A Friday Evening Practice of Gratitude

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Friday evenings have a way of inviting honesty. The pace slows just enough for the week to catch up with us, not as a list of tasks completed, but as moments lived. Tonight, gratitude feels less like a spiritual discipline and more like a gentle noticing.

I’m grateful for a full week of meaningful work. For clients who trusted me with their stories and their nervous systems. For conversations that mattered, not because they were dramatic, but because they were real. For the quiet privilege of sitting with suffering and resilience side by side, and for the reminder (again) that healing is rarely loud or flashy. It’s steady. Faithful. Human.

I’m grateful for meetings that were grounding rather than draining. For collaborative spaces where wisdom was shared, not postured. For colleagues and friends whose integrity is felt as much as it is spoken and people who don’t require performance, only presence. Steady might be the better word here. Solid, yes, but also rooted. The kind of relationships that hold when the wind picks up.

I’m grateful for coffee with like-minded people and those sacred little windows of connection where ideas breathe and souls exhale. For sitting across from someone who understands both the clinical language of trauma and the spiritual language of hope and knows when to let silence do the talking. These moments remind me that loneliness isn’t cured by crowds, but by attunement.

I’m grateful for the gift of seeing people in person again such as friends from out of town whose faces I’ve known mostly through screens lately. There’s something holy about proximity. About laughter landing in the same space. About shared space and unhurried conversation that no bandwidth can replicate.

I’m grateful for warm weather and a body that is cooperating today. For health that allows me to travel, teach, listen, write, and still have enough left to enjoy the evening. For the quiet miracle of stamina in this season of life and the grace to honor my limits without shame.

And tonight, I’m especially grateful for quiet time on the patio with Macon. A fire glowing low. The week loosening its grip. No agenda beyond being together. These are the moments that re-anchor me – the small liturgies of marriage, companionship, and rest that preach the gospel without words.

Scripture tells us to “give thanks in all circumstances,” not because everything is good, but because God is present in all of it. Gratitude doesn’t deny the weight of the world or the grief, or the complexity. It simply refuses to let those things have the final word.

So tonight, my prayer is simple: Thank You.
For work that has meaning.
For people who are safe.
For conversations that nourish rather than numb.
For warmth, health, love, and a fire that reminds me light still gathers when evening comes.

This is enough for today. And tonight, that feels like grace.

Returning to the Way of Jesus

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As a new year unfolds, I find myself less interested in grand resolutions and more drawn to quiet reorientation. Not what should I accomplish? but how am I being invited to live?

When I return to the life and words of Jesus, what strikes me is how simple and how demanding His focus was.

Again and again, He returned people to the question of love.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind… and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
(Matthew 22:37–39)

Not as sentiment.
Not as abstraction.
But as a way of being in the world.

Jesus did not separate faith from daily life. He wove belief, behavior, and relationship together until they were indistinguishable. He spoke about anger and reconciliation, generosity and secrecy, power and humility, not to burden people, but to free them into a more integrated life.

A Faith Lived From the Inside Out

Jesus seemed deeply attentive to the inner life and the place from which our words, choices, and actions emerge.

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”
(Luke 6:45)

He knew that how we live flows from what we attend to, what we carry, what we allow to shape us. His invitation was not toward perfection, but toward alignment and a life where the heart, the hands, and the voice move in the same direction.

This kind of faith shows up quietly:

  • in how we speak when we are tired or afraid,
  • in how we treat people who inconvenience us,
  • in how we hold difference without withdrawing love,
  • in how we choose gentleness when harshness would be easier.

“Blessed are the meek… blessed are the merciful… blessed are the peacemakers.”
(Matthew 5:5–9)

These were not abstract ideals. They were descriptions of a way of life Jesus believed was possible.

How We Are to Live

When asked what faithfulness looks like, Scripture often answers with remarkable clarity:

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
(Micah 6:8)

Justice.
Kindness.
Humility.

Not loudly.
Not perfectly.
But faithfully.

Jesus seemed less concerned with whether people could articulate correct doctrine and more concerned with whether love was becoming visible in their lives. He noticed who was excluded, who was burdened, who was overlooked and He consistently moved toward them.

Letting This Shape Our Year

Perhaps the invitation this year is not to strive harder, but to listen more closely.

To notice:

  • what shapes our reactions,
  • what governs our choices,
  • what forms our relationships,
  • what kind of presence we bring into the spaces we inhabit.

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 2:5)

This is not a call to self-erasure, but to Christ-shaped love marked by humility, compassion, and restraint with power.

