​As I've thought about a word - or a phrase - to be the center of my 2026, a question keeps coming to me. And it has felt like a rather unlikely - and uncomfortable - question for many reasons.

In the Lord's Prayer, we hear the following:

Our Father who art in heaven
Hallowed be thy name
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done.....

Thy will be done.

I suppose I have always heard that line in the prayer as a petition, "God please let your will be done", or even a declaration, "Your will WILL be done because you are God", but very rarely, I've been thinking, do I ever hear that line as a question:

"God, am I doing the will that thy wills to be done"?

If you're like me, it's very easy to get comfortable with those first two ways of hearing that line - thy will be done. They are passive words. They suggest we are watching God work or hoping God works. But that line as a question, well, that can get dangerous, or costly, or transformational. Because when asking the question - "Thy will be done"? - that implies to God that I am not just observing his will, I am asking to do my part in it.

It’s easy to say “God’s will is going to happen anyway,” and quietly excuse myself from any responsibility in it. But God's will has never been designed to be a solo endeavor - it has always been about a united team. We are all in this together.

How good is any team when a member of the team decides "you all have got this", while ignoring the reality that parts of the mission are counting on YOU to have this?

Totally handing over the will of God to God can become a great spiritual hiding place.

“God will handle forgiveness” - without me forgiving.

“God will handle justice” - without me acting justly.

“God will handle love” - without me becoming more loving.

“God will open doors” - even while I refuse to walk through them.

We end up believing in a will of God that requires nothing of us, which is really just a way of saying “I don’t want to change, but I’d like to feel spiritual about it.”

“Thy will be done?” is a question that turns the mirror around

The question forces an examination: Where am I resisting? Where am I clinging? Where am I negotiating with God instead of trusting God? Where am I praying for outcomes instead of obedience?

The question isn’t:

Will God’s will be done?

The better question is:

Will I allow God’s will to be done in me?

Far be it from me to suggest a revision to The Lord's Prayer, but maybe it would be helpful for me to silently add a bit to it.

Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done (starting right here with me)....

Not abstract. Not cosmic. Not somewhere “out there.” But in: my habits, my resentments, my relationships, my schedule, my finances, my calling, my comfort zones, my wounds.

God’s will isn’t just something that eventually prevails in history; it’s something that asks for my consent in the present.

It is my experience that the most dangerous thing about asking God "am I truly doing your will"? is that God will answer. I believe that is why many, like me, too often fear asking that question, hesitating, because God's answer will often require us to change.

But as I look ahead to 2026, if I do not change in this year ahead, I will not fully consent to God's will for me. I have looked deeply enough inside me to know that.

So in 2026, do I go forward simply trusting God's will WILL be done, or do I go forward asking to be a full participant?

FULL participant.

Am I brave enough to look in the mirror at the start of each day and ask:

Thy will be done?

I want to be.

Happy New Year's Eve to all of you. It is my deepest prayer that God's will WILL be done in 2026. Not solely because of God, but because of God in and through each of us.

​As I look ahead to the new year and start thinking about healthy life changes (resolutions), I find myself reflecting on one of the stories in the Frog and Toad Together series by Arnold Lobel: “Cookies.”

The Amazon plot summary of the story goes like this:

Toad finds a plate of cookies and shares them with Frog. As they enjoy the cookies, they realize they should stop eating them. They find it is very hard to stop eating the delicious cookies. Frog suggests they need willpower and puts the cookies in a box. Toad observes that they can still open the box. Frog ties string around the box, but Toad observes that they can cut the string and open the box. Frog climbs a ladder and places the box of cookies high up on a shelf, but Toad notes that they can climb the ladder, take the box down, cut the string, and open the box. Finally, Frog takes the cookies outside and offers them to a group of birds. Toad is horrified that the cookies are all gone, but Frog says they have no cookies but “lots and lots of willpower.” Toad replies, “You may keep all of it. I am going home now to make a cake.”

Many of us will soon pick resolutions for the new year. And my guess is many of us will plan to rely on more willpower - a stronger commitment to saying no to the cookies.

Only, in my experience, willpower is rarely enough.

Saying no to the cookies can feel impossible. So maybe this year, instead of trying harder, try feeding the cookies to the birds.

