Bible

A New Submission & Thoughts on It

I received a new submission to this blog, and I’ll share it in a minute (with my thoughts).

But first, I do want to tell you that I am still reeling, still taken apart by Sunday’s message on 1 Corinthians, chapter 13: the love chapter. The simple fact that it is a choice, a decision we consciously make, is overwhelming. When I act in an unloving way (impatient, unkind, easily angered, keeping score/record of wrongs, etc), for whatever reason, it is a rejection of Jesus’ role in my life, heart, hands, feet & behavior. – reading over that paragraph, it sounds jumbled and full of side comments, paths & parentheses. I’m not cleaning it up, because that’s exactly how I feel.

Now, the submission (from an anonymous author):

“Lee and Annette Woofenden indicate the possibility that a happily married couple, under certain conditions may be reunited in Paradise. In a message entitled, “Loving Jesus More Than Life” by John Piper, dated November 23, 2015, he refers to Matthew 10:37 “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” and “Whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

If our desire to enter Heaven is based on wanting to be reunited with a happily married spouse and that desire exceeds waning to enjoy the love of Jesus, we risk losing the thing we desire due to incorrect priority.

Jesus is aware of our love for a spouse. If we love Jesus foremost, He will provide a love relationship for a spouse or parent or child.”

I don’t know if you remember, a few months ago, we received another submission that was posted (September 22, 2025, “Til Death?”) on a similar subject. This one has a slightly different tone.

“Till Death?” details the unselfish, beautiful, covenantal marriage relationship that could (and that’s all we really have in our limited knowledge, isn’t it? a “could.”) endure forever and ever in paradise. Here, the thoughtful writer explores the “risk” of an “incorrect priority.” It is as if he goes down a path, then, satisfied, wonders if the path is the right path, ultimately deciding that whatever the path, the love of Jesus must be “foremost.” I don’t know, so this is only my imagination, but it seems like a person wrestling with the Scriptures and his/her place in them.

We can (and often do) read the Bible and, if it doesn’t agree with our opinions, we toss it aside. We want the Bible to submit to our will, instead of the other way around. Seemingly, this person isn’t content to leave a thread of faith, and his heart for God, unexplored. And if his faith & heart don’t line up, then he/she will take any level of demolition and reconstruction to make sure it does. It’s a beautiful picture of a marriage to a spouse, and even more so of a marriage to His/Her Creator/Savior.

I now see that’s what is ravaging me about this week’s love message. I don’t always want to act in a loving way. I want to be impatient, I want you to know what you did wrong and apologize. When you hurt me like this, I want you to change. I like the adrenaline of anger. I really, really like to be right. I lose hope. And I can give you a million reasons why, and for at least a hundred of them, you’d agree with me. You’d think I am justified in my un-love.

And this beautiful Bible… And the words, life, death, resurrection, and heart of Jesus, to all of my well-thought arguments, listens patiently, nodding along, validates my feelings, maybe He weeps at my broken heart & spirit (just like He did for Mary & Martha), but He hears me, really hears me, and then I imagine He looks me straight in the eyes HE created for me, and softly, tenderly, says, “Yeah, about that. You know how much I love you, but I don’t care about that at all. You’re going to love them anyway.”

He knows I will. I will choose Him, choose love. So I try. I mean, I will, eventually (because there is only “do or do not, there is no try”).

We don’t get it right today, or all the time, we just keep showing up – to Him, to each other, to ourselves. And as our anonymous author shows us, if we can just not give up, He leads us to the right answers.

Do I?

I behaved abysmally this morning. Now, what exactly happened isn’t important, but that it happened is. Poor behavior mostly all comes from the same place, and I am no different. I read a book that suggested that those times when we get ourselves into trouble stem from a clever acronym of emotional states: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, And T (I don’t remember what the T stands for…Tired!! That’s it!). HALT: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. I am currently a combination of all of those, and the book used its clever acronym to ask us to halt, instead of making a mess. I did not halt; I made a mess.

[I hesitate to write this post, because it’s very possible to read these posts and miss the meaning. I am not fishing for encouragement, do not need cheering up. This is different from reading a post written by someone you don’t know personally. You are beautiful, you deeply care for me, and may feel concern. I am ok. I would reach out, if that were not the case. This is not simply an overshare, I do have a specific reason for writing, and oversharing just provides the context;) You’ll see why I am ok, at the very end. Now.]

