My reflections Archive

Reflection - Arise and Depart

2026-02-07T04:37:12Z

Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening reflection for this morning is Micah 2:10 “Arise, and depart”.

context

Typical note about reflections not being deep study. Also noting that Spurgeon’s meditations are often about what comes to mind from the words of a verse (or part of it) as opposed to the context of the verse.

Micah 2:10

Arise and go, for this is no resting place, on account of uncleanness that destroys with painful destruction.

So the context of the rest of the verse isn’t that consistent with the direction of Spurgon’s meditation but nonetheless his springboard is good to think about…

Someday everyone of us will answer the call to “arise and go” - death comes for us all but death isn’t itself an existential end, it is the time to obey the Lord. At his word, I will leave the world and go to where he calls me. This is true for everyone, it’s an inescapable part of the reality that Yahweh has created for all Creation.

Death fills some with dread, but for the Christian it’s the passage to eternity. We live (or “are to live”) in Heaven today - Jesus brought Heaven to earth. But his life, death, and resurrection did not fully bring Heaven to earth - the melding is happening, the reunification of Heaven and earth as it was in Eden is taking place, and when he comes again the kingdom will be consummated.

So we live unto his Name and glory, because it’s the best thing for humanity. And at the end of our living on this present earth, God calls everyone to the next phase of reality. What awaits those who do not believe? and who haven’t been chosen? I really wouldn’t claim to know concrete facts beyond the truth that “they are not citizens of heaven, and so they do not live with the Lord”. But what awaits the Christian? That’s a much easier answer to take a stand on - those loved by Jesus are not left dead in the cold dark underground, we are called to the skies - to glory and to the kingdom.

I think this thought of future unification with the Lord, in a newly consummated kingdom, when Death is dead and there is no more competition amongst the gods, when all Creation is in right relationship with the King - this thought should bring joy and anticipation to the Christian, to me.

Let me work for the glory of God today, with the right perspective that at any moment I could be called away from this work (my family, my home, my job, etc.) and to the next thing Jesus would have me do. I look forward to the call to “Arise and go” and I pray that the future hope of the Kingdom fills me today with joy and motivation to live a godly life and that death never looks like anything other than a river to cross with new life on the other side.

Revel in imparted righteousness

2026-01-31T05:45:42Z

Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening today is from Jeremiah 23:6.

Warning

Again with these reflections, I"m not an OT scholar and I don’t know, or didn’t do a lot of search on, the context of the passage. This isn’t educational, this if a reflection on what God brings to mind through his Word and my time with him, not teaching about the historical context of where the words in Jeremiah 23 actually affect the story

Jeremiah 23:6

In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

The Lord is our righteousness #

There’s a lot of tension in the details of the story of the world in how humans and God relate to each other. On one hand, God created everything, and he created humans with a unique purpose to be his seen-imagers in the physical world who carry out his will. On the other hand, humans take that position of privilege and often destroy the world in our sin and dismay. The theology surrounding this tension is the thing that can affect the Christian’s daily life… As I walk through the world, am I more aware of my position as God’s child, with responsibility to bear his Name and steward the earth, or am I more aware of my sin and the fact that I often make choices Jesus wouldn’t be proud of? Both things are true, but where I put my mind and heart drives if I have a contented smile on my face or if my brow is sweaty and scunched up in frustration.

I think that if we somehow filtered our view to all “true Christians” we’d see that a majority of them lean in on emphasizing their sin because it is the thing that makes Jesus’ work necessary - it is the un-overcomable thing that we have to be saved from and Glory to God! for saving us. But on the daily, not putting equal emphasis on the next step of the story, which is that in God’s saving he imparts the righteousness of Jesus right onto us, is a disservice to us as God’s children.

I want my kids to be proud and secure in their name and place as my kids. I don’t want them to spend their energy focusing on where they have contributed chaos and disorder to my life, I want them to focus on the things they do worth being proud of, and there’s grace for the rest. I think this must be true of the Lord as well - without a doubt I am a sinner and a wretch who, left to my own devices, would end up a drunken addict lying in the street somewhere… but why would I focus on that when Yahweh chooses me, imparts Jesus' righteousness to me, adopts me as his own! The reality of my sin is reality, but the reality of Jesus’ grace on my life is no less true. Christians shouldn’t be ignorant of the sin they carry and the choices they make which dishonor God, but we also shouldn’t be ignorant of the grace God shows to us!

I have noticed in my life, as the scales have tipped somewhat in favor of focusing more on Yahweh adopting me as opposed to focusing on where I fall short of the glory of God, that’s it’s more natural for me to be joyful about almost anything in the world (worth experiencing joy over)

May Jesus call you today if you’re reading this and he hasnt’ yet, and if he has may joy follow your acknowledgement of your adoption rather than sorrow over your previous state. Glory to God in the highest!

Reflection - Galatians 2:19-20

2025-12-28T06:18:57Z

Galatians 2:19-20

19 For through the law I died to the law, in order that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ, 20 and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and that life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

This is one of the most common verse-memory verses I think. Probably there’s good reason for that - Paul has a lot to say to the Galatians, and these 2 verses summarize one of the simple truths of the Gospel - the life a Christian is given is freed from the law of death and make alive to Jesus. The gospel truth is that the law is no longer the thing we answer to - everyone will, certainly. There’s no mistake to be made that every human has accountability for their own agency. In our “free” will, bound to sin and death and to the law for approval, we aren’t free at all but slaves to an oppressive overlord. Jesus frees the Christian to live a life free from that oppression, in the life-giving security of God’s adoption.

Who love me and gave himself for me #

God adopts whoever he chooses. And the ones he chooses are then freely able to choose him in return. Through the life-giving power of God’s sovereignty my life can be fundamentally altered, my make-up changed, my family line updated. I am free to live my life by faith in Jesus, because he loved me and gave himself for me.

Reflection - Ecclesiastes 9:10

2025-11-26T05:04:07Z

Ecclesiastes 9:10

Whatever your hand finds to do—do it with all your might; for in Sheol—where you are going—no one works, plans, knows, or thinks about anything.

Reflection vs Hermeneutics

I put this little disclaimer on posts where I’m sure the direction of my reflection isn’t necessarily consistent with a exegetical teachin gon the passage I’m reflecting on. I do not know the intimate context of Ecclesiastes 9 and so this reflection in very inra-personal and is not meant to be a point in teaching in any capacity

Finding #

Whatever your hand finds to do… The beginning assumes a search. The faithful Christian is not idle… he seeks to do good because it’s God’s calling on the human life to steward creation well which requires work.

Finding doesn’t only presume a search, it indicates finding things on the search… There is no shortage of godly things to do because every single day we’re faced with choices that either align or don’t with the will Yahweh.

So whatever my hand does in fact find to do I am to do with might…

Lately I have not done what I find to do with all my might. I think God is so good to me, and has blessed me through years of transformation to align more and more of my will with his… but I’ve been meaning to refactor something at work for 7 months that’s actually keeping me up at night, I pick up my phone to scroll when I have a ticket to work on or worse - when I could be watching my kids play. I very clearly do not do with all my might whatever my hand finds to do

Grace #

And yet God continues to be good to me. He continues to teach me and correct me, and in this reflection I feel the same consistent & persistent nudge I’ve been feeling since the end of Summer. Praise God for this nudge - to keep going in his grace and seek to make better choices today than yesterday.

By God’s grace, the things I do with my might/strength, he often blesses. And I have full confidence in my King that I will be able to work, plan, know, and think a lot both in this unconsecrated heavenly age as well as in the eschaton. Sheol still holds some power over me, I have been freed by my King but he hasn’t yet come back. In the already but not yet the Christian is still to seek the Lord and trust him.

He’s been faithful to me - Ebenezer.

Reflection - Psalm 93

2025-11-19T05:59:43Z

Yahweh is king

Psalm 93

93 Yahweh is king; he clothes himself with majesty. Yahweh clothes himself; he girds himself with might. Yes, the world is established so that it will not be moved. 2 Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting. 3 The rivers have lifted up, O Yahweh; the rivers have lifted up their ⌊rumbling⌋; the rivers have lifted up their pounding. 4 Mightier than the rumblings of many waters, mightier than the mighty breakers of the sea, Yahweh on high is mighty. 5 Your testimonies are fully reliable. Holiness is fitting for your house, O Yahweh, ⌊forever⌋.

Observations #

Yahweh is king; he clothes himself with majesty. Yahweh clothes himself; he girds himself with might.
- It seems relevant to focus on Yahweh, the king, clothing himself. He has partners, humans, and ceremonial guardians in the spiritual realm (cherubim, seraphim, etc) and yet he clothes himself. His court doesn’t clothe him - they praise him certainly, but no one puts on Yahweh’s kingly attire besides Yahweh himself
You are everlasting
- In my post By God's Grace I note that Yahweh owns us and everything. He is the ruler of the universe because he is everlasting… no beginning and no end

Reflection #

By God's Grace the words “Yahweh is king” are a comfort to me. I am a wretch, but a wretch Yahweh is working on, has grace with, and ultimately invites into paradise… Paradise in that he invites me to be a complete human, to fulfil purpose I was designed for. By God’s grace, he is king and he’s given me a will that seeks to align with his… Amen

By God’s Grace

2025-11-18T13:27:15Z

Style

This blog was fully orated and transcribed. I edited the transcript with some links and formatting

Okay, so I had this thought about, honestly, just like what I would say. If somebody asked me, why do I say the phrase “by God’s grace” so often? And it’s related to a thought I had a while back where my best friend would, where Michael would say, “praise God”, out of like forced habit. And it developed into a great point of spiritual maturity to say by reflex “praise God” in you know our slightly older age here, in our young parenthood. And so it’s really related to that - I also say “by God’s grace” a lot and why do I say that?

I think it’s related to these central themes that have been a part of my reflections of freedom but freedom to what? It is freedom to love Jesus - see Helkyo - What is it for God to draw man to him? And before that, I’m not free at all.

Danger

I’m just bound by sin.

And that paired with believing loyalty and the choices I make every day - And I’m free to make the right choice… And sometimes even in God’s sovereignty, I obey my sin instead of my king. Which brings me to by God’s grace.

God’s Grace #

My life is not my own, and this is kind of a cliched phrase almost, but it’s something I think I’m just, I’m coming to accept in a new way.

Note

My life does not belong to me.