Spending less time on social media can feel impossible until you delete the apps - or better yet - put distance between you and your screen. A recent study of thousands of teens found that teens who kept their phones in another room while studying got better grades. Students who kept phones in another room while they slept got better sleep.

It is not a weakness to confess, “I don’t have the willpower to avoid this temptation.” It’s simply truth.

Few who crave alcohol or any substance have the willpower to say no to it. Keeping it nearby to “prove you can resist” is a losing strategy. It is much harder to crave what is out of sight, even if not out of mind.

Many of us will promise to “try harder” in challenging or even toxic relationships, when the reality is that the relationship may need to be fed to the birds. How many years now have you believed this will be the year it gets better?

Things can get better. They do get better. But rarely by trying harder inside environments that make better choices nearly impossible.

In the book of Matthew, Jesus says:

“If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

To be clear, in Christian teaching this is widely understood as intentional exaggeration (hyperbole) - not a literal instruction to harm oneself - but a vivid way of saying:

Remove sources of temptation

Be decisive about what leads you astray

Change your environment and habits, not just your intentions

It’s Jesus’ way of saying: Feed your cookies to the birds.

As we go into 2026 and consider our resolutions, it may help to think less about fixing behavior through force of will and more about shaping environments that make healthier choices easier.

We make it harder to say no when we keep things in our life that beg us to say yes. Which is where resolution failures often begin - when the things around us are better at demanding yes than we are at saying no.

So get rid of those things.

Feed them to the birds.

​I went to see the movie Marty Supreme last night. I don't believe this post requires a spoiler alert; this is much more self-reflection than movie review. But I will say the value of the self-reflection made the movie MORE than worth seeing for me.

I'll watch it again. And soon.

The movie is about Marty Mauser, a young man driven to be a world champion table tennis player. Through his drive to get there we come to see what a terribly flawed and beautifully driven and caring character Mauser is.

As the movie went on, and as I watched it sitting between my teen sons - certainly the two most beautiful parts of me - I felt the contradictions in me I was seeing on the screen in Marty Mauser.

Many decades ago, someone I was close to at the time told me "people don't know the real you." Her suggestion was I showed up for other people as a different person than I showed up for her.

I believer there was truth in that.

Maybe people who get closest to us will always see our capacity to hurt, disappoint, sabotage, or fall short. And maybe people who stand a little farther away will more often see our light, purpose, humor, and talent. I don't know.

I do know I lived with great tension after she said that. The tension of carrying both versions of me as if they were two different people.

Marty Mauser is compelling because he’s not a villain and he’s not a saint. He is impulsive, reckless, ego-driven - and also magnetic, alive, passionate, and strangely tender. The movie makes no effort to resolve that contradiction; it just lets us sit inside it.

It invites us in a moment of self-reflection to say, “Yes, that’s me too.”

Over the years I've come to accept about me that both portraits are true. Neither is the whole story. The work and the pain is learning to hold those truths together without hating ourselves for either one. It was never that I was “pretending” with friends. I was being me, just not the only me.

I have come to accept one can be:

the man who leads and inspires

the man who fails and wounds

the man who tries again

the man who breaks

the man who heals

all at once.

Even as my life is driven to be less hurtful and more healing - toward others and myself.

Marty Supreme left me reminded that it's possible to be both deeply flawed, and at the same time, deeply beautiful. In fact, I think that’s not only possible - I believe it’s almost universal.

The people who feel least divided are usually the ones who’ve made peace with the fact that both flaws and beauty live inside them. The people who suffer most are often the ones trying to prove they are only one and not the other.

I left the theatre last night believing that I no longer believe in a "real" me.

There is only me.

Flaws and beauty.

Only me.

​What will you find in your hallway between the holidays and the new year?

This stretch of days the next week is a strange space. The celebrations are mostly over, the calendar hasn’t quite turned, and life feels suspended somewhere between done and not yet. It can feel awkward, like you’re standing in a hallway and everyone else already knows which door to open but you’re still staring at all of them.

But awkward doesn’t mean useless. In fact, this hallway might be the most powerful space of the year.

The days between Christmas and the new year invite us to walk slowly. There is less noise, fewer expectations, and more honest reflection. We start to notice what the last year has placed in our hands and hearts: memories we treasure, memories we tolerate, and memories we’d rather not take with us at all.

This is a time to sift.

