 I work for the state of Virginia. Which means, in a sense, the people of Virginia elected a new boss for me last night. A new boss who has a different political party than the old boss.
This isn’t my first time experiencing that kind of change. I’ve been at this job long enough to know that when leadership shifts, so do strategies. Visions. Priorities. Sometimes policies do, too. But what doesn’t change, or at least doesn't have to, is my capacity and commitment to show up for the people I serve. At my job and in my life. What worries me, though - more and more - is how much the way we show up for one another seems to rise and fall with the political tides. Politics has always been an ebb and flow - right and left, up and down, victory and loss. That’s the rhythm of politics. But should it be the rhythm of our humanity? I don’t think so. If we only show up when our side wins, or if we find our hearts demoralized when our side loses, then we miss the bigger calling. We aren't elected to care, we choose to. It's not a blue choice or a red choice or an anything in between choice. It's an OUR choice. I watched the election results with interest last night. But none of that interest was based on figuring out how I am going to show up for the world today. We put a lot of stock in who is in charge. I get it. Leadership matters. But when who is in charge of a city or a state or a country starts to diminish my knowing that no one but me is in charge of my heart - well, that can become problematic. It can come to mean my heart has to wait until the next election to fully show up, and that's just now how humanity is supposed to work.
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11/4/2025 0 Comments The Original 6 7 As with most cultural movements, I am totally lost with this whole 6 7 thing. At least the current teenage/TikTok version of it.
However, there's a much older version of it - about 3000 years old - that I think is pretty relevant today. Solomon, arguably one of the wisest men to ever live, once wrote in the book of Proverbs: "There are SIX things the Lord hates, SEVEN that are detestable to him." Ok. Wait? I don't get it.. Is it six or seven, Solomon? Turns out this whole 6 7 thing was a common Hebrew literary device, deliberate artistry if you will, that says what is about to follow is pretty important. Let me suck you in with a little holy number magic. So now that you have our attention Solomon, what are the 7 (not six) things that God hates? God hates: Prideful eyes: looking down on others; thinking you’re better than people. A lying tongue: twisting the truth to protect yourself or hurt someone else. Hands that shed innocent blood: hurting or destroying people who’ve done nothing wrong. A heart that plots evil: making plans to take advantage of or harm others. Feet quick to run to do wrong: being eager or impulsive about doing the wrong thing. A false witness who tells lies: spreading lies that harm someone’s reputation. A person who stirs up conflict: creating drama, division, or chaos among people who should be united. So why am I sharing this today? Well, I guess because it's election day. And campaigning and voting has turned into such a hateful process. Many of us will go out to vote against policies, ideals, and yes - whether it's admitted or not - even people we hate. I think if we're not careful, we can begin to take up a fight against what we hate out there, and not spend enough time asking ourselves what God might hate about what's going on in here. In me. Because when I look at that list of 7 (not six), I mean REALLY look at that list, I'm left considering that I might have too much work to do addressing the things God hates in me to get too caught up in fighting all the things I hate about the world. That's not to say I can't, shouldn't or won't vote. It's to say don't let voting become a distraction. The world has a lot to figure out, for sure. But 6 7 tells me, so do I.  I recently heard someone say, "I don't think Christians have any idea just how much God hates complaining."