Belongings #

I have possessions and I can do kind of whatever I want with them. I could break them and mend them and use them or not or let them get dirty or clean them. And it’s up to me because they’re my possessions.

And we have lots of Christian language - “God adopts us as sons” and we’re “co-heirs and co-conquerers with Jesus”…

Those things are true, but also God owns us.

Note

Everything in creation is his.

He redeems us unto himself, not just as a father and son, not just as the prodigal son or something like that - all things are made by him and held together by him.

He owns us.

So that’s a fundamental reality for all people to either… accept or not, because there’s nothing they can do to affect it.

Nothing anybody can do will update the reality that Yahweh is king. People can either accept that or not.

By God’s grace, I am free to accept it. By God’s grace, he has picked me out of the kingdom of darkness and placed me, imported me into the kingdom of light. He has made me a citizen of the celestial city.

I didn’t choose it.

I didn’t ask.

He drew me to him.

Freedom #

I can say “by God’s grace” because it’s by no other thing that I have breath right now and that I can write this reflection. He holds the universe together. My life is not my own to live to me because I don’t own my life. I am the possession of the king of the universe. And I am free to find fulfillment and joy in that. I am free to be satisfied by the king.

Freed from the oppression of materialism and worldliness and lust and greed.

I’m freed from the oppression of darkness. Freed to accept and call Yahweh my loving king rather than the conquering king who I stand opposed to in the end times, whatever that kind of means.

By God’s grace, I get to love him.

And so to today, why do I say by God’s grace?

Because everything that is good that happens to me is by his grace. And every trial or pain or bad thing I could think of or experience is only as bad as it is by his grace. And that trial, whatever it was or whatever may come - I pray I can echo Paul’s words and say that it pales in comparison to the glory of the king.

Praise the Lord.

Reflection - Go Forward - Only Thing To Do

2025-11-05T06:04:16Z

Reflection #

Today I am thinking about the blessings in my life… In my opinion, I have a lot going for me - God has been so utterly good to me that finding fault with anything that was outside my control feels near-sinful…

In my adult life I have a reached several “checkpoints of success” for lack of a better stupid word…

smokin’ hot wife that loves Jesus
2 beautiful daughters
stable work that I’m also good at
by all accounts - excellent physical health
by all accounts - very decent mental health (more on this later)
a house, food, water, and the means to do recreation

So, it’s very clear that God has been very good to me - and at the same time it’s probably wrong to give the impression that there was no sacrifice, pain, or affliction in my life so far…

Here’s what’s on my mind - I kind of think God has given me so much in my adult life as a byproduct of my childhood. This note will not be full of gory details, but here’s one I find comical (though my wife finds it sad… you be the judge)

Breakfast and School #

When I was a kid, like elementary school, I would take care of myself to pretty extraordinary degrees. The short of this example is that at 5 years old I was getting myself up in the morning, getting dressed, making breakfast, and then waking my mom up to take me to school.

I recently found out that my dad knew this and when he made some work changes that resulted in him being home in the morning, it turned out I wanted nearly nothing to do with it! I still wanted to make my own breakfast and do my normal routine.

Note

Turns out a lot of that is explained by Autism shrug emoji who knew?

Looking back, there’s deep threads about who I am, my work ethic, outlook on responsibility, etc. that have roots in my childhood morning situation… but to me, what I think are the results of this upbringing are the gifts that God has given me… not to “make up” for a lost childhood, but as humans simply adapt they evolve and become better at handling what’s thrown at them. Theologically I would say these experiences teach wisdom, and wisdom is a pattern in which we are to walk through life in a godly manner.

Let me wrap up this short anecdote - my dad was visiting recently and over the course of conversation this fact about my childhood came up. We’re all adults now, my parents are divorced and married to other people, and when this came up I saw for just a second some pain on my dad’s face. It’s probably why my wife thinks this is sad too - for the observer, my childhood wasn’t taken from me, but it was never given either (again - there’s much more than this silly breakfast thing). That’s sad to emotionally-regulated adults who know what a child needs. And in my journey as a dad I totally see how I was neglected in many ways - but again, I’m not upset about it, and at the same time I wouldn’t attempt to replicate my experience for my own children…

I guess what I’m saying is that God is good, and I think it’s in spending so much time and energy in focusing on his goodness that the sad stuff can kind of just… fall away… It certainly happened, but it happened and today is a new day.

Finally consider Bilbo, The Hobbit, when he falls down deep into the goblin’s cave, right before meeting Golem. He takes a tumble, gets up, and…

Only thing to do

“Go back?" he thought. “No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!” So up he got, and trotted along…

Reflection - Psalm 9:1

2025-10-30T06:12:37Z

Psalm 9:1

I will thank Yahweh with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

Praise God #

The phrase “praise God” has become a common phrase in my life. I’m blessed to have my best friend, Michael, in my life after 15+ years. Back in high school, I forget how it came up, but he told me that anytime something good happens, he forces himself to just audibly say “praise God”. Jesus certainly quickened that to my heart, and it was again in high school that I witnessed some fruit of, not using the phrase, but practicing giving glory to God in the smaller moments.

Some youth group kids were helping a church member replace their roof - so lots of high-schoolers tearing shingles off, hauling garbage, etc. As we were on the roof, one of the guys nearly fell off (we hadn’t even heard of “tie-offs” before). Something like a nail caught his shorts and he recovered his grip. I immediately said “Praise God”, and him and another guy looked at me and they go “…. ya! Praise God for sure!” and I think they had a similar experience then like I had with Michael, where when something good happens we draw attention to the Lord, and that edifies those around us.

I don’t know when it became habit, but certainly “today” not a day goes by where the phrase “Praise God” doesn’t leave my lips at least once. On one hand, I think Jesus has changed my heart to be more immediately responsive to him as the giver of good things, and so it’s natural now that when something good happens not to “just say” “Praise the Lord”, but to give thanks and actually praise the Lord!. This has been an edifying practice in my life for my own heart. However, on the other hand, bringing attention to God’s glory in the wake of good things is good for others. I have noticed my wife and kids, in their own ways, adopt a similar response to good things, and that’s been a steady stream of encouragement for me as the Lord continues to shape me and my family.

Reflection - Mark 4:1-20

2025-10-21T06:09:43Z

The Soils #

I am in the middle of reprocessing the soils’ parable - I heard a very interesting interpretation the other day that I’m following up on. BUt while I wait for clarity in that conversation, there is still obvious truth for me to reflect on this morning…

Mark 4:1-20

Mark 4:1–20 (LEB): 4And again he began to teach beside the sea, and a very large crowd was gathered to him, so that he got into a boat and sat on the sea, and the whole crowd was at the sea on the land. 2 And he began to teach them many things in parables, and was saying to them in his teaching, 3 “Listen! Behold, the sower went out to sow. 4 And it happened that while he was sowing, some seed fell on the side of the path, and the birds came and devoured it. 5 And other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up at once, because it did not have any depth of soil. 6 And when the sun rose it was scorched, and because it did not have enough root, it withered. 7 And other seed fell among the thorn plants, and the thorn plants came up and choked it, and it did not produce grain. 8 And other seed fell on the good soil, and produced grain, coming up and increasing, and it bore a crop—one thirty and one sixty and one a hundred times as much. 9 And he said, “Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear!” 10 And when he was alone, those around him together with the twelve began asking him about the parables. 11 And he said to them, “To you has been granted the secret of the kingdom of God, but to those who are outside everything is in parables, 12 so that ‘they may look closely and not perceive, and they may listen carefully and not understand, lest they turn and it be forgiven them.’ ” 13 And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones beside the path where the word is sown, and whenever they hear it, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 And these are like the ones sown on the rocky ground, who whenever they hear the word immediately receive it with joy. 17 And they have no root in themselves, but are temporary. Then when affliction or persecution comes because of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 And others are the ones sown among the thorn plants—these are the ones who hear the word, 19 and the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word and it becomes unproductive. 20 And those are the ones sown on the good soil, who hear the word and receive it and bear fruit—one thirty and one sixty and one a hundred times as much.”

Mark 4:18-19

18 And others are the ones sown among the thorn plants—these are the ones who hear the word, 19 and the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word and it becomes unproductive.

The Thorny Soil #

By God’s good grace on my life, the Word has been sown and without a doubt my faith has been proven beyond the depths of the path and shallow soils. My life has not been without testing (not that I would ever claim to have not been given a better life than 99% of humans in the history of the world), but I fear the test of my heart as it pertains to the thorny soil. God has been very good to me in work and finances. We aren’t ultra-wealthy, but I do have more than I need. And something I notice… as I’ve earned more, and invested more, I care more… My thoughts often wander around from “I should read that Proverb” to “If I can save X more dollars I could retire N weeks sooner”. I think what I desire is freedom from the corporate cycle in America, but I fear what I desire is the comfort to give into my own whims without having to show up to a job tomorrow.

I do not think financial independence is a sin, or the desire of it. But I think it does take a special constitution, a unique gifting from God, to steward riches appropriately in a broken world while submitting oneself to the kingship of Jesus. I have known several wealthy Christians - they’re hard workers and in general I think they’re honoring God with their work… but do I? And in the working, whether honoring or not in the manner that I do it, am I honoring God in the manner in which I think about it? I don’t know… I honestly can only say with 100% certainty that I’m thankful God knows my heart better than I do, and I pray he helps my unbelief and quenches the underlying fears and anxieties about the riches of this life and what those riches enable.

Reflection - John 21:12

2025-10-17T05:22:12Z

John 21:12

Jesus said to them, “Come, eat breakfast!” But none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew that it was the Lord.

Come and eat #

Jesus offers this communion with himself every day, and to very believer… Sharing a meal with someone is a pretty intimate thing (it’s why hibachi with strangers is awkward). Sitting around a table, especially where you’d be eating with your hands, is a setting for family, or the family you choose (friends).

Jesus is the King of the universe, and he offers a seat at the table. I want this to sit in my head without some unknown ethereal deep metaphorical meaning… The simple truth is Jesus offers not only a place to sit next to him, to enjoy his company and wisdom, but the contents of the table. At the Last Supper he says he is the bread and cup, and after his resurrection he invites his disciples to sit with him on the beach and eat breakfast here in John 21. Every invitation to eat with him is to share the same meat, the wine, the conversation with the Saints, and ultimately the prize of time with the Lord.