Some memories are worth carrying forward - the conversations that changed us, the laughter that surprised us, the unplanned moments that reminded us, you’re going to be okay. Pick those up and take them with you. These are the ones that turn into meaning, not just memories.

Other memories ache. Some hold disappointment, failure, guilt, or grief. They may try to follow us into the next year like mean shadows. Remember, you are allowed to set some things down. You are allowed to say, this does not get to come with me.

And please - truly, please - if there are things you do not wish to carry, leave them behind.

This in-between space isn’t only for looking back; it’s also for looking ahead. It is a season of focus if we let it be. A time to do something we don’t always give ourselves permission to do during the rush of ordinary life: to ask honest questions.

Where do I want this hallway to go?

What kind of life do I want the next door to open into?

What do I need more of, and what do I need less of?

We don’t just walk hallways; we design them. Too often we forget that. We drift and then call the drift destiny. We wander and then assume the maze was inevitable. But this is the time of the year to remember, hallways don’t have to be mazes.

They can be planned.

Maybe that planning looks like choosing a new habit. Maybe it means initiating a hard conversation. Maybe it’s as small as deciding to rest more, or as bold as deciding not to live small anymore. Direction rarely arrives as a dramatic revelation. More often it comes from a quiet, steady decision made in a hallway.

The temptation is to rush through these days, to fast-forward straight into resolutions and fireworks. But there is something sacred about the pause, something meaningful about the simple act of standing still and really noticing where you are - the holidays often distract us from that.

So as you walk your hallway between the holidays and the new year, look around.

What do you want to take with you?

What do you need to set down?

Where do you want this hallway to lead?

And then, step forward - not hurried, not pressured, but intentional - knowing you are allowed to choose what your next doorway opens into.

​Just over 5 years ago, I walked away from a challenging marriage. I own my fair share of the challenges. I always will.

I remember vividly that first Christmas after leaving. I remember thinking just how much different life would look the following Christmas. And by different, I mean I had visions of a much better life. At least better by my definitions of better at the time.

And yet, all these Christmases later, that better has not come close to materializing.

I suppose that is why Christmas continues to be the hardest day of the year for me - and why the day after Christmas may be my favorite day of the year - the day when I experience an overwhelming sense of relief.

Phew. I'm glad that is over.

Christmas morning is when I always ask myself the loudest - did I do the right thing? Which is absolutely the wrong morning to ask myself that. It's the easiest morning of the year to be so overwhelmed by the challenges I am left with in the leaving that I can forget the challenges that existed in the staying.

And yet - I am human - so I do ask...

I find myself wondering this morning, did Mary experience something similar? Surely when she made the decision to accept God's invitation to become the mother of Jesus, she had high hopes for what life would be like living it as the mother of the son of God.

The mother of the son of God - surely all roads would be paved with gold.

And yet there she stood, at the foot of the cross, witnessing her son's crucifixion. Not a road paved with gold. Witnessing that little baby in a manger being so misunderstood, so rejected, so murdered in a most excruciating way.

Did she wonder - did I do the right thing accepting God's call? Was the choice that once looked like a manger scene really worth the price of this torture scene?

I honestly doubt that Mary wondered such a thing. I think she knew she made a faithful and necessary choice, and yet still lived with a deep human ache because of it. Her obedience didn't cancel the cost. Her trust didn't erase the grief. Two things were true at once: she was inside God's will, and her heart sometimes broke there.

Today is an easy day to wonder if I did the right thing.

Today is an easy day to wonder what if.

Today is an easy day to ponder many things.

But all the pondering and wondering is quite irrelevant. For I am here. Here another Christmas morning. Here not because I have failed. Here not because the things I have hoped for on this Christmas morning are the wrong things to have hoped for. I am here because even though God does not abandon us in our various decisions, even the most right of decisions can lead us through lonely places.

Mary's life reminds me that God can be present inside our stories that don't feel the way we hoped they'd feel.

That faithfulness and pain are not opposites.

A soul that feels the ache of how costly a decision can be isn't always an indication yes was the wrong answer. And I don't have to wait until the day after Christmas to understand that.

Merry Christmas to all. If you too may be living inside the tension between choices and outcomes today, tensions that may feel challenging, please know, the baby in a manger came to be with us INSIDE the tension, not the day after Christmas when the tension may begin to subside.