And I thought, oh, if that's true, I know a lot of Christians who are in trouble. (To which I heard God whisper, you mean like you?) This person went on to explain that complaining is just another way to keep remaining where we are. Complaining is another way to stay stuck. When we complain, we don’t just talk about the thing again, we feel it again. We re-enter the frustration. We re-enter the hurt. The brain doesn’t always distinguish between memory and right now, so when we complain, we often end up re-experiencing the very thing we wish we could move past. And, likely, things we probably NEED to move past. Joyce Meyer says, "God doesn't answer complaints, he answers prayers." Prayer is different than remaining. Prayer invites God into the space where I’m stuck. It shifts the conversation from “Why is this happening?” to “Be with me in this.” Prayer doesn’t always change the situation, but it always changes me. I think we too often forget that - that much of life is about changing who I am and not as much about changing what the world is. So often when I get to complaining about this awful world, I'm doing it - not always knowingly - to avoid addressing the awful in me. Pointing out how much needs to change about this world can keep me from facing how much I need to change about me! Amen. Sometimes I wonder if we really understand what happens when we complain. Not just the words we say, but what they quietly shape in us. If we could see it clearly, if we could see the way complaining hardens our hearts, distances us from gratitude, and subtly declares that God isn’t enough, we might treat it with a little more gravity. Because every complaint is a seed. And depending on where we plant it - in bitterness or in prayer - it will either grow into resentment or into deeper trust. These are challenging times. It can be easy to find something to complain about. (But do we really need challenging times to find a reason to complain?) The much harder thing is to find a reason to trust. Trust. And who knows, maybe when we stop complaining and start trusting, it will be someone else's reason to start doing the same.  I presented yesterday on human connection. How we are wired for it. How we depend on it. How it’s incumbent on us to cultivate it and reach into it for our own health and wellness.
I had my message rehearsed, organized, and ready. My goal was simple: equip people with the science and the importance of connection. But God had something more in mind. After the presentation, a woman approached me quietly. She shared that a dear friend of hers had been kidnapped in another country. She’s been living in a constant state of fear and prayer, not knowing how this story will end. She told me that in the midst of this heaviness, she found herself reaching outward, calling people she hadn’t talked to in a long time, writing messages she would normally leave unsent, letting people back into her heart in places she had once closed off. She didn’t understand why she was doing it, only that she needed to. Then she said something that blessed me. She said she almost didn’t come to my presentation. She didn’t have the emotional space for it. But something nudged her and she came anyway. And in my presentation, she said, she didn’t hear a lecture or a lesson, she heard confirmation. She said the spirit I presented with spoke to her spirit. It told her that the connections she was forging were not random coping mechanisms, they were holy prompts. They were rescue ropes pulling her through fear and darkness. Her story reminded me of something that I think is a good reminder - a good message - for all of us. Sometimes we think we’re leading with facts, but the Spirit is leading with healing. Sometimes we go in hoping to raise awareness, but God arrives intending to raise a weary soul. Sometimes we think we are teaching, when in reality, we are simply delivering mail heaven already wrote. I spent hours preparing content that I believed was important. Yet what mattered most in that room wasn’t anything I said, it was what one person heard in the quiet places only God speaks. It’s humbling. It’s beautiful. And it’s why I will always keep showing up, not just for the message I bring, but for the message God is bringing through it. Because connection isn’t just something we teach. Connection is something God uses to save us, one unlikely moment at a time. 10/27/2025 0 Comments Win Before You Begin Do you want to change your week ahead before the week ahead even unfolds? Ok then, change your mind about the week ahead.
We have SO little control over the events awaiting us this last week of October, but we have FULL control over what our mind thinks about how we'll tackle those events. Pastor Rich Wilkerson Jr. says, "God wants you to win on the inside before you ever see a win on the outside." Let me tell you, I've spent a lot of my life with that equation inverted. I've spent a lot of my life waiting for victories in my life - praying for them even - so I'd have the chance to experience victorious feelings. "Win before you begin," Wilkerson says. Taking a victorious mind into the week ahead is the surest path to a victorious week. If we're going to wait until Friday to decide if the week has been victorious, chances are suddenly much greater that we'll experience the agony of defeat. The events of my life rarely go the way I imagine them, so the alternative to knowing I'll be victorious through all events is to put my self at risk for feeling soundly defeated on the other side of them. Win before you begin. Before you take a step into your week, win it. When you know your week ahead is going to be your week, nothing can shake what you already know. Faith doesn't dismiss that the week ahead may be full of challenges, it just refuses to let you easily dismiss that with God, no challenge has stopped you yet. Don't wait until Friday to count your victories. Count them right here and now.  John Mark Comer says, "The dark underside of radical individualism is loneliness."