Jesus is the prize, not what he can do.

I am hesitant to answer this call often… and it’s because I’m often more satisfied by drive-thru wings eaten alone in my office than I am around the table with Jesus and his other disciples. But he still offers an invitation

“Come, eat”

Choose this day whom you will serve #

His invitation strikes me as the choice following in Joshua 24:15:

Note

But if it is bad in your eyes to serve Yahweh, choose for yourselves today whom you want to serve, whether it is the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve Yahweh.”

Jesus’ offer to come and dine is him presenting a choice… “choose for yourselves today whom you want to serve…. but as for me and my household, we will serve Yahweh.”

The choice is daily, and every reflection of mine comes back to this. Jesus offers himself, his table, his righteousness, everything we need for godliness and flourishing as creatures made in his image. And yet every day, face to face with the reality of the world the choice is still yours and mine to make - today, whom will you serve? Every day I have to say “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”

May that be true today, and tomorrow but tomorrow has enough trouble of its own, so today thank you Jesus for offering the table, to eat and drink together. And by the grace of his calling, today I will say “we will serve the Lord.”

Reflection - Philippians 3:8

2025-10-14T05:30:47Z

Philippians 3:8

More than that, I even consider all things to be loss because of the surpassing greatness of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for the sake of whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and consider them dung, in order that I may gain Christ

Loss #

Paul’s words are convicting this morning… I even consider all things to be loss.

Danger

Do I?

Do I consider anything and everything as closer to literally nothing when compared to knowing Jesus? I don’t know, this morning I can’t even articulate what it means to consider allthings “loss”.

What a trivial picture but how often is my mind and spirit stuck between the green boxes… fixated again on my retirement, kid’s school costs, the fact that ribeye steak is still $20/lbs. I have anxities like anyone else over things in the world, and if my net worth increased by $3M today what would my response be… would I consider it a loss when compared to the knowledge of Jesus Christ? Or would I experience joy and hope for my earthly future…

Of course Paul’s note here isn’t that we have to just be angry about good things and be sad forever until we’re on the other side of a consecrated heaven, but I think the point is if my net worth goes up by a lot of down by a lot, at the end of the day that’s still between the 2 green boxes in my diagram… And my mind needs to focus on Jesus. Not for what he can do for me, pursuing him in light of my own fancies makes him out to be a Santa Claus, and in light of Paul’s words to the Philippian church would miss the point entirely. There is nothing for us to pursue for gain - that is the point.

The ultimate gift is the knowledge of Christ. This knowledge changs us - by the molding hand of Yahweh through the mediating power and authority of Jesus by the Spirit indwelling our lives - the knowledge of Christ conforms us into his image and likeness. But Jesus is the prize, he is the gain. Knowledge of him isn’t just knowing his name, it’s being known by him through communion and meditation. Through daily repentence.

Gain #

I just found myself downcast over this reflection, knowledge of Christ is hard… he chooses whome he chooses, frees whom he frees. In that freedom is where the comparison can be made. Only in the freedom of Jesus can you remove yourself from the line between the 2 green boxes in my picture, and even consider the glory of the knowledge of Christ. Before new life all we know is this:

He chooses… but then what? For some, loss must follow. In fact, for all loss will eventually follow. The degree of that loss is not outside his sovereignty. Paul says he “suffered the loss of all things” - in this experience his mind is opened to the reality that was hidden from him, the knowledge that there’s more but the only thing worth gaining is Jesus.

I hope I don’t have to suffer the loss of all things in order to more fully grasp the gravity of my King. But his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, whatever that may mean for my life. And may it be that I gain Christ.

Reflection - Psalm 119:15

2025-10-12T05:59:30Z

Psalm 119:15

I will meditate on your precepts and look at your ways.

Meditate #

Spurgeon had a good thought here… It is not the act of eating that actually nourishes our bodies, it is digestion… The same is true for our spiritual growth - merely listening to a sermon will not transform your heart and life, the Word of God must be digested and meditated upon to work in our members and change us.

What is it to go to church every week but never spend time musing upon the things of God? If you chew your food and spit it out right after the meal what good did it do you? Maybe you felt good during the songs, liked the taste of the food, heard something interesting from the pastor, commented on the decor in the dining room…. but once you leave, do you remember what you ate? Do you talk about it with those who ate with you? Did you practice cooking that delicious meal later in the week?

So it is with us and the precepts of the Lord.

The law of God, in light of Jesus, is not a burden any longer. We are free to follow, free to choose good. But knowing good takes time… a captive isn’t illuminated to all the ways of the free man who saved him the day his bonds are cut, he must study the new civilization he’s brought into - out of slavery and into freedom, out of death and into life.

And in that new life, Jesus - the embodiment of the law and the perfector of our faith changes us, molds us, teaches us about good and bad. His word is sweet and good.

Philippians 4:8

Finally, brothers, whatever things are true, whatever things are honorable, whatever things are right, whatever things are pure, whatever things are pleasing, whatever things are commendable, if there is any excellence of character and if anything praiseworthy, think about these things.

Think about these things #

The instruction from Paul is almost too simple… “just think about these things”. By God’s grace I think a lot… a lot. My thoughts are often hard to take hold of, and I’m led rather than leading in what I put my attention to, but also by God’s grace I fixate on the things of God often. This has not always been, and is not always fun or exciting or without pain.

But we are all gifted by God in different ways, and afflicted in different ways. An affliction he’s permitted in my life is often a blessing to me as my mind sometimes can’t let go of things that are pure and pleasing and commendable. The overall thing that’s on my mind every day is the freedom Jesus offers to choose good. The choice can only be made by the power of his resurrection, not by any moral teaching to be gleaned from his sermons as though he’s nothing more than a philosopher.

Success

He raised me to life, I didn’t attend a lecture.

But what could be sweeter today in our finite lives, than the ability and freedom to participate in bringing heaven to earth?

We have no means to do this though without meditating on the Lord’s precepts… How else can we know what is pleasing to heaven?

Reflection - Jude 24

2025-10-10T05:52:12Z

Jude 24-25

24 Now to the one who is able to protect you from stumbling and make you to stand before his glory blameless with exultation, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time and now and for all eternity. Amen.

make you to stand before his glory blameless with exultation #

The ultimate hope of the one called to Jesus - to be made blameless.

Those who are blameless are those who are free. When we are in debt we are limited - this feels like a pretty natural thing. I owe money on my house, so there’s about $1000/mo that I have to put towards that, no options. Worse than a necessity (cause a place to live is a foundational need for humans) is unnecessary debt - debt for free choices.

pay as you go

Have you seen these pay-as-you-go services? Affirm and Klarna, etc…. You can finance (go into debt) your door dash orders, uber rides, amazon cart all usually with just a few clicks! They want you poor. Jesus doesn’t exactly want you rich with earthly wealth, but we make ourselves spiritually poor in the same manner and it’s that poverty that he saves us from.

So on one hand I’m “born a sinner” (take this as my mortgage) and on the other hand I make choices that dishonor my Lord - my heart gets worrisome or filled with lust, I abandon my faith for anxiety over my future… In this reflection I’m not debating Original Sin, for me today it’s moot… I do sin, I will sin, and Jesus has saved me yesterday, today, and tomorrow. So the hope is a blessed gift from Jesus - that I will be made to stand before him blameless with exultation.

To stand before the face of God is perhaps the most terrifying thing imaginable, or it should be for anyone in a wretched state. Ultimate goodness has a way of making anyone less very uncomfortable. We even have a taste of this truth on earth - consider this example. If you were at the gym or somewhere having a conversation with someone who was a pastor and you let a curse word fly, often people’s follow-up is to apologize to the pastor… why? My personal conviction is that cuss-words are just words, and most pastors aren’t offended by them. But we all generally recognize pastors as “good men” (not all, mind you - don’t come at me with horror stories of abuse in the Church, I know it’s there, I hate it too, and those demons aren’t who I’m talking about). So when we are face to face with “goodness” we recognize that some behavior isn’t appropriate, if only for a second. So we apologize… But a pastor is just a man - to come face to face with the Lord Almighty, the very definer of Good, should horrify anyone not perfectly good themselves. A scary thing to have anything bad in me present before the Judge of the universe.

And yet to the one who is able to protect you from stumbling and make you to stand before his glory blameless with exultation… Who is Jesus? The one who makes me blameless. To be blameless is to be able to come face to face with goodness. This is my hope, that in Christ alone for his glory and sake alone, am I made new and blameless.

But hope isn’t only in the future #

This ultimate hope isn’t the only hope though, it’s not the only thing Jesus does… He saves us from more than just hell, and for more than just an ethereal idea of goodness. He saves me to be free to choose goodness today as he works in me to align my will with his

Hebrews 13:20-21

20 Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with every good thing to do his will, carrying out in us what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever. Amen.

Jesus left us a helper, the Holy Spirit. This person is the conduit through which Yahweh works in us to equip {me} with every good thing to do his will, carrying out in {me} what is pleasing before him

Hope is for tomorrow, but it’s also for today. Jesus makes us free today as new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17) to align with his will. You can’t choose him until he frees you to make the choice, and then in that freedom what else can you do? Say “no thanks”… lol. His call is the mighty arm of Yahweh reaching into the ocean of chaos and death to raise the corpse of your soul to new life, to breath air for the first time, to walk on God’s green earth with new feet and new purpose.

Praise the freaking Lord for salvation - for tomorrow and today. May my choices today reflect the goodness of my King, and if you’re reading this reflection, may God bless you with this blessed hope of salvation.

Reflection - Numbers 11:11

2025-10-07T05:07:19Z

As if the Lord orchestrated Spurgeon’s meditation to give me a spring board to what I need for the third day in a row…

Reflection - 1 Kings 19:8 He showed me that he sustains me unto his own service and glory
Reflection - John 4:14 He showed me that I’ve been pushing away aspects of his provision

And today I see the trials in my life reveal the status of my faith… Last night I got a phone call that I missed a credit card payment, which I thought odd since everything is on auto-pay. Well, turns out our checking account got a smidge low, low enough that the credit card payment was cancelled… In reality this isn’t a huge deal, but it threw me off and continues to this morning. The truth is, the only issue is my lack of in-depth understanding of our money movement. Our lifestyle and living expenses are well below what we can otherwise afford, but in my laziness I have mostly neglected each of our accounts individually. No doubt this “trial” is self-imposed but Spurgeon’s meditation is snapping me out of the funk that threw me into last night

fearless faith

If our faith be worth anything, it will stand the test. Gilt is afraid of fire, but gold is not: the paste gem dreads to be touched by the diamond, but the true jewel fears no test

The text is Numbers 11:11

Numbers 11:11

And Moses said to Yahweh, “Why have you brought trouble to your servant? Why have I not found favor in your eyes, that the burdens of all these people have been placed on me?

