I ask his Spirit to bring life and joy and do a new thing, but I know life and joy and newness are so often born out hard things. And I feel myself bracing for impact rather than opening my hands. 

The gospel is not complete without his ascension, because the ascension is the coronation of Christ our King. It is the Son’s enthronement at the right hand of the Father. It is the moment that the Lamb who was slain began his eternal rein, ushering in the Kingdom of God and enacting the new covenant of our great High Priest.

There are two approaches that have transformed my reading of Psalm 119, and made it one of my favorite books of the Bible.

What if we implored the Spirit to take these truths from merely something we recite from the creeds on a Sunday, or something for theologians to debate, and instead to empower us to consider with all seriousness how these truths transform our hearts by the Spirit to love the Lord and cause us to walk in the way of Jesus?

Worship of our glorious God and love for our neighbor would flow like a river from people of God.

By washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus demonstrated to his disciples the kind of King he would be.

One year ago this weekend, we gathered with our fellow IACers in the freezing cold at a park on the Westside. Used to cramming shoulder to shoulder in the pews, instead we sat spread out on blankets and folding chairs with new words in our vocabulary, like “social distancing,” “flatten the curve,” “masking,” and “pandemic.” We looked at each other with eyes wide, half laughing in unbelief, wondering aloud to each other if this would be over by Easter (ah, weren’t we cute…). Still, we came forward to the table—staggered, but still together—to receive the bread and the wine.  We had no idea it would be months before we would participate in communion in person again.

This Epiphany, as we’ve soaked up the stories of the visit of the wise men, Jesus’s presentation at the temple, his baptism, miraculous healings, and his transfiguration, I have been so struck by the tangibility, the physicality of God’s glory and light revealed in Christ. It means something that Jesus has a face with actual eyes that people could actually look into to know that they are loved, safe, valued. And that God-made-man could also receive love from the faces of those who loved him.

I really love exceeding (my self-imposed, often-unreasonably-high) expectations on the first try. Admitting to being a beginner is hard for me. But I’ve been a beginner enough times to know that God will meet me in this season where my weakness is not so easily hidden, that he is equally present as I figure things out by multiple trials and errors as he was in my fruitful rhythms and routines of the previous season.

I will not weaponize what God meant for healing. I dare not throw in the face of my co-heirs what he has given to us in love. I will not use for my own gain what is meant to renew all things, making every heart cry out, “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!”

The coming weeks will present the American church with many reasons for division. However, even in the midst of strong disagreements, be on your guard against the impulse to see those with the same opinions as you as “us,” and the believers you disagree with as “them.”

A few nights ago Sam and I bundled up (one of us using Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer finger puppets as a glove—pick your battles, they tell me), and set out to deliver some Christmas gifts to the houses on our street.

Christ’s first and second comings enable a “third advent:” the many ways that we see Christ drawing near in the present, in the already-but-not-yet, ushering in his Kingdom and bringing light and life, often not in flashy ways, but rather coming to us, as Paula D’Arcy says, “disguised as our life.”

’Tis the season for searching for that just-right gift.  (An aside: Has anyone cracked the code on gifts for dads/fathers-in-law? They always say they don’t need anything! Like, what am I supposed to do with that?!) 

Instead of another gift list (I’m such a sucker for those), here is a list of books I have been received as gifts that came at just the right time.

On this Thanksgiving week, there will likely be many messages meant to cheer you, saying “Yes, this year has been hard, but think of all you have to be thankful for!” Some of us will be able to receive that, but if those words just feel like a kick in the ribs in the middle of a hard season, take heart. In the midst of your sorrow, joy is not far from you.

My sister and I got together this morning to make my Grandma’s butterhorn rolls. I cannot accurately describe them—they can only be experienced.

An encouragement to my family in Christ in these tense days:

Watch where and how you swing that “Jesus is on the throne” banner today. Though I honestly believe most of us intend this to be encouraging, your pep rally flag can unwittingly become a blunt force instrument for those who are hurting, both inside and outside the Church.

You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. -Ps. 139:5

Psalm 139 was an anchor and comfort for me when I was in the hospital for three weeks awaiting Henry’s birth, and is a monument to God’s tender care for the two of us in that season.

This is a bit of my street. On the right you’ll see a house with a “Trump 2020: Keep America Great” banner at the top (Side note: You can’t access that Mary Poppins-like roof from inside, people. I have no idea how he got that up there.).

As I ironed shirts at my usual spot by the kitchen window today, Matt came out of our guest-room-turned-office and stopped to chat about our day so far on his way to get something from another room. A quick kiss, and he was off to find whatever it was, and I hit play on my podcast and got back to ironing.

I’ll tell you one thing I’ve noticed lately—that share button is a little too easy to press. I can zing-by-proxy, mic-drop without much consideration. I get all the instant satisfaction, with none of the hassle of discernment.