Cling to that.

Cling to him.

The baby in a manger, the man on the cross.

​The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

Did you know in the 1823 poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (Twas the Night Before Christmas), there is no mention of naughty or nice, good or bad, right or wrong. Just a jolly soul spreading laughter and joy - offering winks and twists that reminded those he encountered:

You have nothing to dread.

Over the years the story got hijacked in various forms to include moral judgment. And over the years, those hijackings turned the jolly old elf into an all knowing decider of who is and is not worthy of his jolly.

The original 1823 poem does not center on moral sorting. It does not dwell on behavior charts, judgment, or consequences. There’s no anxiety in the house, no warning issued, no conditional joy.

Instead, the Santa of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" is portrayed as:

Joyful.

Playful.

Quietly generous.

Non-threatening.

Focused on giving, not evaluating.

The “naughty or nice” framework - especially the version that feels big brotherish or transactional - came later, as culture reduced the story into a behavioral shorthand that fit parenting, religion, and eventually commerce.

Honestly, without knowing that 1823 Santa - (I'm old but not THAT old) - I miss him. I miss the man centered on easing dread and not creating it.

As I scroll through my social media feeds this morning and briefly brave the morning news, I wonder - is the main goal of these feeds dread? Does not anyone want to offer a wink or a twist?

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread

I would encourage us all over the next few days to read about that original visit from St. Nicholas. May we all experience visions of sugar plums dancing in our head as we read it. And may we all be the jolly reminder to someone who just may need it - a twist or a wink - that in a world that can feel increasingly dreadful, in showing up for one another - we leave nothing to dread.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight -
“Happy Christmas to ALL, and to ALL a good night!”

​Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Mary, she did not ask to be so.

Mary, she did not apply for such an historic role; good thing, how qualified is a virgin teenager to be a mother, let alone the mother of Jesus?

Would anyone ever have picked her based on her resume'?

So, no small wonder that when the angel appeared and informed Mary she would indeed become the mother of Jesus, she asked, "How can this be?"

And the angel answered - God.

God can do anything.

And Mary responded - "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

Mary believed in God, and maybe as important - or more so - Mary knew God believed in her.

God had picked HER!

Occasionally, I will get an invitation to speak at an event. And every time it feels nice - as if the individual or the group believes in me. As if they have picked me.

Do we not all in some way long to know someone has picked us?

Do we not all, in this grand sea of humanity, long to be believed in above and beyond the sea?

I want to remind you this Christmas, God believes in you.

God has picked YOU.

Yes, God believed Mary could be the mother of Jesus, but God has equally giant beliefs in you.

And me.

God has sent angels with unique requests of each of us. Messages that reflect God's unwavering belief in our unique capacities to bring unique love to the world.

If you are like me, maybe it has felt at times that the world does not believe in you - maybe you have been left at times feeling un-picked - and maybe that has impacted the kind of belief you come to imagine that God has in you.

I believe God picked a mother for Jesus that our world would have never considered motherly. I believe he did so to make sure we know God's belief in us has nothing to do with what the world believes of us.

If you are experiencing doubt in yourself, doubt in your circumstances or in your situations, doubt in your future - maybe it is time to image something more beautiful in your life than doubt. And when this beauty you imagine seems totally impossible, maybe ask out loud: "How could this ever possibly be?"

Then wait for the answer. Listen closely and quietly. Listen for the angel to reply:

God.

God has picked you.

And God can do anything.

​Today is the final Sunday of Advent.

The final Sunday before Christmas.

Today, we wait still for Christmas, but its arrival will soon come.

I am thinking this morning - in the spirit of this final Sunday of Advent - that this is largely where life is lived: on the threshold between waiting and arrival.

I recently celebrated the birthdays of both of my sons. And I am reminded of the beautiful period of living between the waiting and arrival of their birth days.

But even then, even with their arrival, more waiting followed.

Waiting for their first steps. Their first words. Their first days of school. Does waiting ever end. Do we ever stop looking forward to arrival?

Are we ever really there?

Thursday, Christians will celebrate the arrival of the baby in a manger. The savior. And yet, we will no more be done with celebrating the arrival when we will be forced to commemorate his death, and then celebrate his subsequent rising from his grave.

All so that we can go back to waiting for him to arrive once again?