The meditation came from “Why have you brought trouble to your servant?”

Meditation vs Homily

My reflections over the summer have following the pattern of finding a scripture reference from Morning and Evening and then simply asking God to speak through the words of the text and Spurgeon’s meditation. Historically I would study the text, but in the season of life I am in, where I do have years of studious foundation, I am trying to exercise trust in God to speak to me in ways outside of connecting theological knowledge dots that construct a mosaic of my own choosing. Instead I’m trying to just trust his sovereignty - he brought me to Morning and Evening on October 7, 2025 perhaps so that I could be encouraged in my faith in light of this missed credit card payment event/trial. These reflections are not meant to be educational on the Bible, or even on theology necessarily - I am practicing opening my mind and heart to God speaking to me in ways otherwise uncomfortable but with prudence as I’m not approaching these texts in ignorance. As I put these reflections into the world I want to be clear these are personal meditations, not Bible lessons

Reflection #

Our heavenly Father sends us frequent troubles to try our faith… Are the source of those trials my own choices? Other’s choices? Some meta-truth about the fallenness of creation? I think probably it’s all of that… In reality, it doesn’t matter where the trial comes from - directly from the heavens above or originating in our own mistakes (such as mine of note above). There is almost certainly some significance in the source but ultimately God is sovereign over every one of those possibilities, and so in another sense, it’s almost insignificant what I consider the “source” of a trial. The real issue is how I respond to it.

Last night I was filled in my physical chest with a feeling of dread… Seeing my checking account low revealed that I have more digging to do to uncover any internal reliance on my own systems of security (like money). And the dumb part dear reader, is we have other accounts and plenty of money… I am in zero financial strain, but even so - seeing the number too low to make one of the payments sent my head into a whirlwind. God has also already provided a way out of this trial… I have budgeting software that I’ve been using for a long time and am just not on top of. He gave me the software I use and the ability to use it but it’s my own lack of diligence that I think led to this “trial”. And yet, with all that knowledge I find that I’m still troubled… I think I have a strong faith and one of my most common prayer is “Lord help my unbelief”, and apparently today I need to shout this to the heavens. How dare I allow dread to overcome me when I claim to know my God provides.

And in that I know he is still sweet to me. I’m a father, and when my kids make a mess of themselves my first response (often, though I’m not perfect) to them is to kneel and say “hey I’m here, you’re safe”. The trial they make for themselves may fill them with the dread I filled myself with last night in missing that credit card payment…. If I will approach my kids joyfully in their own mess, and if I write all these pages about God’s love for me and his people, then ought I not adopt the mindset towrads God that I want my daughter’s to have when I come to save them?

God approaches me knowing that missing a credit card payment is hardly a bigger deal than my 4 year old spilling milk on the table. But my world can become small just like their worlds are small and then my issues can feel big. I need my heavenly father to kneel next to me and say “hey I’m here, you’re safe”. I say I need it, but actually I mean to say that I have it, and because I have it is the only reason I can in-turn treat my daughter’s this way when their problems fill their little worlds.

Praise God for trials certainly, for what they reveal and for the Gospel truth that by the calling of Jesus our faith can be made pure and complete.

Reflection - John 4:14

2025-10-06T06:09:02Z

Today Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening” was on John 4:14

John 4:14

But whoever drinks of this water which I will give to him will never be thirsty for eternity, but the water which I will give to him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Being autistic and growing up in the Church led to a few acute pain points for me growing up. A commonplace issue for me was when theological truths were expressed in absolute terms but didn’t “feel absolutely true” for me. I made a practice of trying to force myself to just “be ok” in light of the truth.

A Memory

Marissa was one of my best friends in high school - we spent a lot of time together in church, school, extra-curriculars, etc. She was an ever-present friend to me even when I was difficult to love. I recall multiple times, and one vivid memory for sure where I wasn’t doing well and she inquired. But my response was “I have Jesus, so I have to be OK”. I tried to filter my immediate acute pain through the lens of eternal glory. And yes, Paul muses in this fashion as well, but Paul wasn’t a 16 year old undiagnosed autistic… Was everythign going to be alright in the end when I was 16? Oh ya, but was everything all right then? No… Marissa was a great friend, and Jesus has been sweet to me in this struggle, but nonetheless it would’ve been awesome if someone recognized the pain I was in with the wisdom to address me back then.

Today, one of those truths comes up but it is not painful - it is so relieving

The heart is as insatiable as the grave until Jesus enters it #

Yesterday God brought me a truth that he sustains me unto his own service - Reflection - 1 Kings 19:8. And today I’m reminded that on his sustenance I will “never thirst”. But of course this isn’t a plain and simple truth. I thirst for grace more and more every day, but what I’m finding in the season of ending Summer 2025, post/present-multiple years of political awareness, and near-hatred for my financial reliance on some other guy’s company that my heart wants for much right now, but even in that wanting this truth rests softly on me that Jesus is and ought to be enough. I can be resistant to this out of fear of losing a drive to provide more and more for my family. Contentedness is certainly a gift from God, but as I’ve been reflecting I see fear in my heart… As I’ve rejected the truth that “Jesus is enough” my heart longs for satisfaction, and when I get in my own way then fear and sin creep in.

For me and my reflection right now the competing ideas are building financial wealth for myself and my family out of a desire for freedom from a system that I don’t like, but also… isn’t Jesus enough? My heart is in the same cunundrum as I was in at 16 when asked “are you OK?”. But with wisdom, experince, and perspective I guess the tension isn’t uncomfortable anymore (not that I’m living in the tension perfectly). There’s work for Jesus to do on my heart, and yet I know the work he has done and that proves his faithfulness to me to not leave me unfinished.

As he works on me, I have day-to-day choices to make.

Whom will I serve?
What will fill my heart?
Will what I fill it with satisfy or like a glass of salt-water at sea leave me worse-off in the end?

Jesus has been good to me in ushering my heart through truths like this where there’s an “already but not yet” element to them. Jesus fully satisfies my heart, this is true. It’s also true that I’m still a sinner. I don’t feel like I always only thirst for more of my Lord - today I thirst for a larger retirement account and assets to financially support me for the next 20 years… is this wrong? I don’t think so, not with appropriate perspective. And I’ve been feeling more and more in the last few weeks that Jesus is restoring me unto a new season of service and work. I don’t know what it’ll look like and accepting a murky future feels scary, but in the light of the Son - by whose grace my lungs fill with air as I type - I can walk and work with plans that change knowing my faithful God satisfies.

Reflection - 1 Kings 19:8

2025-10-05T06:59:52Z

Spurgeon picked 1 Kings 19:8 this morning and his meditation was encouraging at a meta-level. Highlighting to me that we (Christians) in maturity can be refreshed from any passage of scripture. This isn’t because the Bible is magic, and I believe it should be studied appropriately in context (heavily) in order to solidify foundational pieces of understanding.

But I also cannot deny that I serve a living God who actively works in the lives of people - and one way he might do that is to encourage through pastoral reflection on Biblical truths that may be brought to mind though not necessarily instructed in a passage. This is a specific point of Christian life that I have been meditating loosely on lately - to be open in my heart to finding joy and refreshment in Biblical truths that God may bring to mind even though the “origin” of that thought might be an unrelated passage of Scripture. This has been the case for a few weeks at this point, and today felt significant as I read Spurgeon’s thoughts on being supplied for the sake of the Lord’s service.

1 Kings 19:8

So he got up, ate, drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights up to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Quick Context

Jezebel is chasing the prophet Elijah who has fled into the wilderness. Elijah fears for his life and asks Yahweh to simply kill him. Yahweh (well, the Angel of Yahweh… but we’ll do that another time) meets him in his distress resting under a tree - he provides food, water, and protection for Elijah to take a nap. He does it again and then tells Elijah to travel to Horeb.

Reflection #

Elijah is faithful to the Lord, and finds himself tired and in need. Yahweh meets him, feeds him, and then gives him more work to do. This is the point of Spurgeon’s writing this morning, that every ounce of work should be poured out unto the Lord’s service. Every single thing I do should be laced with songs of praise to the King. It’s easy to say “blessed be the Name of the Lord” when I am in surplus, and even in trial and want I think my faith has been tested and proven to some non-trivial degrees… But what about when I’m tired? Do I seek rest as a means to be refreshed unto his service? Or do I seek a hollow shell of rest, one that in reality isn’t restorative and refreshing, but is instead deadening and numbing… I think I find myself actively pushing against holy rest out of love for, and slavery to myself. Maybe not quite to doom and selfish as to say “myself” only, but out of fear of something else - maybe as trivial as failure.

God is bringing to my mind why I haven’t built more, why I’m disconnected from work, why I zonk out so much… If I accept refreshment - physical refreshment- through a God-given grace then I am duty-bound to use it wisely… But I find that I am afraid of the daunting work of doing something well, and day to day I find myself hesitant to accept the refreshment out of an abandonment of the good that can come through the hard work of doing it well.

God is telling me to eat and drink, to be refreshed… I genuinely believe God is speaking to me through 1 King 19:8 - to take the strength he provides via the channels I know he provides them, and to wisely-steward the work he’s given me to do.

This week I’ve pre-planned to dedicate time away from work to my own project and I feel encouraged going into tomorrow almost with foreknowledge of the strength God will offer me in the morning

Reflection - Psalm 84:11

2025-10-01T06:34:25Z

Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening today (actually the evening one) is for Psalm 84:11.

Psalm 84:11

Psalm 84:11 (LEB): 11 Because Yahweh God is a sun and a shield; Yahweh gives grace and honor. He does not withhold good from those who walk blamelessly.

What is it to me to hear and know that Yahweh gives grace and honor? I’m asking this because Spurgon’s meditation this morning has a particularly striking line in it

The little conjunction “and” in this verse is a diamond rivet binding the present with the future: grace and glory always go together.