A Quiet Hope

Faith, as Jesus lived and taught it, is not something we perform.
It is something we practice.

It grows slowly, through ordinary faithfulness:
a softened response,
a repaired relationship,
a courageous act of kindness,
a decision to remain loving in a moment that invites hardness.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
(John 13:35)

May this be our focus this year, not louder faith, not busier faith, but deeper faith.

A faith that shapes how we live.
A faith that shows itself in how we treat others.
A faith that becomes visible, not through certainty, but through love.

And may our lives, in their quiet faithfulness, bear gentle witness to the way of Jesus.

When Faith Doesn’t Feel Like Faith

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I’ve been thinking lately about how many younger believers have come to understand faith primarily as a feeling.

If I feel God’s presence, I must be faithful. If I feel peace, clarity, or spiritual warmth, I must be on the right path. And if I don’t feel those things, if God feels quiet, distant, or absent, then maybe my faith is failing.

But Scripture paints a very different picture.

Faith, in its truest form, is not a sensation. It is not certainty. It is not emotional reassurance.

Faith is movement.

Faith is choosing to keep walking in the direction God has set before you even when your nervous system is loud, your heart is tired, and your prayers feel like they’re hitting the ceiling.

If we always felt God’s nearness or if obedience always felt right or if following God always came with clarity, comfort, and confirmation, then it wouldn’t really be faith at all.

It would just be agreement.

Biblical faith is often quiet and unremarkable. It looks like doing the next right thing when nothing inside you feels spiritually impressive. It looks like keeping your integrity when cutting corners would be easier. It looks like loving your neighbor when your heart feels dry. It looks like showing up again even after disappointment, after grief, after unanswered prayers.

Scripture never says, “The righteous will live by their feelings.” It says, “The righteous will live by faith.”

And faith, most days, looks like trust expressed through action.

Sometimes walking in faith means saying, “I don’t feel close to God today but I will still choose goodness.” Sometimes it means saying, “I don’t feel sure but I will still be faithful.” Sometimes it means saying, “I don’t feel peace but I will still do what is right.”

This kind of faith takes courage, maturity and a deeper trust that doesn’t require constant emotional reassurance to keep going.

God has always met His people in the walking. Not always in the feeling. Not always in the certainty. But in the choosing. In the obedience. In the quiet faithfulness of doing the next right thing.

So if you’re in a season where faith feels flat, dull, or distant, you are not failing. You may actually be practicing a stronger faith than you realize.

Keep walking. Keep choosing what is good. Keep doing the next right thing.

That, too, is faith.

The First Day of Advent:

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When Our Waiting Becomes Worship

The first day of Advent always catches me with its quietness. It doesn’t arrive with fireworks or fanfare. It begins in the dark. And maybe that’s the most honest place for us to begin, too.

Advent opens with a candle lit against the backdrop of a world that still groans. It acknowledges what we’d rather avoid: that much of life is lived in the tension between longing and fulfillment, between brokenness and promise, between what is and what we pray could be.

The Church calendar doesn’t rush us past this tension. Instead, it asks us to sit with it and to name our need. To remember that God’s people have always been shaped by waiting.

When Isaiah prophesied, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light” (Isa. 9:2), he was speaking into a landscape thick with fear, injustice, war, and uncertainty. Their world didn’t feel that different from ours.

Advent reminds us:

  • Your longing does not disqualify you. It aligns you with centuries of God’s people who cried out for rescue.
  • Your questions do not threaten God. Even the prophets asked, How long, O Lord?
  • Your ache is not a sign of weak faith. It is the soil where hope roots itself more deeply.

The miracle of Advent is not that God asks us to pretend the darkness isn’t real. It’s that He enters it.

On the first day of Advent, we are invited to do something courageous: to look honestly at the parts of our lives that feel tender, undone, or unmet.

  • The prayers we’ve prayed for years.
  • The relationships we long to see healed.
  • The dreams we’ve held in our hands so long they’ve begun to feel heavy.
  • The grief we carry quietly because life keeps moving.

Advent says, You do not have to carry these alone. Because the story of Advent is the story of a God who draws near.

Not to the polished places. Not to the parts we’ve already fixed. But to the manger and to the low, ordinary, vulnerable place where light meets earth.

Advent waiting isn’t passive. It’s not sitting with folded hands, hoping for something to change. Biblical waiting is active and is a posture of trust, formation, and expectation.

