​As we roll out of Easter, let's not roll away without taking one big implicit piece of advice that Easter offers us - in fact, I can actually hear God's voice, making it more EXPLICIT in my own life - but I can hear God saying, "stop letting people tell you when I am done with you."

Easter shouts that advice. It shouts that truth.

After watching Jesus murdered, all of his apostle holed up in a house - hiding - just sure that they were next.

They thought it was over.

On Easter Sunday - Mary, Mary and Salome walked to the tomb with spices to put on Jesus' dead body, because they too thought it was over.

In spite of Jesus telling all of them repeatedly that he would rise in three days, they listened to the crowds. The crowds cheering on the murder of Jesus. And they believed the crowds when they said, finally, this whole Jesus thing is over.

You know why they shouldn't have listened to those crowds? Do you know what Easter reminds all of us pretty clearly? It reminds us that NO ONE knows when God is done with a story.

NO.

ONE.

I shouldn't need Easter for that reminder. More times than I can count in my life I've thought, God is surely done with my story.

I've woken up in strange places on the other side of drunken benders and surely felt, God can do nothing more with this story.

Many of those mornings I woke up giving serious consideration to ending my story for God, a favor of sorts, to remove any obligation he might feel toward trying to make something of my less than nothing story.

When you walk out the doors of marriage and into the world of divorce, oh believe me, there are plenty of people who will assure you that God is done with your story. Plenty of people who will walk out of your story. Enough so that you'll start believing it yourself - my story is over.

Pastor Robert Madu says, "when you get to feeling like God is done with your story, walk back to the last place you saw him."

For me, quite honestly, many times that is right here. Right where you are reading me. Because in my writing, someone is going to read my broken story, find hope in the truth that if God is not done with me, that if I can still write about the presence of God in my story, then it's possible he's not done with you either.

My words can become the last place you saw God.

People often want to see your brokenness as the end of your story. God often sees it as the beginning.

If the brutal murder of a man on a cross can become the beginning of a story, what on earth CAN'T be the beginning of a story??

I want to tell you today that NO ONE knows when God is done with your story. So, if anyone wants to suggest your story is done, don't listen to them, go look for the last place you saw God.

And same if YOU start telling yourself God is done with your story.

Don't believe you.

Go to the last place you saw God, and be reminded, he will NEVER be done with your story. Not ever. So please, don't let today be the day you start listening to a story that says otherwise.

​It was the third round of the RBC Heritage golf tournament. Justin Thomas was leading. Unfamiliar territory. For nearly three years, after every tournament, Thomas was asked:

Will you ever win again?

During that third round, Thomas bent down to move some debris from around his golf ball. In doing so, the ball moved—just the slightest bit. Chances are, no one but him would have ever known.

But Thomas knew.

So, he called tournament officials over and reported the incident. Per the rules of golf, this resulted in a one-shot penalty.

Fast forward to Sunday. After 72 holes, Thomas ended up in a tie for the lead, forcing a playoff.

I found myself wondering, did Thomas think about that penalty? Did he regret reporting it, knowing that without it he might already be holding the trophy? No more “will you ever win again?”

Then, he sank a 21-foot putt on the first playoff hole to win.

Something about that felt right.

But let’s be honest, you’ve lived long enough to know integrity doesn’t always "win." Not by worldly definitions, anyway.

God doesn’t always reward doing the right thing with victory. At least not on the outside.

John Wooden once said, “Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are.”

It can be tempting sometimes, I think, to chase reputation. To chase power and fame and control. To chase an ending to the idea that your best golf days are behind you, and chances are you will never be known as a golf champion again.

For some the trophies mean everything. Win at all cost. 
​
But there are some people who’ve decided a clean conscience makes for a better night’s sleep than a full trophy case. Some people can’t pretend they didn’t see the ball move.

No matter the cost.

We all have to decide.

Is integrity the way or is it what stands in the way?

I admire Justin Thomas. Because had he lost that tournament by one stroke, there's no doubt in my mind he would have gladly accepted the question - "will you ever win again" - knowing that he didn't sacrifice his integrity to avoid the question.

Chances are, you’ll have to choose a way today.

There are always two paths.

And the choice is always ours.

​It was that same day. The day he had risen. Two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

I always wonder about that part. It doesn’t say they refused to see him. It doesn’t say Jesus hid from them. It just says they were kept from recognizing him.

What kept them from seeing him?

What keeps ME from seeing him?

Maybe it's sorrow. Disappointment. Exhaustion from long prayers that haven't been answered the way I hoped they would be. Maybe it's fear or chaos or all this inner-turmoil. Or maybe it’s just the fog of life, where I'm so consumed by everything out there that I miss the one who is still walking right beside me.

Right here.