The translation he was using has “glory”, I quoted “honor”. The word is כָּבוֹד (kabod) which generally basically means “weight”.

I got very distracted this morning unfortunately and therefore my reflection will be cut short… I know meditating on these things opens my day up to go in a better direction… May Yahweh give grace to me today, to live in a glorified and honorable way… one worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Philippians 1:27

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit, striving together as one for the faith of the gospel

Reflection - Deuteronomy 33:29

2025-09-27T06:38:42Z

Note reflections are not theological study

Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening today starts with:

Deuteronomy 33:29

Deuteronomy 33:29 (LEB): 29 Blessed are you, O Israel. Who is like you, a people who is saved by Yahweh, the shield of your help, and who is the sword of your triumph, and your enemies, they shall fawn before you, and you shall tread on their backs.”

What is it to be saved by Yahweh? It is to be blessed… Material blessings are the cheapest understanding of this idea…

Danger

I feel such a strong need to even say that, in any of my public reflections to try to caveat every statement that someone hostile to my faith might say while reading, or get ahead of a bad idea a less mature Christian might hear me say without enough context… but ultimately these reflections are not deep study, and when I acknowledge that ’to be saved by God is to be blessed’ I don’t need to follow it up with “but not necessarily with money and possessions”… No, the truth of God flows from the Word and through our lives out of experience with him, and out of that intersection this morning do I proclaim I am blessed and saved by Yahweh…

The blessing is the saving, and the saving is the blessing. Apart from faith in Jesus, I see no way to understand this biblical truth appropriately. In Yahweh’s divine grace he has called me - he is the shield of my help in what he has called me to. A simple summary is that he enables me to do the job he’s given. This is why the saving is the blessing… Any creature is most happy, most safe, most successful when it is operating within the bounds of its design and purpose… An airplane is a fast mode of transportation but if you place it on the highway - outside the boundaries of the sky and put in the context it wasn’t meant to operate it, it won’t be a very fast or useful means of getting from A to B.

Yahweh’s saving act of grace invites humans into the context whereby they can live according to their design and purpose. I believe the humanitarian efforts to unite humanity along common grounds are good-faith efforts doomed to fail because to be truly human is to be saved by the One Who Saves… Yahweh saves his people back to humanity (or forward to a new humanity - I’m not here to debate eschatology with anyone at the moment). In this grace is unity and freedom.

My reflections consistently revolve around what is becoming a central theme in my theology - the meaning of freedom in Jesus. He saved me back to being truly human, and in my humanity I freely choose to live my life in loyalty to the one who saves me. I’m only free to choose the right thing because he enabled me to. In making that choice, whatever it might be, if I choose the godly option it comes with the most blessing. That blessing is being conformed into the image and likeness of Jesus. Yahweh molds me into what it means to be hunman… Sanctification is the process by which we “more naturally” choose the godly thing. Because as our will is molded to his, our natural choice more often aligns with what God wants. The blessing has to be understood ultimately as being saved, as restoration… To see blessing as money or power or success is to remain broken, remaining broken is evidence of not being saved. ie. It’s only by the saving power of Jesus that the blessing of being saved can be understood - this is how Paul can say that even blessings on earth are garbage compared to the glories of heaven.

The picture of the perfect human becomes more clear to me day by day as Jesus reveals himself to me, and I pray the freedom in Christ permeates my life quickly and deeply so that my free-will choice aligns with God’s will for my life. In that state is shalom.

Reflection - Romans 3:26

2025-09-24T05:42:24Z

From Morning and Evening today, Spurgeon has thoughts on Romans 3:26. I need more context personally, so here’s a newer translation of 3:25-26

Romans 3:25-26

25God put Jesus forth as the place of mercy, through faithfulness, by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his covenant justice, because of the passing over (in divine forbearance) of sins committed beforehand. 26This was to demonstrate his covenant justice in the present time: that is, that he himself is in the right, and that he declares to be in the right everyone who trusts in the faithfulness of Jesus.

Goldingay, J., & Wright, T. (2018). The Bible for Everyone: A New Translation (Ro 3:25–26). SPCK.

NPP

I’m not here to debate “faith in Jesus” vs “faithfulness of Jesus”… I feel so beyond debating semantics when either way it’s Jesus who gives you faith and chooses in the first place

Spurgeon’s meditation certainly resolves around Penal Substitutionary Atonement, a doctrine I have come to mostly reject, but I have plenty of common-ground with a conviction of PSA-subscribers and Spurgeon - and that’s that we can trust, as chosen people of God, that “there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus”

Not only is there no condemnation, but on the contrary Jesus declares to be in the right everyone who trusts.

This is the great confidence of the Christian, and the source of my comfort - that even though there is sin in my past and future (and I pray sorrow over it), I can trust in God’s unchanging nature. He says in effect “Out of my divine grace to call your name from the grave, by the covering of Jesus and the work of the cross, you are free. Free from condemnation, free from judgement, and today (and everyday) free from the yoke of sin”

Freedom… such an interesting word… It came up recently in my Reflection - Galatians 5:1 as well. I guess as I reflect here, freedom is about our behavior and what we do or don’t do. But confidence is the partner of freedom. A child who has the freedom on the playground to play with whatever they want will sit in the corner if they are afraid of consequences of doing something wrong - this would come from a place of not trusting in the freedom they’ve been given. The child lacks comfort in their freedom to play with what they want unless the faithfulness and goodness of the one who gives the freedom is impressed into the child and they can exercise trust in that authority - which is manifest in their joyful play on the playground.

So for the Christian this obviously doesn’t mean “free to do whatever I want”, the metaphor isn’t perfect (it’s made better by aligning the walls around a playground with the boundaries of proper-human living)… Jesus actually gives me the freedom to do his will over my own, because apart from him I am not able to choose anything besides the sinful desires of my own heart.

But this morning, I think the full circle is that when I do choose my own desires, when I fall back into the “not yet”, when I sacrifice my divine freedom on the altar of my own life for a cheap song, I can still have confidence that my God calls me right by the work of my Lord, Jesus

This great confidence can never excuse sin, can never justify the choice. But the reality is that a good God ordered and created the world, and he chooses whomever he chooses… By his graceful choice to adopt me, I have confidence in his Name that the sin I run to will not ultimately destroy me - because Jesus intervened and gives me new life everyday

Reflection - Galatians 5:1

2025-09-19T06:04:58Z

Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening” today is about the freedom we have in Christ. Freedom is a core concept of Christianity, and one no doubt bastardized and warped by modern progressive culture (like Ancient Greek modern, not 2010s modern).

Freedom is not the ability to do whatever I want without consequence… it’s not even the ability to do whatever I want! What a nightmarish hell the world would be if each one of us could (and especially did) act on every desire that comes into our hearts…

Isle of Dreams

It’s like the Island of Dreams in CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawn Treader… The seaman are all excited about their “dreams” (long lost lovers, money, etc) but the man they rescue makes it clear to them it’s not the place where daydreams come true… but dreams…. think of the scary dreams you’ve had, or you’ve heard your kids have… With that context you probably don’t want to go to the Island of Dreams

So, this childish anti-view of “freedom” should immediately be rejected by any well-reasoned adult, let alone Christian… In this view, self-restraint is the antithesis of freedom, and not that I have some well-endowed argument against that - only I’d say it feels ridiculous that these 2 ideas would be at odds. It’s simply unreasonable to me. But perhaps my conviction on that unreasonableness stems from an understanding that the freedom Jesus offers is so much better than whatever pleases my fleeting fancies.

And by that same token, freedom is not our daydreams… we were all created with purpose - humans made in the image of God. Accepting and understanding that truth absolutely ought to affect how we live. I am not a “good person” by default - I have the freedom to act “good” because Jesus saves me, and calls me to a higher standard of living than I would call myself to.

And that’s the meditation today - bourne out of the words in Galatians 5:1

Galatians 5:1

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

If I were to submit myself to my own desires, I’d end up a slave to them. I’ve felt this reality in many ways over my life, and Jesus has been good to me. He frees me from myself, he freely offers himself to me (aye, his message goes out to all the world, and the ones who are called answer). In that freedom I’m faced with a choice, the same choice as the Garden… Do what I want (eat of the tree of knowledge of good and bad) or trust what God says is good, is good, and make the choice by Jesus’ grace to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and bad, but instead of the tree of life, presently experienced as communion with the Holy Spirit and fellowship with my King Jesus.

For freedom Christ has set me free, may I walk in his freedom today.

Reflection - Galatians 5:24-25

2025-09-18T05:39:12Z

Galatians 5:24-25

24 Now those ⌊who belong to Christ⌋ have crucified the flesh together with its feelings and its desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, we must also follow the Spirit. 26 We must not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Spurgeon’s “Morning and Evening” is a mediation on living in and following the Spirit. He says this:

You will never find true faith unattended by true godliness; on the other hand, you will never discover a truly holy life which has not for its root a living faith upon the righteousness of Christ

godliness is the “following the Spirit” in our daily lives - it is living “like god”. What then is “true faith”? I think I can take Spurgeon to be saying that upon internal meditation do I find my faith to be secure and genuine. “true faith” is between me and the Lord.

The meditation this morning though… “If I live by the Spirit, I must also follow the Spirit” is once again heavy on my heart as I wrestled through Reflecting on Romans 7:7-13 a few weeks ago - the reality that I daily choose things contrary to my faith.

I think Paul is saying “because you have crucified the flesh” as the parallel point to “we must also follow the Spirit”. He’s saying “if you say you’ve crucified the flesh, show your faith by following as well” - it’s James’ “show me your faith by what you do”

So who am I today? Whom will I serve?

These morning meditations are like my 100x push-ups a day… the days I do them just seem marginally better, and in a season of consistency the value seems to compound… I thank Jesus for the conviction in the first place to strive for holiness, and for the ~~strength~~ faith to say no to the flesh, but yes to the Spirit.

Reflection on Philippians 2:14-18

2025-09-06T07:12:55Z

Philippians 2:15-18

14 Do all things without grumbling and disputing, 15 in order that you may become blameless and innocent, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine as stars in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, for a source of pride to me in the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and rejoice with all of you. 18 And in the same way also you rejoice and rejoice with me.