It’s the kind of waiting where:

  • We keep lighting candles even when the night feels long.
  • We keep loving people even when it’s costly.
  • We keep practicing peace even when the world is loud with conflict.
  • We keep believing that God is faithful even when we don’t yet see the outcome.

It’s the kind of waiting that becomes worship.

Because every time we stay tender when it would be easier to harden… Every time we choose hope over cynicism… Every time we make room for God in the small, hidden corners of our lives… We are preparing a manger in our hearts for Christ to come again.

The first day of Advent doesn’t demand perfection; it invites presence.

Maybe your Advent begins not with an elaborate tradition but with a single breath and
a whispered “Here I am, Lord.”

Maybe it begins with lighting a candle at the end of a long day and remembering that God does His best work in the dark.

Maybe it begins by letting your weary spirit remember something simple but profoundly true:

The God we wait for is the God who comes. The God who saves is the God who stays. The God we long for is already moving toward us.

Advent isn’t just a season on the calendar. It’s a posture and a way of inhabiting our lives with holy expectancy.

On this first day of Advent, we proclaim a truth that steadies our souls:

Light is not fragile. Hope is not naïve. God is not far.

The same God who broke into Bethlehem’s night is breaking into ours quietly, tenderly, decisively. Not always in the ways we expect, but always in the ways we need.

As Advent unfolds, may we learn to wait with open hands, soft hearts, and a hope that refuses to dim. Because the waiting is not wasted. The darkness is not final.  And Emmanuel, God with us,  is already on His way.

“Revive Your Work in Me”: When Habakkuk Teaches Us to Hope Again

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There’s a moment in the book of Habakkuk that feels so achingly familiar to anyone who has ever prayed, “God, I don’t understand what You’re doing… but please don’t leave me here.”

Habakkuk is watching his world unravel. Injustice all around him, violence swelling, the people he loves walking in ways that break his heart. It’s the kind of spiritual and emotional exhaustion that makes the soul say, “Lord… how long?”

And yet, in the middle of that ache, Habakkuk prays one of the most quietly courageous prayers in all of Scripture:

“Lord, I have heard of Your fame;
I stand in awe of Your deeds, O Lord.
Revive them in our day… in our time make them known.”
— Habakkuk 3:2

He isn’t asking for a national movement first.
He isn’t asking for political power or external change.

He is asking for revival in himself.

Revival always begins in the hidden places.

When we talk about revival, we often think of crowded sanctuaries, powerful worship nights, or a sudden move of God across a city. But Habakkuk shows us revival the way God most often brings it:

quiet, slow, deeply personal.

It starts in the places no one else sees.
The places of weariness.
The places where the questions sit heavy.
The places where we’ve been disappointed and we’re not sure if we can expect anything good again.

Revival begins when our spirit whispers: “God, revive Your work in me.”

Not around me.
Not through me.
But in me, in the places where the grief has thinned my faith, where cynicism has crept in, where old wounds still shape new reactions, where hope has been running on fumes.

Revival begins when we stop pretending we’re fine.

Habakkuk does not offer polished prayers.
He does not mask his confusion.
He doesn’t avoid the hard truths of his time.

He brings his lament straight to God.

And God receives it.

Sometimes the first step toward personal revival is telling the truth about the places where we’ve stopped expecting God to move. The places where we’ve numbed ourselves. The places where unresolved ache has quietly rewritten what we believe is possible.

Revival is not escape. It’s renewal.

Habakkuk never gets the answer he expected.
The storm around him doesn’t calm.
The circumstances do not improve.

But he is changed.

By the end of the book, he says:

“Though the fig tree does not bud…
yet I will rejoice in the Lord.”
— Habakkuk 3:17–18

This isn’t denial.
It’s transformation.

It’s the fruit of a heart revived by God.
A heart strengthened from the inside out.
A heart that trusts even when it trembles.
A heart that can worship even when it waits for what is still unseen.

We need that kind of revival today.

A revival that reaches into the places we’ve grown tired.
A revival that restores our courage to hope again.
A revival that reawakens awe where cynicism has settled.
A revival that heals the deep fractures: personal, spiritual, and relational that we’ve simply learned to live with.

This is not a call to try harder.
This is an invitation to let God breathe again on what has grown dry.

To whisper like Habakkuk:

“Lord… revive Your work in me.”

And to believe, maybe slowly, maybe trembling, that the God who met Habakkuk in the middle of the storm is still meeting His people in theirs.

Revival starts in the quiet places.
It begins in the heart.
And God is still faithful to bring it.

