Category Archives: thinking through Scripture

Not Abandoned

I will not leave you comfortless, Jesus says in John 14:18, in his last words to his disciples before his crucifixion. I will come to you.  Another translation says orphaned, instead of comfortless. I think you could also read it as abandoned. Over the last seven months, I’ve wrestled hard with isolation and loneliness. There’sContinue reading “Not Abandoned”

The burden of knowledge

I remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank in school. I remember reading Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place and fictional stories set during the Holocaust like Number the Stars. I remember reading those things with the not-quite-fully-realized idea that the Holocaust was a real thing that happened to real people. I distinctly remember Number the Stars and the JewishContinue reading “The burden of knowledge”

Run hard after Him.

Uncovering lies, leaving untrustworthy excuses, and chasing God’s calling. I was on the mat, 40 pushups behind me and gearing up for the next part of my workout, when I saw an athlete bite it on the treadmill. He, along with three other incoming freshmen, was trying out for the men’s soccer team. The assistantContinue reading “Run hard after Him.”

Uncovering our shame: Vulnerability with the Creator, living in a world that snarls

Ever since the Fall, humanity has desired to be fully known and fully loved — but has been afraid to be fully vulnerable. This reality is perhaps most obvious in hookup culture, where individuals have ten-minute conversations before going to bed with each other, withholding any genuine intellectual or emotional vulnerability so that total physical vulnerability will have “no strings attached.”

A message to college graduates on the meaning of life

As a junior and senior in high school, I contemplated the meaning of life from the McDonald’s drive-thru. Customers squawked in my headset ordering varieties of nuggets and dipping sauces, barged into the restaurant calling me an idiot when they got the wrong number of cheeseburgers, and acted like they didn’t know me when theyContinue reading “A message to college graduates on the meaning of life”