“Do all things without grumbling and disputing”… now, taking verses out of context is one of my biggest pet-peeves in Christian circles (and non-Christian as well I suppose, but when non-believers who read 4 pages of the Bible 20 years ago try to tell me what anything means I can kindly ask them to keep their illiteracy to themselves)

However! With my brothers and sisters, there’s no such ask - if we all call on Jesus then we will edifiy and educate one another on appropriate applications of the inspired word of God.

With that said… dang do I grumble a lot about work… at least lately. I believe that nearly everyone I work with knows my worldview, I don’t think anyone who spends a few days, maybe even hours (by God’s grace) will know who I serve just by my languge and verbiage. But I’m not a prime example of Christian living (yet… hopefully). I had been Reflecting on Romans 7:7-13 for several days and the “sin in me” is what I see come out when I let my guard down against letting strife and anger enter my heart.

I read this passage and found myself immediately focused on “in the midst of a crooked and perverted generation” because our generation is disgusting… I know immorality and public perverted-ness was present in the before-fore times, but I have to imagine that Paul and the other NT writers couldn’t have imagined the kind of disgusting perverted anti-nature nonsense that is everywhere in our society. We celebrate sex over everything, and a twisted understanding of sex for that matter… My daughter’s are growing up in a world where I feel the need to practice constant vigilence against the evil forces in the world that would seek to them and twist their understanding of themselves into nothing more than objects of desire and consumption… And ya know what, that’s a worthy thing to meditate on and prepare for.

But it’s not what my heart needs… My girls are relatively safe (for the time being) but everyday I face the sin of my own heart, it’s crouching at the door, and should not that be my higher concern?

I even notice now in this reflection that my mind is drawn away from myself, and it is difficult to follow the Lord in meditation… perhaps it’s too noisey but perhaps I’m looking for too much…

This day I choose whom I will serve, and by God’s grace it’s the King Jesus… Help my unbelief and still the grumbling in my life.

Reflection - Morning August 31 2025

2025-08-31T06:46:06Z

Morning, August 31 #

“On mine arm shall they trust." —Isaiah 51:5

Spurgeon: Morning and Evening

In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is on its beam-ends, and no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone! There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends; but when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nowhere else to turn, he flies into his Father’s arms, and is blessedly clasped therein! When he is burdened with troubles so pressing and so peculiar, that he cannot tell them to any but his God, he may be thankful for them; for he will learn more of his Lord then than at any other time. Oh, tempest-tossed believer, it is a happy trouble that drives thee to thy Father! Now that thou hast only thy God to trust to, see that thou puttest thy full confidence in him. Dishonour not thy Lord and Master by unworthy doubts and fears; but be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Show the world that thy God is worth ten thousand worlds to thee. Show rich men how rich thou art in thy poverty when the Lord God is thy helper. Show the strong man how strong thou art in thy weakness when underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Now is the time for feats of faith and valiant exploits. Be strong and very courageous, and the Lord thy God shall certainly, as surely as he built the heavens and the earth, glorify himself in thy weakness, and magnify his might in the midst of thy distress. The grandeur of the arch of heaven would be spoiled if the sky were supported by a single visible column, and your faith would lose its glory if it rested on anything discernible by the carnal eye. May the Holy Spirit give you to rest in Jesus this closing day of the month.

Spurgeon, C. H. (1896). Morning and evening: Daily readings. Passmore & Alabaster.

Reflection #

By God’s grace, I was led this morning through my old Logos dashboard to the evening and morning or the morning and reading daily readings from Charles Spurgeon. And today, August 31, the morning reading is

Isaiah 51:5

“on mine arm, shall they trust.

And it’s a short few words, but Spurgeon writes quite a bit about it. And there’s many quotes from this short morning reflection that are very relevant to me in light of my work situation. One of the things there I’ve been processing the most is the powerlessness I feel in regards to corporate policy and the control that my employer wants to exercise over my life. But the other side of that coin of control is me and me placing my trust in my employer to provide security for me. And God has been very good to me and still has given me security outside of my primary job. But I did trust that job. And it’s in the wake of losing it. I’m not even stretched that thin in losing my job. But in the stretching that is taking place, Spurgeon says some things about God that I should impress into my heart.

Oh, blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone.

Should we not consider trials - Joy? I’m sure not acting that joyful. But God has been very sweet to me through these reflections, through drawing my eye and soul to him through the lens of trust.

There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends. But when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nowhere else to turn, he flies into his father’s arms and is blessedly clasped therein.

Spurgeon clearly isn’t saying we can’t have friends here. I think what he is saying is “the multitude of our {idols}”, really. Like Job’s friends, maybe, the ones who keep our attention on work and the world and money and my 401k and the future. Those things are my “friends” because those things give me security. And maybe I have trusted too much, and now God is drawing me closer to him. And may I say, blessed be the name of the Lord who gives and takes away. O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone. Amen.

Reflection - AI Work and ADHD

2025-08-27T07:16:57Z

Reflection #

It’s time to be more devoted to my work… AI has been a cool technology to watch and experience but one thing I’m allowing it to do to me is to kill my love for building… I feel like I’m arriving where I’ve already seen many talented developers get to -

realization

AI is not magic, it’s a headache.

Don’t get me wrong, targeted and focused use of LLMs, with careful planning and time-boxing can be great, and has been for me. But I am a creature and prone to take the path of least resistance, and in many cases I’m just letting the LLM do the work. This is where the ADHD element from the title comes into play. Now, I’m not blaming ADHD for me being lazy, because I’m not sure laziness is the fairest descriptor of where I’ve been lately. A common issue for those with ADHD, maybe even the defining characteristic, is the black-hole that’s present in the space where motiviation and reward belong in the brain. I’ve resonated with this thought for much of my life:

Fulfilled or Relieved

When I finish tasks, I’m not fulfilled… if anything I’m relieved.

This is a core issue I am seeking to address in my life, and I guess in real-time reflection I should thank the hellscape of AI and LLMs for surfacing this pattern in my make-up today instead of when I’m in my 40s or 50s.

So where I’ve been is that I’ll let an LLM write code and then I’ll attempt to be validating the tests or example scripts I prompt it to generate, get comfortable with it, and ship.

But then in a few weeks the context of that code is all lost on me… I didn’t craft it with blood and sweat and so when I’m asked a question about it I realize I’m barely fluent in a thing I built (did I even build it?)!

This is embarrassing and exhausting… I’m not sure what I’m gonna do about this, definitely not write about how I’m going to change my life over this dissastisfaction and from this day forward everything will be different…

But today does feel like an infelction point in a trajectory I’ve been on with AI and my job, so not starting today, but just a decision I am making today, is to time-box every task with vigorous commitment.

Thoughts On August 21 2025

2025-08-21T06:14:26Z

Intro

Been struggling more with work - what matters? I can’t help but feel like nothing… As a Christian I want to do my work “for an audience of 1” as the saying goes… I should do my work with excellence, and I think I have striven for that - it’s definitely one reason I have the success and reputation at work that I do have… but as far as the “work” goes, does it matter? To the company, I think the answer is clear - no. They want compliance and submission before innovation and success. But as a believer, where does my loyalty lie?

What I mean is - if I was loyal to a company, then the scenario I’m in would very understadably lead to what I’m currently feeling - remorse, regret, embarrasment, and anger. But if I’m truly loyal to Yahweh, then wouldn’t it not matter at all what the company does? I do my work for Yahweh regardless of the company’s direction, instruction, or even whether or not they benefit… That’s my struggle - I don’t want to give another ounce of energy towards the success of an entity that doesn’t give a shit about me, but am I violating my own worldview and disrespecting my God by dragging my feet?

Knowledge and Faith

2025-07-31T05:58:52Z

A Question

What does it mean to be “faithful”? I wrestle with this question in various contexts pretty regularly - mostly because God has been so ridiculously stupid good to me that I feel compelled to ask daily “am I being faithful with the gifts God has given me?”

There’s a lot of places to go from this starting point, but there’s some events happening in my life that are giving me perspective on Jesus’ faithfulness to the Father’s will and what it implies for my own life of faithfulness and steadfastness to the Lord.

Faithfulness #

How do I be more like Jesus (as a human), and how do I more or less copy his faithfulness to God in the wake of trial. I’ve certainly given some amount of thought to my own ability to be faithful in the worst potential circumstance of straight up physical execution: martyrdom… In Fox’s Book of Martyrs there’s accounts of Christians through the ages singing hymns while being burned alive for their faith… What leads to that kind of faithfulness? What gave these heros of the faith the peace to face death with a song? Would I, today right now, if I was going to be executed for my faith (real reality in many parts of the world) would I sing “Amazing Grace” while my physical body was tortured to death… I can’t say I know the answer to this, but the accounts of these martyrs is at least encouraging that God has developed the faith of others to such a degree that physical torture cannot break them from their communion with God.

What about NOT death...

We all face trials of different kinds every day, and in the face of those trials what does faithfulness look like?

Knowledge #

Back to Jesus for a second… A confession of mine is that I’ve lowkey felt like Jesus, as truly human, had a leg up on us when it comes to remaining faithful to the Father’s will….

As a human he walked through life in deep communion with the Father, and he knows his place as the Author of creation, the one who holds all things together. So I’ve often struggled with the thought “of course Jesus is calm in X or isn’t worried about Y… He knows he’s God, he knows the plan, and that knowledge must do something for enabling the kind of calm faith we see in the person, in the human, Jesus Christ.”

Warning

Jesus knows that if he commanded a mountain to cast itself into the sea, that it would… So did Jesus have faith or knowledge?

Almost There #

I think he had both, and part of living a life of faith is remembering all the things that are true about Jesus… If I only say he’s faithful and good to me because the Bible says so, well that’s not a lot for me as a real physical person to live my life on… I live my life based on experience like anyone else, and experience gives anyone a unique kind of knowledge - it’s more than reading something in a book, when you learn something by living through it the message is deeply engrained, it passes through your brain and into your being… ya know what I’m saying? There’s things we know and then there’s things we KNOW.

But for this to happen we have to acknowledge God through it all… whatever “it all” is certainly affects what “acknowledge God” means, but for Jesus he certainly gave God the Father every ounce of glory and credit during his life, and that acknowledgement I believe is a part of Jesus’ life of Faith… so too in my life do I try to practice this perspective - giving thanks to God for all things given and taken away… This acknowledgement presses the truth about God’s goodness and faithfulness to me deeper and deeper into my being. It is Jesus being tender to my heart and shepherding me into being more like him

Jesus knew everything true about his power because of his experience and identity. I would certainly claim to know it as well - but my knowledge of Jesus’ power is not his knowledge of his own power. So does any knowledge I have or lack affect the reality of Jesus’ faithfulness?

no...