I do not behave abysmally very often, anymore. Honestly, this morning was wildly out of character, surprising me and the other involved parties. It is not a lifestyle, I didn’t recognize myself at all. It was an embarrassing momentary catastrophe, and will have virtually no long-them effects (except in my own head & heart).

That’s not an excuse – I have no excuses, and don’t need any. But it is important, because how we respond to ourselves and our actions depends on if it is a sin, or a lifestyle of sin. Did we fall in a hole, or are we choosing to jump in that hole and live there? I fell. Now what?

Sometimes, we encounter mirrors that contain an important question about our beliefs and values. We say we believe these things, do we really? Do I?

If you were to relay the same story to me, if our roles were completely reversed, I would tell you how loved you are. I would not judge, I would acknowledge the punishment you had already inflicted on yourself, recognize your contrite repentance, immediately forgive, and encourage you to give you a break and move forward. I would do all of these things, because I whole-heartedly believe Romans 8, that there’s no condemnation in Christ Jesus, that God takes our sins as far as the east is from the west, and remembers them no more. I think He accepts our repentance with joy, seeing growth and a heart that wants to beat for Him (even if it sometimes can’t help to beat for itself, with disastrous consequences.) And I think He asks us to love each other in the same way. I would recognize the roots (the HALT situation) and try to address those, together.

I believe those same truths apply to me, too. That is my theology. And when I come upon this mirror of conviction that asks if my theology is my application, is my practice, I wonder what my answer is. Do I? And do I so much that I would continue to work to undo an entire lifetime whipping myself with my self-loathing. When faced with cracks in my character, can I have grace for me, too? Are they actually cracks, at all? Can I move forward as a new creation, forgiven from my human fragility, and made holy, in Him?

The mess I made took about 5 minutes, beginning to end, but it only took 3 seconds to be sorry about it. Right at the start. The rest of the 5 minutes was an apology and explanation, an attempt to halt, call timeout and come back in to shore, back home.

The lie says that the mess is me, and the rest of my whole life is the illusion, a construct that was bound to fall at some point, that I could only fake for so long, and the real me would eventually emerge. The truth is that these holes we all fall in, from time to time, do not change our identity. I am not perfect, I was never supposed to be. I am a work in progress, He is transforming me every moment, every day.

It’s sometime an attack to our ego to admit that we are still becoming, that we have not arrived, that we don’t have it all perfectly together. But, attack or not, it’s true. So now what? What do we do?

I knew what I would do, and as I ran to Him by opening my Bible, I read a short line on Hezekiah in the book of Isaiah. A foreign power threatened him and his people, and he was afraid. (That was the lie he heard, all lies aren’t the same for each of us, not even the same for ourselves, at different times.) He freaked out, and immediately ran into the Temple in prayer. Me, too. I freaked out, and ran right into His arms, hoping He’d be merciful and tell me the Truth, about this, about me, and in that, most importantly, about Himself. I found just what Hezekiah did, that He is very willing to do that, over and over again.

I guess I’m not supposed to tell you any of this, I’m supposed to carefully cultivate a bulletproof image. Of course, I don’t struggle, don’t fall in any holes, am never hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. But what I could never get through my thick head is that, if I pretend to actually be that ridiculously dishonest image, I am saying it’s just you. I would be building false walls and blasphemous hierarchies.

We are all on this journey, to Him, WITH Him. Of course, we’re at different places. Someone is always further along. We’re just walking each other home. And I think we all have these holes, questions, and mirrors. It’s what we do when we face them that matters, that shows where our faith is, and if what we say is really what we believe. Probably, living a life of faith is just a series of steps closer to answering that question with a “yes.”

The Questions

It’s the questions, isn’t it? We study the Scriptures, words and contexts, digging deeper and deeper into the meanings and interpreting it however we interpret it. Then, hopefully, we can integrate the lessons and/or practices into our lives, and this integration invites us into new versions of ourselves. This is the beauty, opportunity, and responsibility of a sermon.

This week, we studied the example in Ecclesiastes of a person who has all the money and material wealth and can’t enjoy it. Admittedly, this is not a difficult jump to make from ancient wisdom literature to 2025 America, so the job of the teacher is fairly simple. (I find this to be the case with most of the Bible – we have not progressed or evolved nearly as far as we like to believe. The Israelites continued to relive the same loops through the Old Testament, and so do we.)