It’s easy to celebrate Easter as an event. A date on the calendar. An empty tomb we proclaim with sunrise services and bright music all the while boldly proclaiming: “He is risen!”

But what if resurrection isn’t something we’re meant to just celebrate, what if it’s something we’re invited to recognize? Because it’s possible to proclaim Jesus is risen… and still not see him.

It’s possible to walk seven miles with him and mistake him for a stranger.

It can be the darkest side of Easter—not that Jesus was crucified, but that we miss him entirely once he is risen. That we might live our lives never realizing how close he’s been the whole time.

The two on the road finally recognized Jesus, not in the walking, not even in the talking, but in the breaking of bread. In a small, ordinary moment that suddenly became sacred.

And maybe that’s the point.

Maybe we don’t need mountaintop miracles or burning bush revelations. Maybe all we need is a quiet meal, a prayer, a long hike, a moment of honest vulnerability where our hearts and minds are open to seeing him.

And then we see him, the one who has been with us all along.

It's then that Easter becomes real, not just because the tomb was empty two thousand years ago - but because Jesus still walks with us today.

So, I’m asking myself this Easter morning, and I invite you to ask it too:

Where might Jesus be walking with me right now?

And more importantly…

Do I recognize him?

​I’ve come to believe that the most terrifying part of Good Friday wasn’t the nails.

It wasn’t the crowd shouting for Barabbas, the crown of thorns, or even the betrayal from a close friend.

It was the complete surrender of control.

That’s what Jesus gave up when he stopped defending himself. When he remained silent before Pilate. When he didn’t call down angels. When he healed the ear Peter cut off instead of picking up a sword. When he looked at the one begging to be remembered and whispered, “I assure you.”

He surrendered control not just of his body, but of the story’s appearance.

He let it look like he lost.

That’s hard for me. Because like many of us, I want my story to look like a win. I want healing to look like wholeness, not a scar. I want redemption to look like applause, not crucifixion. I want transformation to look like triumph, not trauma.

But Good Friday is a bold declaration: God does his best work in the worst moments, and he rarely asks our permission to do it that way.

The hardest part of my own story hasn’t been the betrayal, the divorce, the failures, or the scars. The hardest part is accepting that healing doesn’t always come in the form of a miracle—but in the form of a cross I have to carry, in surrendering the narrative I’d rather write.

Jesus didn’t avoid Friday. He didn’t edit it.

He entered it fully.

Because he knew something we forget in our pain—Sunday was coming, but not without Friday.

We want to skip to the good part. Jesus didn’t.

He stayed in the hard part. He bled in the silence. He loved in the betrayal. He forgave in the pain. He assured a thief before assuring anyone else.

He knew what we’re still learning: that the worst thing is rarely the last thing.

So maybe today, the invitation is this:

Don’t rush through Friday.

Don’t numb it. Don’t theologize it away. Don’t skip to Sunday.

Let Friday do its work. Let it remind you that some of the best things come not by conquering the darkness, but by trusting God enough to walk through it.

Not with answers. But with assurance.

"I assure you," Jesus said.

That your brokenness isn’t too broken.

That your shame isn’t too deep.

That your worst isn’t your end.

That Friday might look like death—but it's only the prelude.

​It's Thursday. The night before Good Friday. And if there were ever a moment when violence felt justified—when righteous anger, self-defense, or retaliation would have made perfect sense—it was that Thursday night in the garden.

Jesus had just finished praying in agony. He had sweat blood. He had asked His friends to stay awake with Him, and they had fallen asleep. He had already chosen the hard road. And then, in the stillness of that night, Judas arrived.

With guards.

With betrayal.

With torches and swords.

It would have been easy—natural, even—to respond with force. And that’s exactly what Peter tried to do.

Peter, who had just vowed to die with Jesus if it came to that. Peter, who was still trying to prove himself faithful. Peter, who pulled out a sword and took a swing—cutting off the ear of the high priest’s servant.

And that’s when it happened.

That’s when Jesus got as close to angry as he seems to get in this entire Easter story. Angrier than when they arrested him. Angrier than when they drove nails into his hands and feet. Angrier than when the soldiers mocked him in his dying moments.

Only in THIS moment did he yell, “No more of this!”

Those four words, sharp and urgent. Not a whisper. Not a gentle redirection. But a line in the sand.

Jesus wasn’t just stopping Peter from causing more harm. He was stopping something far deeper. He was stopping the possibility of leaving behind any hint of a notion that violence could ever be the way to heal anything.

He was rejecting the impulse to fight injustice with more injustice.

He was silencing the part of all of us that thinks retaliation redeems something.

He was saying no—not just to Peter’s sword, but to the centuries of swords that would try to follow in His name.