The Point #

This is finally my point… I’m going through a trial, losing something important to me that’s valuable and a source of provision for my family in many ways. But at the same time… God has been so good to me, and I have so much experience and knowledge of that goodness… I’ve been complimented by a few people in this situation about how I’m handling it - cause anyone would be pretty justified in being angry in what I’m walking through… And I’m struggling with many emotions:

but ultimately

I know God provides for me

and losing a massive source of that provision isn’t the end of the world because not only do I know that God provides for me, but he already has provided in such a way that this trial isn’t devastating. It’s annoying of course, but his goodness to me so outshines the crappiness of this situation that I can’t help but overflow with “this sucks but God’s stil good, and has been and will be”.

The thing is that the people around me do not have all the same knowledge as me that I’ve gained through experience and acknowledgment of God’s goodness… Few people see all the details of how God has and is protecting me and my family that to the outsider of my life, witnessing what’s happening, I might look like that martyr being burned alive…. Of course that’s a little hyperbolic, but I don’t know the lives of all those martyrs - God probably worked in them for so long and in such deep ways that not only the reality of a trial, but the reality of physical pain, just washes over them…

That's how I feel

my trial here sucks, I even want to complain about it (and will probably) but ultimately God is so good to me, and I’ll make that known to everyone around me.

It might look miraculous to them, and it doesn’t mean it’s not, because it’s God who provided for me in the first place, but my place of serenity in the wake of trial comes from Jesus pressing the reality of his faithfulness into my life, and now that I have a backdrop of years of goodness from him - how can any one silly trial in this life send me anywhere but closer to my Heavenly Father as I trust him for provision.

What Is A Right?

2025-07-28T06:31:11Z

Intro #

I saw something this morning that kind of irk’d me so I thought I’d write some thoughts on it… It was one of those maps of countries and the results of a poll. The poll what “Is food a human right?” and like every country except USA voted “yes” and we voted “no” - ie. Americans hate people… obviously…

Obviously that’s ridiculous… or it obvious to me anyways… But the ridiculousness of the graphic aside, it’s the baseline question that got me thinking…

What is a right?

Things to be Protected #

The thing is - you can not be entitled to the labor of another human being… I think this is axiomatic, and I know there are large groups of people who disagree, but I would call every one of those groups inhumane.

My Right Trumps Your Freedom

If my right requires that another person works, then that person is not free… sounds familiar, ya?

So with the understanding that I have ZERO regard for a worldview that thinks some humans can force labor on another group of humans - let’s talk about what a right is.

A right is something all humans have the ability to do AND at the same time is a thing that CAN BE defended

Ultimately, rights are just force

Note I’m not saying all humans have to agree on the thing, nor am I saying that it MUST BE defended to be a right, but if something can forcefully be taken away then I think the verbiage of calling it a “right” is nothing more than emotional argumentation.

I want all people to have clean drinking water, the ability to work and make a life for themselves, the freedom to express creativity, and also food to eat… I want these things for all humans, but calling anything of them a “right” on their own is either deeply misguided or, as noted above, axiomatic to a worldview that is essentially pro-slavery. The simpleton thinking about “rights” is doing the world, and our country specifically no favors in public discourse…

For Example

I hear that Trump’s administration is “taking away basic human rights” and I’ve had the privilege of asking a few people what they mean… Either nothing or abortion. The nothing crowd is led astray by a misguided narrative, and the abortion crowd simply denies the humanity of the unborn. They would deny the humanity of any group of humans they can eliminate or enslave for their own gain. Ironically it’s in restoring the idea of liberty from the government that I think this WH administration is actually doing a good job of defending huamn rights - and by civil necessity that means the rights of citizens primarily.

Might Makes Right #

Unfortunately, a reality of our broken world is that might makes right. ie. the Strong make the rules for the Weak, and if the Strong don’t protect the Weak’s ability, say to eat, then the language of a “right to food” has absolutely zero weight.

Let me say plainly that I don’t subscribe to a worldview where “might makes right” is appropriate - I believe Jesus will come back to judge the living and the dead, and that his people (ie. the Church) should work the world for the betterment of all people. But while I believe this and live my life in this direction - I recognize the functional reality that the only things you “have a right to” are the things you can protect.

This is one reason I’ve come to appreciate America so much. It isn’t that our country demonstrates every moral conviction I have, or even that it was founded on “Christian Principals” (history is hard), but our country was founded on a principal that all people have inalienable rights… But those rights are recognized in our country because our country can and does defend those liberties.

If no one will defend you, you functionally have a right to nothing - to argue otherwise is to be needlessly pedantic in a conversation that must revolve around practicality to be useful

Note

It’s high-time some political activists start thinking pragmatically instead of spewing emotional language into a field they probably have no business being in (besides those sweet sweet lobby-dollars of course)

Fin #

So… what’s the point? I think I’m saying we should just speak honestly about our world, because emotional and vague language is actually not helpful… To that end, honestly many many people need to practice silence in the public sector - the internet has made everyone an expert commentator on the current thing, and it’s destroying actual rhetoric.

And although I can’t say “all humans have a right to food” because not all humans have their ability to obtain and eat food protected, I absolutely believe all humans should have this ability of theirs protected. This conclusion can’t be expressed in a simple map created undoubtedly to perpetuate political anger and division…

So go out there and protect the weaker person’s “right” to whatever you feel is being wrongly taken from them - but if you can’t protect it then either vote for someone who will or frankly quit talking…

God Provides When He Takes Away

2025-07-25T05:52:37Z

This post is meant to serve as a reminder that God’s provision is about more than the chronology of things happening… For example he brought me a job when I lost my main one - he just brought that to me before I lost it… the timing of that event make it no less significant or caused by God… He answered the prayer I hadn’t uttered yet when it comes to providing for my family

I believe one way God provides in the midst of taking things away is through living a life of daily submission to him. The idea that it goes:

something bad happens
pray for protection
maybe something happens and the reality of what happens affects my view of God

is silly, selfish, and misguided.

God sometimes provides by gifting you in a way that ends up protecting you later - but to make the claim the gift was honed solely by you, or worse - a product of yourself, is to make a grave theological error… God’s provision is a daily journey with him, not a hail mary prayer for a last second safety net…

💭 Genesis 1 and Its ANE Polemic, Part 2 - Dr. Michael Heiser

2025-06-25T11:29:10Z

Here’s my thought on Genesis 1 and Its ANE Polemic, Part 2 - Dr. Michael Heiser

I’m preparing for a conversation on Genesis 1 this morning, and so I of course wanted to read through a few of Mike’s old posts… I’m going to write a longer post about the impact Mike had on my life… he died in February of 2023 of pancreatic cancer and everytime I visit his site I get a little teary eyed…

The guy brought SO MUCH clarity to me regarding the Bible and some of the silly ideas I had about i growing up (and indeed MOST of the people in America that I have ever talked to about the Bible also have).

So this thought is a reminder to me to not forget to write more about him - Jesus touched so many people through Mike’s ministry of studying the Bible for what it is, not what the arrogant Western mind wants it to be.

Note

This is one of [[ my-thoughts ]]. I picked this up from Waylon Walker(https://thoughts.waylonwalker.com). It’s a short note that I make about someone else’s content online. Learn more about the process Thoughts

What Are The Rewards In Heaven?

2025-06-20T06:23:05Z

Intro

I came across an article on the Bible Project on what it means to “store up treasures in Heaven” and it brought some clarity to the meaning of this teaching for me…

I’ve been walking with Jesus for around 2 decades now, and he’s taught me a lot about life, love, and grace. I still feel the battle inside myself when faced with a decision where I can act more or less in line with Jesus’ desire and will or I can make a choice that’s about me… Anytime I’m able to choose the path I know is his, then praise the Lord and he’s been faithful to change me more and more into his image and likeness.

TLDR - The Treasures #

The article goes on to argue that the rewards we are promised in Heaven, the ones we are supposed to “store up”, are the rewards of living like Jesus today.

Note

The reward becomes greater as our will is forged to align with the Lord. As we grow in holiness, making holy decisions and living a holy life becomes the reward we store up for heaven

Reflection

The idea that the perspective of the rewards change as we change is actually not that ground breaking to me… Growth leads to perspective changes in other aspects of life.

Say for my work, as I get more experience and learn what kinds of problems tend to arise, I can appreciate troubleshooting tactics I may have not considered before, approach problems with a different point of view, etc. And it’s in this growth that I can appreciate things like searching deep in logs for 1 piece of info, or deciding to re-run something that takes hours and appreciating that it’s the best thing to do when I’d rather try to slam changes in that might work or might make it worse… The growth brings maturity and deeper understanding to the problems.

How about with children? As they grow and mature they learn more about the world… They appreciate things they didn’t like before - like having been disciplined as a child or being taught a hard lesson that pays off down the line. Again, the growth brings a perspective change.

And so as I journey in my faith this quote from the article resonated with me

Note

Jesus’ exhortation to store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven is an invitation to taste, right now, what life will be like in the renewed world later on.

Jesus brought Heaven back to earth, and invites his chosen people to live in Heaven today regardless of where we live on earth.

Note

As we mature in the Lord, the things of God become more valuable to us, and these rewards not only become more apparent, but they become easier to appreciate… ie. we store them up as we experience Heaven on earth

Link

link to article

💭 pypeaday/whose-turn-is-it: Simple uv webapp to determine order…

2025-06-20T01:23:26Z

Here’s my thought on pypeaday/whose-turn-is-it: Simple uv webapp to determine order fo players for an event

We pray together as a family every night, but every single flipping night my daughter’s fight about the order we go in… well, NO MORE!

I built a simple uv fastapi app that randomly sorts a list from an environment var PLAYERS and presents it in the web page at /generate.

Super easy uv run at home…

I love that with enough knowledge, or the right kind of knowledge, you can build like anything you want!