I think about this a lot. But on Monday mornings, I sit with my notebook, thinking about, in this case, what are my values, and are my answers consistent with my life? And then, where have I chosen a different #1, a different, inferior WHY to inform and animate my life? These are the nagging thorns in my mind that keep me up at night.

We can read verses and passages, close our Bibles, and remain unaffected. We can even commit these same verses to memory, without ever letting them make the giant leap from our heads to our hearts. But I find it’s these questions that create the bridges. They’re like keys that unlock closed doors. When was the last time we meditated on words written thousands of years ago? I would suggest (maybe I would hope) very recently. If we have ever been conflicted about the long hours at work that keep us from home, from our families, and have calculated the cost of our careers and hobbies, that is simply today’s form of the Jewish Talmud.

The Talmud (in probably offensively simple terms) is an extra-Biblical text where rabbis wrote about and commented on the Scriptures. Essentially, it was where they worked out what this meant for their lives, how it would/could be expressed in real life. We do this, too, every day. We just don’t have a cool name for our seeking.

Solomon details the meaninglessness of the idolatry of our stuff. And tv shows and blog posts ask us to stop to look at the hold our own things have on us. Whether we realize it or not, we’re diving into a practice that has existed as long as we have. What do we believe? Do we, really? And if that’s true, if we do actually believe that, what does that mean for our lives? It’s easy to see how vital this testament of faith & self-discovery can change every little part of our lives. And it should. Maybe the passive, detached distance we too often choose is the exception. And maybe the disruption we all feel is that this exception, being on the outside, just dipping our toes in, is no longer good enough.

Last Saturday’s Wedding

I get to officiate weddings, fairly often. [I never like the word “officiate,” it reminds me of referees and umpires, which inevitably leads me to associate an embarrassing level of incompetence. Ha, I’m just kidding. But I do think calling balls and strikes and joining 2 people in one of the most wonderful gifts God has ever created are wildly different, and absolutely should not share the same word. Anyway.] This weekend was a unique wedding, it was a surprise.

Every time I have mentioned this ‘surprise’ wedding, I am asked, “Is it a surprise to the couple?” I can’t tell if they’re joking when they ask. Is this a thing? Could I have sprung a roomful of our closest family & friends on Angel, to marry her? Do people ever do this? I guess they do, but this was not that. There were 4 people in the room who knew, the soon-to-be husband and wife, the Angel and I.

The room itself was packed and noisy, as the ruse was a family reunion. Now, not only were we not technically part of this family, it was even more noteworthy. This was a very Hispanic family, and as you may be aware, we are not Hispanic. We were the only white people, whom no one knew, in this “family.”

[Another thing of which you may be aware, is that I do not ascribe to the tenets of the modern religion of tolerance. I do not call myself colorblind. I see colors, races, and cultures very clearly. And I do not tolerate them at all. As a matter of fact, I think to simply tolerate another human being (no matter their demographic) is much, much less than adequate. We are called to love, in no uncertain terms. We love our neighbor, not, as it is defined, “allow the existence without interference…endure (something unpleasant or disliked) with forbearance.” This is not progressive thought, it is holding our nose and ignoring something we don’t like, and refuse to like. I am blissfully intolerant. Instead, I am a lover. So, this party was loud, affectionate, beautiful, and they easily welcomed me with open arms.]

We pretended to begin to play a game, which quickly was revealed to be not a game at all, and instead was the first day of the marriage of 2 of the coolest people you’d ever meet, who had been together for 30 years! I was not only the game show host, not only a guest of their family, but I was the pastor that had the honor of marrying them.

Usually, weddings are a fairly subdued affair. They’re quiet and ordered. I often get the feeling that the ceremony is seen as the entrance fee to the reception. But, either way, everyone is mostly quiet and might be listening. This wedding was not one of those. It was raucous and fantastically joyful. Everyone was crying, taking pictures, dancing. Of course, they were listening – though it did require an adjustment on my part, more pauses, and significantly more volume.