When Suffering Meets Kindness: The Sacred Space Between Frankl and Fred Rogers

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Viktor Frankl once wrote, “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” Fred Rogers reminded us, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

At first glance, their words come from different worlds: one forged in the fires of a concentration camp, the other spoken softly through a television set to generations of children.
And yet, both point to a sacred truth: in the midst of suffering, meaning and mercy are born when love takes shape in human form.

Frankl’s psychology teaches us that pain without purpose can crush the soul, but pain seen through the lens of meaning can refine it. We cannot always choose our suffering, but we can choose our response: to orient ourselves toward love, service, or hope.

Mr. Rogers’s theology of kindness shows what that choice can look like in daily life. When the world trembles, he said, “look for the helpers.” Look for the hands that hold, the hearts that listen, the quiet ones who refuse to turn away.

When we hold both men’s wisdom together, a fuller picture of faith emerges:

Suffering becomes a classroom for compassion. Our wounds awaken us to the pain of others and invite us to respond.

Helping becomes holy work. Each act of care participates in God’s redemptive movement through the world.

Meaning grows in relationship. We discover purpose not by escaping pain, but by walking through it together.

In this light, Frankl and Rogers are not opposites but partners in the same gospel. One calls us to find meaning within; the other calls us to express it outwardly. Together they whisper: You are never powerless. Even in the darkest night, you can choose love.

So when the headlines ache and your own heart trembles, pause and ask:
Where might God be inviting me to create meaning?
Whose suffering might I quietly hold, or gently lighten?

Because every time you choose to love in the face of pain, you fulfill both men’s vision: transforming suffering into service, and despair into the language of hope.

Bearing the Weight of Violence in a Broken World

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This week the headlines have been crushing: another school shooting in Colorado, an assassination here at home, a Ukrainian refugee killed in Charlotte, new drone attacks spilling into Poland, and wars raging in both Ukraine and the Middle East. It feels like the world is unraveling—and our hearts are carrying more than they can hold.

The Bible never asks us to look away from violence. Instead, it gives us words of lament:
“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13:1)
God is not offended by our grief or our questions. He welcomes our cries. To lament is an act of faith—it means we believe God cares enough to hear.

Paul reminds us that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22). The violence we witness is part of that groaning. It is not the way things were meant to be, and it stirs our longing for the kingdom of peace Christ promised.

At the cross, Jesus did not sidestep violence—He entered into it. “He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). This means we do not carry the world’s brokenness alone. Christ shoulders it with us, and He is redeeming it even now.

Scripture calls us not to give in to despair, but to live as peacemakers:
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)
In a violent world, every act of compassion, every prayer for peace, every refusal to hate is an act of resistance against the darkness.

Revelation paints a picture of the day when violence will finally end:
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Revelation 21:4). This promise is not sentimental—it is certain. The God who conquered death will make all things new.

Prayer is where we begin—but it cannot be where we stop.

  • Support those who are suffering: reach out to families, neighbors, and communities touched by violence with tangible care.
  • Advocate for peace and justice: use your voice to call for safer schools, protection for the vulnerable, and wise leadership that seeks the common good.
  • Practice everyday peacemaking: in conversations, on social media, in how you treat those who disagree with you—let your presence reduce fear and not add to it.
  • Stand with the global body of Christ: partner with ministries, counselors, and humanitarian efforts bringing healing in places torn apart by war.

To follow Jesus is to refuse despair and to embody hope in action.

Lord, our hearts are weary from bearing the weight of so much violence. We grieve the lives lost, the wars that rage, and the fear that shadows our days. Draw near to the brokenhearted. Teach us to be peacemakers in our words, our homes, our communities. And anchor us in the hope that one day, You will wipe away every tear and make all things new. Until that day, help us to hold fast to You. Amen.

When We Think We Know Best

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There is a subtle danger in following Christ that many of us, if we’re honest, stumble into without realizing it. It is the temptation to believe that because we know Him, we also know what’s best for everyone else. When we slip into judgment or arrogance—deciding what another person should do, should feel, or should believe—we take on a role that belongs only to God.

Jesus saw this clearly in the Pharisees, the religious leaders of His day. They studied the Scriptures, prayed publicly, and made a show of their devotion. Yet He called them “whitewashed tombs” (Matthew 23:27)—clean on the outside, but lifeless within. Their arrogance blinded them to their own need for mercy. They were so busy pointing out others’ faults that they missed the Savior standing in front of them.

