little patience. You have to set out some poison and wait for the ants to carry it back to their anthill, where they share their bounty with all their little ant friends and they all die. That's the only way. 

Which means...to get rid of ants, you have to have a little patience. 

You have to be willing to let them come. You have to be willing to wait as it seems like even more of them are invading your spaces. You have to resist the urge to squish them or to want to rush them out. You have to wait...until the poison works its magic and the whole colony dies off. 

It's not much fun waiting like this. Not when they just keep coming. But it's the only way. 

I was thinking about that this week as I woke up to yet more ants in more places and I set out more poison. Because I think an invasion of ants is a lot like most of the other problems that we face in life. 

We want to start tackling problems right away. We want to fix things. We want to make the discomfort and the disease and the icky feelings just go away. So when they crop up, we start squashing them. One by one by one. Have a headache? Take a tylenol. Not working? Take two. Have a weed? Pull it. Have a couple? Spray them with vinegar. 

But sometimes, the more we try to tackle our problems one by one by one, the more we aren't really doing anything about them. We're treating the symptoms, but not the problem. We're getting rid of the immediate problem, but it's lurking right outside our sacred space, waiting to come back in. 

There are problems in our lives that require a little patience. They require some waiting. They require our willingness to let things look a little worse before they get better so that we can get to the actual root of the problem. They require living with the headache for a little while longer 

Sometimes, you have to bait the trap and wait for the bigger problem to take it so that you can rid yourself of it once and for all. 

If you spend your whole life squashing ants one by one by one, you'll never solve the problem. But if you're patient and intentional about what you're doing, you might just find that the problem takes care of itself. 

Roads

It's camp season, which takes us to the mountains. But one of the dirty little secrets of faith is that you don't have to climb the mountains to get that feeling; you can get that same feeling, even deeper, in the valleys. 

But the even dirtier little secret of faith is that neither is the place you're supposed to live. 

Most of us know that, and it sends us searching for pastures and fields somewhere. Somewhere calm and flat where we can just sort of chill for awhile and have a good, decent life in the shadow of our Shepherd, where there are still waters and green grass and His rod and His staff protect us. 

And isn't that a wonderful image? 

Of course it is. But that ain't it, either. 

The life of faith isn't meant to be spent on the mountains or in the valleys or even in the pastures; it's meant to be spent on the road. 

It's meant to be spent moving. Traveling from place to place. Finding new hangouts. Meeting new folks. Trying new things. Growing. 

It's meant to be journeying as Jesus journeyed, into the towns and the gardens and the sacred spaces and the forbidden places. Into the sanctuaries and onto the streets and down by the rivers and through the workplaces and right smack in the middle of the markets.

Moving. 

Climbing and falling and sinking and growing and going. Always going. 

Because if you're not moving, you're never going to find anything more of God than you know of Him right now. If you never run into Him in a new place, you're never going to learn a new thing about Him. If you don't find yourself in need of more of Him, you won't get it. 

You might just find that your Shepherd kept moving toward better pastures, but you were so locked into this one that you didn't even notice how brown and dying it is. Then, you look around and the God you thought you'd been looking for - that steady one in the flat places - isn't here any more. 

He kept moving. 

Just like you were supposed to. 

So this constant tug that we find ourselves in between the mountains and the valleys, seemingly bouncing back and forth between one place and the other and everywhere in between, isn't some failure of the fallen human life; it's exactly where the faith is supposed to have us. 

Where will you go next?