Do you know what liminal spaces are? They are places in time where we imagine the distance between ourselves and God shrinks, where God comes near and the separation disappears. As I write it, it’s kind of a clumsy term/metaphor. It implies separation at all other times. This is not at all accurate, but you understand the idea. There are moments where we are totally aware of the Divine, His boundless love for us, and we are given a picture of what His creation could be. This was one of them. Sunday mornings are another. Well, there are a lot of them, if I’m honest, if we just can stay awake.

SO, this place was noisy and awesome, and right in the middle, everyone stopped talking, no one moved an inch. I saw them holding each other, each pair of watery eyes on me. And what was it that caused this sharp, shocking contrast? I was reading the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, to be exact. The Word of God filled us, and no one could move, overwhelmed with reverence and His presence.

And that’s the point, isn’t it? We are all different; different geography, experiences, ideas, different lives and perspectives. But God brings us all together, bridges every divide, until we are finally able to clearly see that those wonderful differences pale in comparison to the one thing we all have in common, which is that we are all brothers and sisters, children of the One True Living God.

Riot!!!

[This was a casualty of the message last week. It’s not that it wasn’t important, it was simply too long for a single Sunday, and wouldn’t fit next week. But this is a great opportunity. In a new medium, we have a different experience. We have more time, space, we can pause, look up verses, consider the questions and implications. At the same time, we don’t have the immediacy and energy of the physical presence or the community. It’s a mixed bag, but a cool mixed bag of possibility. Like so much of the online world, it can be an awesome supplement, but is a poor substitute for actual, real, in person, life, together. So, here we go…]

As the Gospel spreads, the news that Peter has been eating previously forbidden foods with Gentiles (gasp!!) reaches Jerusalem…(Acts 11:1-3)

This is great news, new people are hearing and receiving the Good News of Jesus Christ. But… (What? How can there be a “But” – isn’t the idea that we are to carry the Gospel to the “ends of the earth?” Yes, but maybe only if it doesn’t reach those people.) Yes, of course, there is always a “but,” always criticism. When we face this inevitability, how do we respond? Do we see it as a sign? Of what? If there is opposition, do we see it as a closed door, or a challenge to push harder? What we see here is that criticism is not necessarily a sign that we are wrong, but instead, maybe a sign that we are right where we need to be.

Peter explains his actions, and then what? How is all of this received?

V. 18 “When the others heard this, all their objections were answered and they began praising God,” I love this, and so do you, but it does ask some very hard questions of us: Can we change our minds? Are we so invested in having all of the answers, is our value so tied to being right, that we can’t even consider anything else, even with new evidence? The Gospel has a cost (which is, primarily, the disposal of our very own “gospel of me”), are we prepared to bear that massive cost? 

And then, we later see, there is another way to respond to the message: (Acts 19:21-32)

Demetrius, a silversmith, makes his very prosperous living making shrines of the goddess Artemis. (This is an illustration of the inverse of Ephesians 2:10: Our God makes art, masterpieces, out of people. Demetrius makes art out of the gods.) With his business & lifestyle threatened, Demetrius starts a riot.

Have you ever read a book or a Bible passage, saw a movie, heard a talk or tv show, and thought, “Oh boy, if this is true, nothing can ever be the same again?” “I can’t do ___, I can’t feel, vote, think, say, watch, whatever, ever again. Everything will change.” That is exactly what’s happening here. They’ve built a society that’s veracity & validity is under attack.

The Ephesians justified their greed & idolatry (worship of the goddess Artemis), wrapping it in religion, in tribalism. We know it’s not. The idol looked like money, comfort, power, but that’s superficiality. The real idol is always ME.

The Gospel saves us, but it does threaten us, as well. There is a cost. Jesus and His amazing grace threaten our ego, which wants to riot to protect itself. Our ego wants us to choose the pigs. (Luke 8:26-39)

These are big questions Peter’s story, Paul’s story, the book of Acts, and the Great Commission ask: As The Gospel moves in our towns, cities, families, and lives, starting riots, disrupting all we know, disrupting “just how it is,” “just how we are,” disrupting our values, relationships, realities, religion, politics, society, disrupting every-single-thing, what will we choose? With all of this set before us, now what???

“Now what?” is one of the most exciting doors we can open. Are we willing to put someOne or something before ourselves? Are we willing to put the relationship before the win? Are we willing to start to dismantle the fragile houses we’ve built on sand, for the promise of a new, eternal house built upon the solid rock of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Once we’ve seen the Truth, do we respond in praise or a riot?