I live on this threshold between waiting and arrival in so many areas of my life. There are days when waiting punishes me. But I am thinking this morning, maybe that is not the purpose of waiting at all. Maybe waiting is sweet preparation.

For if you happen to believe what I believe, there will be a final arrival for us all. For me, I believe that arrival will be heaven. And I often ponder what that heaven will be like.

This morning I am imagining heaven as a place of no more waiting.

No more waiting on answers or love or healing or belonging or value.

No more waiting on tomorrow or beauty or unity.

No more waiting for civility and compassion and uninterrupted joy.

No more waiting.

I am not sure the sweet arrival into heaven can feel quite as glorious - supernatural - without immediately noticing the sweet relief; waiting is all gone.

We live on this threshold between waiting and arrival to prepare us to one day fully and forever celebrate that there are no more thresholds.

This week, treasure the waiting. It's a grand gift - a reminder - that the day is coming soon when we will experience the joy of never having to wait again.

Heaven.

No more waiting.

Are we ever really there? Yes. I believe we are.

​A friend recently told me, "I'll be decorating my home in a grinch theme this year, but I do love Christmas - I promise. I love the grinch, though, because I can relate to him very deeply with how he shares emotion and how I used to and still sometimes do. Like he's full of love, he just has trouble showing it and due to how I grew up, I legit get it."

I found that beautiful. Stunning. That one would decorate their home at Christmas in the decor of a Christmas reminder that what might not look and feel like love this time of year is not always - or even often - a sign that love is absent.

I watched The Grinch last night with my friend's heart and home in mind. I was awed that nearly 60 years ago the writers of The Grinch were writing the Christmas decorations into the future heart of my friend.

“Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot,
But the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did not.”

It seems quite simple on the surface, doesn't it? That Whoville liked Christmas and the Grinch did not. But the story of The Grinch is there is much more to the story than Christmas like and dislike. Like a challenging childhood experience in Whoville. Or in YOU-ville.

And the willingness of humanity to be curious about the much more to the story is one of the more truly amazing things about humanity. Maybe that willingness is somehow the main point - the main gift - of Christmas?

For the baby in a manger who arrived to bring great joy to all did so mostly by entering the lives of those who struggled to find or be any joy at all. The baby in the manger showed up to tell each of us who are time and again prone to having the heart of a grinch - I legit get it.

I see you.

And maybe there is room for us all to do that for others this Christmas season. To know that joy and love don't come as easy for some as they do for others. To know that without judging and to know that with deep curiosity - compassion - empathy.

Maybe this year, next to the Santa who delivers the gifts, we place a small grinch to remind us that not everyone knows how to give and receive those gifts. Joy and love.

Or shoot, go all out and decorate the whole house in a grinch theme 😊❤️.

Maybe someone in your life this year needs to hear some of the most magical Christmas words there are: "I legit get it."

​Our limits sometimes frustrate us, but they never frustrate God.

What frustrates God is when we allow our limits to become the reason we do less than we can do. When we stop at the doorway of what’s possible because the next step suddenly feels impossible.

Steven Furtick says, “When you do what you can do, God will do what you cannot do.” He’s not suggesting that God shows up to reward effort. He’s simply pointing out that when the future feels beyond our power, God shows up to remind us it’s not beyond his.

God often waits until our strength ends - not because he’s late, but because we’re finally ready to let him take over.

But it’s easy to believe God is late, isn’t it? And once we believe God isn’t going to show up, it becomes easy to stop showing up ourselves.

When we believe our future, our dreams, and our goals are totally reliant on us, we measure progress only by OUR steps.

And how often do we quit when we feel like we aren’t making any progress at all? Quit before we reach the place where our footprints become God’s. Quit before we get to hear Him say, “I’ll take it from here.”

Some days it’s hard for me to understand that God is behind me saying go, beside me saying we’ve got this, and out in front of me waiting to say I’ll take it from here - all at the same time.

It’s hard to understand this on an ordinary day. But it’s impossible to ever understand it if I quit walking toward the places God has called me to walk.

So if you take a step this week and feel like you’re getting nowhere, consider that it may not be a sign to stop - but an invitation to keep going.

God’s power is waiting - not where you decide it’s time to quit, but where God knows you can’t take another step.

Keep stepping. The power is waiting. What feels like the last step might be the one where you discover you're never walking alone.