Before we shake our heads at them, we should pause. Don’t we do the same? We scroll past someone’s choices online and whisper, If only they would listen to me… We hear of someone’s struggle and think, Well, if they just had more faith… We confuse certainty with holiness, and our arrogance with righteousness.

When we act as if we have the answers for others, we do more harm than good. Our judgment places burdens on people already weary. Our arrogance shuts down the safe space where God’s Spirit might be doing quiet, unseen work. And most tragically, our certainty can push people away from the very grace we ourselves depend on.

The irony is that the more convinced we are of our rightness, the less we reflect the heart of Christ. Jesus, who actually had all the answers, rarely led with them. Instead, He led with compassion. He knelt to wash feet. He touched the untouchable. He dined with the outcast. He welcomed questions, doubts, and even failures without shame.

As followers of Christ, we are not called to be the answer-givers but the love-bearers. Scripture paints a different picture:

Humility: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). Humility doesn’t erase truth but delivers it with gentleness and respect.

Compassion: Romans 12:15 invites us to “weep with those who weep.” Sometimes the most Christlike thing we can do is simply sit beside someone in their pain, with no solutions on our lips.

Trust: To step away from arrogance is to trust the Spirit. He alone convicts, guides, and transforms. Our role is to love, encourage, and bear witness to His goodness.

So the next time we feel certain about how someone else should live, may we pause. May we ask ourselves: Am I offering this from pride, or from love? From my need to be right, or from a desire to reflect Christ?

God doesn’t call us to have all the answers. He calls us to walk humbly with Him, to love mercy, and to act justly (Micah 6:8). That posture softens hearts in ways our arrogance never can.

Kindness vs. Niceness: A Heart That Reflects Christ

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There’s a difference between being nice and being kind. At first glance, they can look the same. Both may smile. Both may offer a polite word. Both may avoid conflict. But the heart behind them tells two very different stories.

Niceness is often about surface comfort. It’s about keeping the peace, smoothing things over, or avoiding discomfort—ours or someone else’s. Niceness asks, “How do I keep everyone happy in this moment?” It can be more about image than impact.

Kindness, on the other hand, goes deeper. It is Spirit-led, courageous, and rooted in love. Kindness asks, “What does love require of me here?” Sometimes it looks gentle, like offering a warm word or a helping hand. Other times it looks bold, like speaking truth in love even when it risks misunderstanding.

Paul reminds us in Galatians 5:22–23 that kindness is a fruit of the Spirit. It flows from abiding in Christ, not from our own need to please. Jesus Himself embodied kindness—not always “niceness.” He flipped tables, confronted hypocrisy, and yet tenderly welcomed children, outcasts, and the brokenhearted. His kindness was never about avoiding tension; it was about healing and restoring in truth and grace.

When we live from niceness, we may leave people comfortable but unchanged. When we live from kindness, we may sometimes cause discomfort, but we point people toward wholeness in Christ.

So today, may we ask the Lord to grow in us not just a veneer of niceness, but the deeper fruit of kindness. May we be willing to love boldly, speak truth gently, and extend compassion even when it costs us something.

When Trauma Touches Every Part of Life

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Today, I sat across from people carrying stories too heavy for one heart to hold: war, abuse, abandonment, loss, betrayal. Each one unique, and yet each one echoing a truth we don’t often say out loud: trauma changes us.

It touches the way we see ourselves, the way we trust others, the way we move through the world. Sometimes it shows up as restlessness, sometimes as cynicism or withdrawal, sometimes as shame or self-doubt. Trauma doesn’t stay in the past. It tries to convince us we are still unsafe, still unworthy, still alone.

But trauma is not the end of the story.

Over and over again, I am reminded that the same human heart that absorbs unthinkable pain is also capable of deep healing. With compassion, safety, and God’s presence, the story can shift. What felt like permanent ruin can slowly become a place of new growth. The psalmist’s words ring true: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

I can’t share the details of the lives I encounter. Those stories are sacred, and privacy is part of the safety each person deserves. But I can tell you this: people are finding courage to face what they’ve endured. They are discovering that their worth was never erased by what happened to them. They are learning that God’s love meets them not in some future perfect version of themselves, but right here, in the middle of the mess and the ache.

For those who feel weary, weighed down by wounds no one else can see: you are not forgotten. You are not alone. Healing is possible. And even on the days when hope feels faint, God has not turned away.

As a community of faith, may we be people who refuse to look away from suffering. May we create spaces of gentleness and belonging, where survivors can breathe, tell the truth, and remember that their story isn’t finished yet.