Now what?

Till Death?

I received this beautifully considered & written piece from a fellow brother at the Bridge (who wishes to remain anonymous):

(But before you see it, understand that this is the sort of thing I had always envisioned this space to be – a space where anyone/everyone in our community could express themselves, on the things that matter to you. I love the idea of us being prompted by the Spirit, so much so that we would sit down and follow that prompt, wherever it takes us. It can start conversations, here or elsewhere, but it will certainly affect us, ask us questions, and invite us into a deeper relationship, with God, ourselves, and the others in our circles. Enjoy!)

“The phrase “Till Death Do Us Part” is frequently contained within marriage vows. Matthew 19:4-6 (CEV) states: “Jesus answered, ‘Don’t you know that in the beginning the Creator made a man and a woman? That’s why a man leaves his father and mother and gets married. He becomes like one person with his wife. Then they are no longer two people, but one. And no one should separate a couple that God has joined together.’”

Death of a Christian spouse releases their soul to Paradise while the other remains on earth. When the remaining spouse dies, will that soul rejoin their married partner? Possibly, according to Lee and Annette Woofenden, under certain conditions: 1) Each individual would need to be in a right relationship with God; 2) Each of the married couples must love the other more than themselves.

In the article, “Will Happily Married Couples be Together in Heaven?” by Lee and Annette Woofenden, they state the following: “What God does is not temporary, but eternal. So, if God joins man and woman in marriage, it is a relationship that can last forever.”

This article and related articles may be viewed at: “How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?”

What do you think? Will our souls rejoin our earthly spouses in Paradise??? It’s a fascinating possibility, that could provide hours, and months, years of contemplation, not to mention the huge box those 2 conditions open. There are verses/passages to follow down as many “rabbit trails” as you’d care to walk. This is the beautiful opportunity of the Bible and of The Church. We read the Scriptures, begin to be transformed, then take those new thoughts, insights, ideas, doubts, and questions to others we trust to keep turning over the jewels, getting deeper and deeper through our engagement. 

So, engage!! Turn it over, wrestle, think – we have been given the unfathomable gift of relationship with the Creator of the Universe (and of us), why would we not lean in? 

But, as for me, on this subject, in case you were wondering…I certainly hope so.

Psycho Catfish

There is a new documentary on Netflix, called Unknown Number: The High School Catfish. A catfish is an actual fish, a “diverse group of ray-finned fish,” “any of an order (Siluriformes) of chiefly freshwater stout-bodied scaleless bony fishes having long tactile barbels,” but it is also a person who pretends to be someone else online. They masquerade for lots of reasons, from self-consciousness to pedophilia, and everything in between. There is a show on MTV called Catfish, that I love, that details the search to uncover the identities of internet love interests. This search/reveal can be light and insignificant or it can be devastating.

This documentary is not the light, insignificant kind.

A 15 year old girl starts getting text messages from the same person using unknown numbers. The texts are shockingly lewd, inappropriate, mean, and bullying. They are about sex acts with her boyfriend, trying to break them up, they are hateful missives about her looks & weight, and they encourage her to commit suicide. Sometimes, there are a few, sometimes as many as 50 or 60 per day. The police are involved, and are completely ineffective in exposing the sender. Finally, it is an FBI agent who discovers that it is… (spoiler alert!!!)…the girl’s MOTHER!!!!!!!!!!! The mom makes excuses and is awfully unlikable. That’s all we’ll say about the film, except to say I didn’t really care for it (for lots of reasons.)

This post is called “Psycho Catfish,” which is what she was, right? She was awful and went to prison for around 19 months, and should probably have been longer – the text abuse lasted longer (almost 2 full years). Right? She cried hollow tears over the worst of the consequences, that she hasn’t seen her daughter – the same daughter she tormented. Can you have empathy for this woman, the best documentaries ask. Can you? How can a human being be capable of this??

Now. In Acts 9, Jesus stops Saul on the road to Damascus and says, “Why ate you persecuting ME?” Saul was chasing the early followers of Jesus, capturing them and bringing them back “in chains,” often to their death. He wasn’t persecuting Jesus, just His followers, right? Just? In the Gospels, Jesus said, “when you did (either good or evil, getting food & drinks or not) to/for them, you did it to/for ME.”