And then, in what might be one of the most quietly miraculous moments of the entire Easter story, Jesus healed the servant’s ear. One of the men sent to arrest Him.

Let that sink in.

Jesus, in the middle of betrayal, pain, and arrest, healed the one who came to harm Him. If violence were ever appropriate, it would have been here. But Jesus opposed it—as strongly as He ever opposed anything.

In that moment, Jesus wasn’t just rejecting violence. He was modeling redemption. He was showing us that the real revolution wouldn’t be won with swords. It would be won with surrender.

And not the surrender of weakness. But the surrender of love.
A love so strong it could look power and betrayal and injustice in the eye and say, “I choose healing anyway.”

Good Friday was full of violence.

But Jesus chose Thursday to make his stand against it. Not by protecting his life from it, but by healing one who'd been victimized by it.

​I was under the weather yesterday, so it became the perfect day to finish re-watching the television series Lost. This second time through, it hit me differently. There was more emotion. I was crying when it finished. Not because the characters were leaving, but because this time I got what the characters were trying to tell me.

I mean, I really got it.

Maybe because it is Holy Week. There are a lot of parallels to Holy Week in lost.

And more importantly, I think, is I've done a lot of work the last ten years finding myself, which started with fully discovering just how lost I'd been.

Sometimes you need to know you are lost before you can ever feel found.

I've realized in this re-watching, that is what island did in Lost. It forced them to admit they were lost. At first, physically—plane wreckage scattered across sand, smoke billowing, people screaming for help. But eventually—and far more painfully—it revealed just how lost they were emotionally.

Spiritually.

Internally.

And what struck me most this time through is how deeply adverse childhoods are woven into their stories. Nearly every character’s pain could be traced back to the unmet needs, the traumas, the shame, or the silence they experienced growing up.

Jack was still trying to prove to his father that he was good enough.

Kate was still running from the guilt she couldn’t escape.

Locke was desperate to matter to anyone who would claim him.

Sawyer was shaped by a single moment of childhood trauma he couldn’t outrun.

Ben was raised in a world that never truly nurtured him—so he became a master manipulator just to survive.

And isn’t that all of us?

Because of the work I do professionally, and the work I continue to do on me personally, I've come to say that life is us, knowingly or unknowingly, wrestling with our childhoods out loud with one another. Our deepest hurts, fears, and longings don’t stay behind in the past. They travel with us—buried in our stories, disguised as personality, masked as strength, or tunneled deep inside us beneath our addictions, perfectionism, or control.

But the island literally went into the tunnels of their inner worlds and brought them to life. It didn’t cause their brokenness. It revealed it. The real wreckage wasn’t the plane—it was what they carried with them long before they ever boarded it.

And in that way, the island wasn’t just a setting. It was an invitation.

A place where people couldn’t run anymore. A place where ghosts came to life. A place where they were given a choice: face the pain, or let it destroy them. Some chose power. Others chose love. Some chose control. Others chose surrender.

And when they did the hard work of facing what they spent their lives avoiding—healing came. Not all at once. Not easily. But it came. In community. In forgiveness. In sacrifice. In finally letting go.

There’s one scene I can’t stop thinking about. Jacob, the island’s mysterious guardian, is handed a cup by his mother. She says, “You are now like me.” It felt like a sacrament. Like communion. And maybe it was.

Because he then passes the cup to Jack. Jack to Hurley. A passing down not of perfection, but of people willing to carry the light for others. Willing to protect a place where others could still be found.

And maybe that’s our calling, too.

Not to escape our pain. Not to erase our childhood. But to become protectors of spaces where healing can happen. Where people can finally stop running. Where what was broken can be seen, held, and slowly made whole.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence I was finishing up Lost during Holy Week. Because Easter isn’t just about resurrection after death. It’s about the invitation to finally face what’s broken in us so that we can be made new.

And sometimes, that begins with an island.

With landing in a place where there is no longer any doubt that we are lost.

Because it is there, where we finally admit that we are lost, where resurrection and new life begin.

​I heard this in a sermon recently and it's stuck with me.

“Comparison collects evidence about someone else’s life to tell a story about your own.” ~Chet Pete

Isn't that the silent, sneaky way comparison works? It doesn’t knock on your door and announce, “Hey, I’m here to make you feel less than.” No, it creeps in quietly, like a lawyer gathering selective evidence from someone else’s highlight reel while building a case against your life.

Steven Furtick once said, "The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel."

I’ve done this. I STILL do this. I see a happy couple posting anniversary photos and feel the ache of my failed marriage. I watch a friend’s TED Talk and wonder why my words haven’t traveled further. I see fathers on vacation with their kids and question whether I’ve done enough, been enough.

And here’s the most dangerous part of it all: None of those stories are mine, but I let them shape mine anyway.