And what is radical individualism? Radical individualism is the belief that the highest good in life is personal autonomy - the idea that freedom, identity, and meaning come from being completely self-determined and independent of others. Sociologists often classify the U.S. as a "highly individualistic society" on the cultural spectrum. The U.S. consistently ranks at or near the most individualistic extreme in global studies, meaning American socialization, policies, and even marketing language tend to reinforce "I" over "we." So yes - we are radically individualized. And while that’s given us remarkable freedom - not always a bad thing - it’s also left us relationally impoverished. We’ve become experts at building lives, but beginners at belonging. And that has a cost. I talk with people often about connection and loneliness. So I believe the following stats when I hear: - 54% of Americans say no one knows them well. - 36% report they feel lonely frequently or almost all of the time - and that number goes up to 61% when we're talking about young adults. I have written often about the ache of loneliness, the longing to be seen and known and held. Well, that ache isn't a flaw, it's the soul's memory calling us home. It's not punishment for being too sensitive or needy, that ache is evidence of God's divine architecture for our lives. God created us with connection in our bones. In our hearts and souls and minds. Our earliest childhood development wires us to NEED connection, not have it as a lifelong bonus. Radical individualism tells us to numb the ache - to prove we don’t need anyone. But when we deny that longing, we don’t become free; we become broken. The loneliness doesn’t disappear, it just hides beneath busyness, success, and self-reliance. The truth is, loneliness isn’t a sign of something wrong with us; it’s something right within us trying to get our attention. It’s the soul whispering what God said from the beginning: It is not good for man to be alone. But are we hearing the whisper? I fear not. The shouts of what's in it for me seem to grow louder by the day. The willingness to push others aside in the chase to have what's in it for me have become all the more forceful. And we seem to be blind to the reality that in actually getting what's in it for me, we are losing what is most critical to you and me. Each other. Connection. Radical togetherness. It always was and always will be our human design. Without it, the ache will only grow more hurtful and destructive. 10/20/2025 0 Comments Trust God, Not the Box Steven Furtick says, "When something comes into my life in a package I don't like, I can miss the purpose for which that package came."
It's true. We are good at judging the book by it's cover. Judging the value of the gift by the box it comes in and how it's wrapped. We see the torn paper and think, this can’t be good. We see the broken box and assume, nothing valuable could be inside that. But sometimes God hides His best gifts in boxes that have been through a lot, boxes that have been dropped, kicked, or left out in the rain, because He knows the treasure inside won’t be appreciated by those looking only for perfection. Sometimes the gift of patience comes wrapped in the paper of waiting. Sometimes the gift of compassion comes in the box of loss. Sometimes the gift of peace comes through the package of pain. I drove Elliott back to Virginia Tech yesterday. For almost all of the 3 hours driving there, the weather was dreary. Large sections of the drive were so dark it felt like nightfall. But you know what, my kid didn't stop talking to me the whole way. Not so much as a moment of silence. I've had two desires as a father. That my kids would come to know and love God with the same kind of heart with which I love God, knowing that they will come to that kind of heart much more from seeing my heart than from hearing about it. And then also, that my kids would look forward to talking to me. Not talking to me because I'm their dad and they feel obligated to - but because they love talking to me. As we drove, talking through the darkness and above the sound of the windshield wipers wiping back and forth, and as I looked down at the rubber wrist band Elliott was wearing with an important to him scripture written on it, I felt a beautiful light in the darkness. I felt God remind me that my life has not always been offered to me in the most stable of boxes, and nor have those boxes very often been wrapped in fancy wrapping paper, but my life has overflowed with beautiful gifts. God has taught me, over and over again, that darkness is not a sign of dark in my life, but of approaching beauty and light. For it is God in my life that is the measure of my gifts, not the boxes. Maybe you'll have some broken boxes come into your life this week. I'll gently offer, maybe trust God, not the box.  Storms.