We have read these passages, sometimes many, many times. But this all happened 2,000 years ago, what do they possibly have to do with us?

Well, these verses seem to suggest that the things we do/say/think/post about people, we are doing/saying/thinking/posting about HIM. If that is the case, then what? I called that mom a psycho, decided that she should have been in jail for much longer, and rolled my eyes at what I thought were crocodile tears. Does that mean I’m calling Jesus names? Is that using Him & His Name carelessly, disrespectfully? Is that blasphemy?

Well, if we take the Scriptures seriously, it probably is. The thing this mom did was wrong and terrible. Of this, we can agree. This is just the truth. However, what is also true is that Jesus sees her exactly the same way he sees his perfect people (like you & me;), with forgiveness, grace, and endless, limitless love.

What this mom did was heartbreaking, but were her transgressions worse than Saul’s??? No way. And, if we are honest, are they that much worse than my own worst moments? Maybe they are. I think they were, but of course I’d say that. So, who am I to decide?

You know I don’t think the Bible was written to shame us, so the fact that I’m calling this “Psycho Catfish” isn’t driving me into the ground. My thoughts about her aren’t pushing play on the tapes in my head that would crush me with guilt. As He has grace for her, and for Saul, HE has for me. Maybe I can, too?

But what they are doing is asking me some very hard questions, challenging me about my perspectives, my words, the way I see those around me (and especially those in Washington D.C.). If they are Jesus, then what? What if these stories in the Bible didn’t only happen thousands of years ago? It’s overwhelming to think they are still happening today, here, and now.

Although

The note in my personal Bible, for the book of 2nd Chronicles, chapter 18, verse 1, reads, “Although Jehoshaphat was deeply committed to God, he arranged for his son to marry Athaliah, the daughter of wicked Ahab.” And as far as interesting, loaded sentences go, that’s pretty terrific.

The 2 kings mentioned were the leaders of the north and south kingdoms of, what was and would be, the nation of Israel. Jehoshaphat was a good, moral king, Ahab was not. In fact, Ahab was probably the worst of them all. But sometimes political interests are more important than religious, spiritual ones. (Obviously, we wouldn’t know anything about that, but just try to use your wildest imagination to put yourself in this ancient time.) Jehoshaphat followed the God of his ancestors, but even so, he decided this alliance was important/valuable/necessary/whatever word describes why & how we would ever rationalize shelving our principles for political viability and gain. I’ll choose “necessary,” because that is what I often hear as explanation for the ways we decide the words of Jesus just aren’t practical, here, now. So, this alliance was necessary to rebuild a powerful, re-connected Israel.

Of course, it didn’t go that way, wasn’t necessary at all.

I am not a king or a politician, so this doesn’t relate on a strictly apples to apples basis, but I do know very well about rationalization. And I do know the truth of the “although.”

Although I love Jesus, I can be really judgy, sometimes. Although I am absolutely clear on His commands to NOT judge, I can still choose to do it. Although I am deeply committed to my fitness and physical health, I often eat like a 6-year old. (I am the walking, talking, weightlifting illustration of the harsh truth, “you can’t out train a bad diet.” I wish you could. I would have the best abs.) I see other drivers on the road who have Jesus fish on their cars; although they love Jesus, so much that they’d advertise it on their bumpers, they have cut others off and raged behind the wheel. Although some pastors love Jesus and have given their careers to spreading the Gospel, they can deliver some of the most hurtful speech about others who are under His grace, just as they are. Although people love their spouses, they… You get the idea. How many ways do we live out the “althoughs?”

This is one of the very cool things about the Bible. We can’t relate at all to choosing politics over faith, but we can easily translate that into lots of other areas of our lives. It is timely – real people (Jehoshaphat, Athaliah), real times (hundreds of years B.C.), real places (Israel), and real tensions (arranged marriage between heirs, political maneuvering) – these things are specific to a time. We live in 2025 in a small town in Pennsylvania, our kids choose their own partners, we never get politics mixed up, never elevate it to an idol that would direct our steps with our friends and families.

But it is also timeless – the “althoughs” and the constant struggle in our hearts, decisions, and relationships between God and all of the other, lesser things that would take His place.

Who would guess that something Jehoshaphat did or said thousands of years ago, would have the ability to ask such vital questions of us? Isn’t it fascinating that Ahab and Athaliah have meaning in our careers and marriages, that 2 wicked characters would invite us into a deep dive into our own days and moments?