We all do it. Social media has made sure of that. We scroll through curated images and polished captions, not realizing we’re not just consuming content—we're unconsciously comparing it to our private, unfiltered lives. And the brain does something both fascinating and harmful: it fills in the blanks.

It assumes their joy is constant. Their love is easy. Their success is sustainable. And then it quietly whispers: Why not you?

A study out of the University of Copenhagen coined the term “Facebook envy,” pointing to the way we feel worse about our lives after seeing others' seemingly perfect ones.

But here’s some truth.

Their story doesn’t invalidate yours.

Their joy doesn’t erase your worth.

And your timeline isn’t late; It’s yours.

We were never meant to write our stories with someone else’s pen. We weren’t designed to measure the substance of our lives against someone else’s surface. God doesn’t do side-by-side comparisons when He calls us beloved.

He sees us.

Fully.

Completely.

Uniquely.

If I’ve learned anything in these last few years - through the heartbreak, the rebuilding, the parenting, the long walks - it’s that I rob myself of presence every time I compare myself to someone else’s progress.

I don’t need more evidence from someone else’s life to prove something about mine.

I need grace.

I need grounding.

I need to come home to MY story, messy and beautiful and still unfolding.

Home, where the only story I compare my story to is mine.

All. Mine.

​I watched Rory McIlroy win the Masters golf tournament yesterday.

McIlroy had won just about every golf tournament imaginable—except for the Masters, the one he had dreamed of winning since he was a kid.

For 16 years, he showed up to Augusta believing this would be the year, only to leave with the familiar ache of knowing it wasn’t.

After winning yesterday, McIlroy said,

“This is my 17th time here, and I started to wonder if it would ever be my time.”

There were moments throughout the final round that made it look like it still wouldn’t be his time. Time and again, he made mistakes that could have cost him the tournament—and time and again, he bounced back with grit and resolve.

His round yesterday felt like a microcosm of the last 17 years—falling short, trying again, and refusing to give up on the dream of one day wearing that green jacket presented annually to the Masters champion.

Watching him wear that green jacket yesterday was inspiring, at least it was for me. Because there are still things I’m waiting to happen in my own life.

Relationships I long for.

Professional opportunities I’ve dreamed of.

Moments with my sons that haven’t quite happened yet.

And yes, there are moments when my mind goes to that dreadful place of wondering if they ever will. For many of us, that place of wondering can become the place where we stop believing. Where we quietly begin to quit.

But watching McIlroy yesterday left me with a question I think is worth asking:

Did he win because it was finally his time—or because he never stopped believing his time would come?

Did the Masters finally happen for him yesterday, or did his faithfulness to keep showing up finally pay off?

I somewhat believe in fate.

But I wholeheartedly believe that fate often gets a big helping hand from our desire, our effort, and our commitment to the future we dream of.

Not everything in your life has happened yet. But you have a choice. You can believe it never will—or you can double down today on believing that it will… and work like it has always been meant to.

There’s a green jacket waiting for all of us.

But green jackets rarely get delivered.

They often demand that we come pick them up and put them on.

Leave now. Go pick yours up. 

​One of the main reasons I gravitate towards and embrace the Christian story is because all of the characters in the story - save one - are imperfect.

Many of them quite imperfect.

Like me.

There are days I can get to wondering, what on earth use can I possibly be with all of my imperfect baggage.

In the bible there is a story about a guy named Peter. He once pulled Jesus aside and read him the riot act for telling people he was going to die and then raise from the dead in three days.

Easter.

It's ironic, isn't it, the imperfect one scolding the only perfect one to ever live for sharing his Easter plan, the only plan ever devised to fully and totally redeem the imperfect one's imperfections.

And mine.

I am reminded in this Easter season, in the midst of beating myself up for my imperfections - in the midst of too frequently doubling down on my chase to become more perfect - that the Christian story isn't a Christian story at all without our imperfections.

I don't say that as justification - as motivation - to rest easy in my imperfections, but rather I say it as a reminder to rest easy in the arms of the one who once and for all made my imperfections a reason for love, and not a reason to bail on love.

The way of the world quite often IS to bail on one another in response to each other's imperfections. But in this Christian story, this man named Jesus, the perfect one, decided our shared imperfections were the perfect reason to be murdered on a cross on the way to pouring his loving blood into our imperfections.

Not to scold us - but to invite us.

We often make each other's imperfections a reason to hide. But Jesus longs for our imperfections to be the reason we come out of hiding.

Peter went on to have quite the influence on the early church, an influence that carries on to this day.

An influence not built on him finally reaching perfection, but an influence built on him finally believing in the story he once scolded the perfect one for even telling.

A story meant to help me realize that I too can have influence. Not in spite of my imperfections, but through them.