It's so easy to see storms as thieves arriving in the middle of the night, intent on robbing us of hope. But is it possible - maybe - that they arrive DELIVERING hope? I know. That seems so backwards. But how much time do we spend searching for hope in the good times, in the peaceful weather? The times that can feel like hope is just magically dancing all around us. A gift given and not one sought. If we're not careful, we can begin to focus on the dance and not the dancer. It is tranquil times that can lead us to believe that hope is found in our circumstances, in our situations, and not in the One who lives in us, unfazed by circumstances and situations, an endless and unwavering stream of hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him (Romans 15:13). Paul reminds us here that hope is linked to joy, peace, and faith. It transcends our circumstances because it is placed in God’s unwavering nature. Maybe storms come as a reminder of that. A reminder that the nature of hope has little to do with the nature of our lives, and everything to do with the nature of God. Life can feel like an endless roller coaster of hope - up and down. But that is not life, that is us. That is us wavering, not hope. Not God.  Bob Goff once said, “Practice giving the benefit of the doubt to people, and watch compassion for them grow in our hearts.”
Highlight and underline 'practice' in that sentence. A reminder that compassion isn’t automatic. It’s something we must intentionally train our hearts toward, especially in a world that rewards suspicion, cynicism, and judgment far more than grace. When I think of Jesus, I think of someone who led with the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t need people to prove their worth before offering his presence. He didn’t make them earn compassion. He saw the good in those the world labeled bad, the potential in those others had written off. The woman at the well. The tax collector in the tree. The thief on the cross. Each story begins with Jesus choosing to see something redeemable in someone others had long given up on. For most of us that's not easy. We live in a culture that sows more doubt in our minds than benefit. We are taught to protect ourselves, to vet people, to assume the worst until proven otherwise. It’s easy to forget that fear and distrust are contagious and that they quietly starve compassion. I was reminded of this recently when I spoke with a group of prisoners. Many had lived lives that left little to doubt: crimes committed, wrongs done, stories that confirmed every stereotype. But sitting face-to-face, listening to their stories, I found a lot of benefit: Humanity. Regret. Hope. Even beauty. And here's the thing, the more benefit in them I looked for the more I found. It's often hard to see the benefit in one another if we aren't looking for it. That’s the miracle of compassion, it doesn’t grow from being told to feel differently. It grows from seeing differently. Giving the benefit of the doubt doesn’t mean pretending harm didn’t happen or excusing choices that cause pain. It means choosing to look at a person and believing there is more to the story and that the story isn’t finished yet. Unlike Jesus, putting benefit before doubt doesn’t come naturally to us. It takes work. It means confronting our own biases, our need to be right, our addiction to certainty. It means asking whether our first impulse toward others is curiosity or criticism. Leading with criticism rarely if ever leads to compassion.... I fear if we don’t practice this, we risk becoming a world that leaks compassion faster than it creates it. A world where no one feels safe enough to change because no one believes they actually can. But when we do practice it, when we pause before judgment, when we listen before labeling, something holy begins to happen. Compassion grows. Hearts soften. Doubt gives way to benefit. And maybe, in those moments, we start to look a little more like Jesus - not because we’ve perfected compassion, but because we’re practicing it. 10/14/2025 0 Comments God Can Grow Us In Any Season God's mission for our lives?
Growth. Not perfection. Not arrival. Not applause. Growth. Growth toward Him. And the beautiful thing about God is that He doesn’t need the soil in our lives to be just right to nourish our growth. While we’re wondering when our season of flourishing will come, God is knowing that our season of growth is right now. When it comes to growth, God doesn’t favor spring over summer, or summer over fall, or fall over winter, or winter over spring. With God, the season of growth is always now. Today. This month. This year. Right now. So often we think, I’ve screwed up again. And God thinks, another chance to grow again. So often we think, Why has this happened? And God whispers, Growth. And so often we believe, This is it. I’ve arrived. And God reminds us, not yet. There is no arrival when there is still room to grow. Grow. Toward Him. We miss the value in so many days, so many seasons, when we lose sight of the mission: growth. We use so many metrics to measure the worth of our days, the value of our lives. But God has already declared He values nothing more than us, and our worth is found in discovering that truth a bit more each day. Discovering it in the joy and in the pain. In the easy and in the hard. In the summer and in the winter. We may think there are seasons in our lives standing in the way, but God sees every season as THE way.: Winter is coming. We can be sure of that. But hey, you’d be surprised what grows in the winter. “Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47:12) Every month. They will bear fruit. |