I have a book called God Is In This Place, and it dissects Genesis 28:16 (maybe I mentioned that verse before;), using 9 chapters to interpret it in 9 very different ways. It has crossed my mind to take a passage or verse, probably a parable of Jesus, and teach it several weeks in a row. The Bible is often compared to a diamond, with facets that change the look of the stone with each small turn.

There are so many perspectives of the life & rule of Jehoshaphat, but today, we’ll just be knocked out by the warning of his own “although,” and hopefully not make it our own.

No Why

Today’s site prompt is “what bothers you and why?” That’s pretty prescient of the AI prompt generator, because I opened my iPad to write about a thing that does, indeed, bother me.

First, you should know that lots of things bother me. I am bothered when people hog equipment at the gym, then don’t spray & wipe that equipment off afterwards, rudely leaving their disgusting germs all over for the rest of our immune systems to find off. It’s a wonder that we all don’t have a perpetual case of pinkeye. But what REALLY bothers me is when (usually the same) people leave their weights on the bars. Yes, that actually happens, can you believe it?!!? We live in a society, a fact that has managed to go unnoticed by these monsters. I’m bothered by a lack of spacial awareness in public, poor sports officiating, and the New York Giants, among many others.

The last paragraph was all mostly a joke. These things do bother me – probably a better word is annoy – but it’s a superficial wound, a paper cut that is forgotten immediately after the initial cut. I don’t really care too much, I’ve never had a day ruined by any of these trivialities. The problem is that we just don’t have enough words, sometimes. The “bother” of the least paragraph is not the “bother” of the next one.

In Acts 12, king Herod Agrippa “began to persecute” some believers of Jesus. The apostle James was “killed with a sword.” Then, when he “saw how much this pleased the Jewish leaders,” he captured and imprisoned Peter to do the same to him, in a very public fashion. That night, “an angel of the Lord” appeared and sprung him from his cell. It’s a cool story, with a cool scene of Peter showing up at the place where all of his buddies were praying for him, as they were praying for him. The prayer was answered immediately, spectacularly.

Hallelujah! …except for one thing. Why was Peter rescued and not James? We can talk and put forth all sorts of hypotheses, but the truth is that we have absolutely no idea. There is no why.

Why do terrible things happen to one and not another? Why is this happening to me? Why is this not happening to him/her? Maybe you remember the singer-songwriter we hosted, Olivia Farabaugh, who was miraculously healed from a chronic disease. I’m so thankful she was, but why do others still suffer with that same chronic disease? They may believe in healing and have faith that can move mountains, too. James believed.

John the Baptizer was sitting in jail, about to be murdered, and sent word to Jesus, asking if He was the One for whom they were waiting. He answers, yes, and blessed are those who don’t fall away because of Him. Essentially, John was asking IF He was the Messiah, and IF He was going to rescue him. John was His cousin, also His friend and witness. He’d been faithful his whole life and, with everything he thought & did, pointed to Jesus and His Kingdom. Yes, Jesus was the Messiah, and No, He would not be breaking him out of prison. Why? Only He knows?

We all have some deeply loved friends who are carrying more than anyone can handle, crying enough tears to drown the world. Why them? Why doesn’t God step in and help? Why does He do it for some and not others? Why didn’t He save James from that sword? I wonder how many burned up in the same furnace where Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego were delivered. Why? Why is this happening to me, him, her, them?

There is no why. And that bothers me. My pride and driving need for control makes me want those answers. I want to understand. I want it to make sense to me. I want there to be a why, and I want to know what it is.

The other side of my own idolatrous coin is faith. There is a why, we just might not get it. We have to faith anyway, to trust anyway. We can certainly ask, He’s plenty big enough for our questions. But there always comes that point where, even if we don’t get the answers we want, or like, or that make sense, or any answers at all, we are faced with a decision; will we still trust that He is there, that He is good, and that we are still loved beyond reason or limit. What do we do then?

Maybe we’re James and get the bad thing, or maybe we’re Peter and get the good. Maybe they’re both blessings, and maybe it just depends on your perspective. Maybe we don’t ever know why. Maybe it’ll always bother us like crazy, but maybe we just continue to follow Him anyway.

13 Years

13 years ago, this week, the Bridge was born out of the ruins of our previous church, which had closed its doors the previous week.

Including our flood-ravaged home, this was the 2nd home we’d lost in 10 months – I don’t know how much you can lose before you break forever… The cliché is that God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and I don’t believe that, at all. I think we get more than we can handle all the time. I have a very great friend who has much more than anyone can handle. I think the cliché is, or should be: God gives you more than you can handle, and that’s why He also gives you the Church. Together, there is nothing you can’t handle.

As we walked away from the final New Song service, I invited our friends to my house to mourn out loud, together. They came, we mourned, and after several hours, I said some of the most hopeful words I would ever speak: Next week, if you want to come back, we’ll open our Bibles to 1st Chronicles 1:1. Not everyone came back, but some did, and that’s exactly what we did. They didn’t know, then, what I did, that we were being called to build something new. We all were just faithful in listening to what each of us were given, and no more. Just the next step. Maybe it was doomed, maybe we had misheard, maybe we were all very foolish, but we took these fresh new steps.

People came, stayed, left, more came, more stayed, more left. (If you think you ever get used to the leaving, and it stops hurting, you would be fantastically wrong.) We tried lots of different things. I played the guitar and sang “Stand By Me” one time, handed out mix cds another time. One service was only us reading chapters of the Bible outside, with our shoes off and our feet in the grass. We canceled another as a living, breathing, illustration of grace. One homework assignment was to give away our offering to someone in the community, face to face. We ate so much food together. We prayed. We moved 3 times and grew each time. We referenced so many movies and songs. We danced. We love The Most Spiritual Movie Of All Time, Fight Club, together (even though most of us, thankfully, haven’t actually seen it.) I made you mad, didn’t respond as quickly as I should have, we disagreed. There were marriages and babies. We cried, laughed, fought and made up.

The growth was/is slow, with what looked like a plateau each time, but was actually regaining equilibrium before the next bump. I am thankful for that, now. The Angel still believes it was God’s grace, keeping my soft, mushy heart from exploding. I also believe it was God’s grace, but for a different reason. You see, I could never wrap my head around my own transformation. I often found myself waiting for everyone to wake up to the fact that I should not be here. (As you probably already know, I did the same thing with the Angel. You’re not the only one who asked, what is she doing with him??) I don’t wait anymore. Once I did the waking up, not to my inadequacy, but to the searing disobedience & idolatry of constantly questioning what God has created (or was creating, if I would only stop being an obstacle and step into His mercy and love), I could finally see me, as I am (which is changing all the time).

We sometimes do that with the Gospel. It sounds amazing, super-spiritual, to brag that we are too bad, too far away, for Jesus to cover, accept, rescue, to love. But it’s not spiritual at all, it’s mean. Instead, it’s saying, “I’m so special, He/His sacrifice/His resurrection aren’t enough. I was saying, “I can’t be (whatever), He can’t make dry bones live, He can’t bring healing, He can’t He can’t He can’t.” But I was terrifically wrong. He can. I’m not too special, but I am wonderfully made by the Creator of the Universe, in His image, and, to paraphrase Nick Fury in The Winter Soldier, “it’s about time I get with that program.”

I asked those of us who were there that first week to reflect a little, remember these last 13 years. Every year, I teach what I call a manifesto to never forget our purpose. We may not be called to have 25 different services in a weekend on screens all throughout America. We may not even be called to have 2. My books might not get the sales of Joel Osteen’s (I don’t have his hair or perfect teeth, either). We might end next week. But this thing that God has built through us, it’s so much better than the best case scenario. I have no idea what could possibly be next, but what I do know is that the ethos of the Bridge has never changed – we’re still listening and taking just the next step. We exist in Him, through Him, by Him, and for Him. We are, and will remain, a Gospel church (which, if you ask me, is the only kind of Church to be).

He’s given us all of this, grace, kindness, forgiveness, righteousness. He’s given us a home. He’s given us each other, to walk with, to listen to, to hug, given us hands to hold. He’s given us the people who will pick us up or will simply get down on the ground with us until we can stand. He has given us a call, given us The Church, and He’s given us this Bridge.

I am overwhelmed. I am honored to belong to it, honored to be your friend, honored to get to watch you, really blessed to love you. I am grateful. Happy Anniversary.