Note

Reflecting on BP Article on James - Faith and Works

2025-06-18T06:00:15Z

Intro

This started as one of [[my-thoughts]] and got long enough to warrant putting right in the blog

Faith and works is a common point of conversation for Christians who like debating things, and I’m at the point in my life where I’m kind of over the debates and the simplistic thinking…. but this morning I saw this article and wanted to give it a read

Article #

Article Link - 11 minute read

One of the best pieces from the article is:

Info

James illuminates and clarifies our understanding of faith by bypassing questions about whether one has (or does not have) faith and focusing instead on whether a person’s faith is living or dead.

Reflection #

This snippet isn’t incredibly profound on its own, but in my experience it hits hard I’ve been in many conversations about faith and works - and as I’ve written about before in A New Perspective on Being God's Child Christians today have a deep desire to put things into neat and simple boxes but this is often a mistake. And in the case of faith and works I think it’s just as prevalent for similar reasons I outlined in that post - a deep “need” to “fully understand” a system we participate in. However this usually comes lacking the accompanying nuance in understanding “works” and “works of the law” and “work in order to be saved”.

To be very clear

The Bible is in no way contradictory in its teaching about faith and works and salvation regardless of how wrong someone gets it… at the end of the day Jesus picks who he picks. This in no way excuses the elect from performing good works, but any good or bad “works” do nothing to change the reality of salvation - the works merely reveal the truth

I don’t see tension in faith and works - James’ statement “faith without works is dead” is so simple to me… Jesus changes my life every day, and every day I make decisions based on that reality. If I only talked about my faith, and never made a decision where I prioritized my faith over what I wanted - then do I really believe?

The answer is simple

Of course not.

Father’s Day 2025

2025-06-15T09:02:09Z

Intro

I just wanted to capture some thoughts on Father’s Day and how becoming a dad and raising two beautiful kids has affected my view on, or matured my view of, my relationship with God and how He sees me. Because, biblically speaking, the father metaphor is very common and prominent for Yahweh. He’s many things to His chosen people. But the theology of adoption makes the father model and metaphor a really good one. And being a dad, I feel like I’ve learned a lot.

The Childlike Position Before God

This is pretty related to the last post of mine A New Perspective on Being God's Child where the crux of that post is that, as smart as we might think we are as educated theologians, in the eyes of God we’re still just children. And I mean that we should think that our understanding of our complex topics, is still the level of a child in relation to God. And so in that same vein I’m asking

Warning

“In what other ways am I like a child to God?”

So again today, I’m making sure to process some of these thoughts.

Babies and Who Am I? #

I remember both of my kids as babies would get overtired, and they’d be so tired that they couldn’t fall asleep. And I would look at them and go - “this doesn’t make sense. Your body knows you need sleep, you know you need sleep, but what does it mean to be too tired? You can’t fall asleep. And you just yell and scream at me.” But that baby doesn’t know that I’m their dad, they don’t know anything. They’re just overtired, and they’re yelling and screaming. It’s just my job to protect them in that moment, comfort them, whatever. And I thought, “man, this just has to be how God sees me sometimes.” Even though I’ve been walking with the Lord for decades there’s got to be times when I’m just throwing a tantrum.

And that's how God sees me

as a creature he loves, who’s just too tired to take a nap. And it’s a humbling thing to think that that’s really sometimes how God sees me.

Unconditional Love & Disobedience

As my kids have gotten older, I think that I’ve picked up on other truths of the Lord - mainly how he can love me even when I sin… Even when my daughters disobey, it doesn’t change my love for them. I just had an experience today with my daughter who climbed up too high on a swing set on a trapeze bar and couldn’t get herself down. And although it got tense and there was some shouting to handle, I eventually walked her through a few things:

I told her not to get up there, and she disobeyed.
By disobeying, she put herself into a dangerous and scary situation.
I would help her in her scary situation, but my help might not look like how she wants it to look
The help I can provide is to not remove her from the situation, i.e. to pick her up and just save her, but I could help her climb down and give her instruction.
Finally, she needs to choose to trust me, even though she’ll still be scared, and she needs to choose to trust me, even when I’m not standing where she wants me to stand, or putting my hand where she wants me to put my hand, so that she feels safe.

Guidance Over Rescue & The Need for Trust

I need her to know that she is safe, and to trust that I tell her she is safe, even when she doesn’t see it or feel it. And that is what God requests and demands of me, is to trust him more than I might be fearful of my future, financially, or of relational security, or whatever.

Acting in Obedience Despite Fear #

That trust doesn’t necessarily take away the fear, but it does mean that you behave obediently and act in accordance with the reality, not with the fear. The reality is that Yahweh loves and protects me, just as I love and protect my daughter, even when she was scared on the trapeze bar.

End

So Father’s Day is, for me, a good time to just reflect on what that means to be a dad. I’m not going to celebrate and do anything crazy. My family isn’t going to, because I don’t want us to. But this is a nice reminder, perhaps I should do this more purposefully, more often, is reflect on how God teaches me about his love for me through giving me a deep love for my children.

I love an expert in their craft

2025-06-06T19:38:13Z

Presence of an Expert

Our AC died, or has been showing signs of dying recently, and regardless of the finality of its death, our house hasn’t been getting super cold… The condenser unit is from 1991, making it 34 years old at the time of this post…

The reason I’m writing though is that I was presented with a nice moment of reflection when the HVAC guy who came over to service our unit was talking to me about his diagnostic process. I wouldn’t even try to regurgiate everything because I barely understood it, something about a valve being stuck and not allowing enough refrigerant through was the root cause of the issue…

Anyways, the root cause aside, this guy KNEW HVAC… it was clear. He understood every aspect of my AC and furnace within a few minutes of being in the basement. And that was a surreal moment, to realize I was in the presence of an absolute expert - just not in anything I could remotely understand.

The Rest #

I don’t know what more there is to reflect… I don’t want to make something all about how I’m actually an expert in my own fields… because that’s not always true… but it’s also not never true…

So without arguing myself into oblivion I just want to throw out there that you should try to be an expert in what you do - and you might even encourage someone simply by being that expert… I think I’m often afraid I’m going to sound arrogant or something when explaining a concept in my field, and maybe it’s dependent on the audience, but listening to this guy just effortlessly step through the mechanics of my air-con problem was an enjoyable experience.

Find joy?

As a final attempt to make this a blog post - a final comment might be that it’s ok to find joy in something, especially if you become an expert in it, and that expertise might itself bring joy to someone else

Autism ADHD and the Doshas

2025-06-05T07:28:42Z

Introduction

I was recently diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 and ADHD, the inattentive type. I suppose, AuDHD for short. There are many reasons why I now have this official label of AuDHD, not that I was hoping for it, but due to a childhood behavioral disorder diagnosis and a desire to understand myself better, I decided to start considering that something in my childhood issue was misunderstood.

Note

But what started as simply considering some new diagnosis turned into a larger worldview shift when it comes to medicine and how we treat people for things we label disorderly.

Personal History #

A brief history lesson for context is that I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but not specifically type 1 or type 2. This diagnosis came about two times, once in my late childhood and again when I was 19. The diagnosis never made a ton of sense to me, but it seemed to almost match some of the things that my mom specifically was concerned about. There is another point for later on, which is that part of me wanted to be bipolar. I felt like it would be cool, but also it made me special.

bias

There’s no way that this desire didn’t turn into massive confirmation bias in getting this diagnosis as a kid and as a late teenager.

Once I started kind of thinking for myself a little bit - the bipolar diagnosis was one of my first spiritual challenges in understanding the brokenness of humanity.

The Challenge #

I believe in an orderly God, the creator of all things, who makes things both soundly and reasonable. Mental health is complex because it’s not like a broken arm, throw a cast on, and wait… Taking medicine felt almost antithetical to my worldview because I had a deep desire to see something miraculous. So, I backed myself into this odd worldview where I taking medicine must be fighting something that God wants to do in me with this brokenness. I felt like I was trying to do something maybe God didn’t want me to do, but was also wrestling with “but if something’s really wrong (which is possible because we live in a broken world) God gifts these doctors to come up with this medicine to help heal some of the brokenness.”

So I had these two competing ideas that were very loud in my head.

Note

In hindsight, an AuDHD diagnosis somewhat explains this behavior of mine. Wherein I wanted to be sick, and I had these competing ideas about the character of God.

So I’ve been more at less at peace with the idea that behavior disorders are apart of life for many people - and that medical treatment can be helpful.

Reflection

As I’ve gotten older and reflected on being bi-polar I couldn’t help but notice that hardly any part of the atypical pieces of myself matched up with bi-polar at all… Around the time I started to notice this my wife began wondering if I had something more akin to ADD. We didn’t really understand what that meant, or how it has changed over the years, or any of it - but based on some initial stereotypes ADHD began to become a common thing we discussed After some more legitimate research we both became pretty convinced that I was measurably on the Autism Spectrum and that certainly there were ADHD tendencies that negatively affected my life. I talked with my doctor and after several psych evaluations it turns out that my self-diagnosis was consistent with the conclusion of the evaluation. So if this was the end then my thought would’ve been

I'm not bi-polar

ok I’m not bi-polar, I’m AuDHD - there’s some coping mechanisms I can learn now and things make sense.

However, this wasn’t the end for me - getting diagnosed with AuDHD didn’t/hasn’t changed my life - it’s given me a framework by which I can understand myself in the context of our Western world better. But there’s a lot more here and as we look ahead, I want to be clear that I take no special pride in the AuDHD label… I’ll talk about myself with this label as a way of communicating with people who understand it, but the main point of this post will be in how understanding myself as a human being more holistically led to a different point of view of what the West calls neurodivergencies.

Treatment

I have been taking a light mood stabilizer for a while now per my former bi-polar diagnosis. There’s no doubt that it is coincidentally a helpful tool in coping with some debilitating aspects of AuDHD but the more I reflect the more I want to get away from it - personally.

I’m not sure what to think about treatment overall… I recognize that some folks are much more negatively affected by the tendencies we label as neurodivergent and that there are meaningful changes that can come from modern western medicine. However, there’s also old/ancient and natural solutions to many problems that I think are often overlooked

Simple doesn't mean easy

often exercise and cleaner eating can treat depression and anxiety for example. That doesn’t mean the anxiety wasn’t significant or legitimate, but it’s not like a pharmaceutical is the only option for treating something legitimate.

The other side

I also see that obviously there are severe cases of Autism - I think we should better understand where that comes from, and I wouldn’t ever claim that just drinking some tea and figuring out an exercise regime can cure something that is fully debilitating.

Las drogas

I think where I have the biggest issues with “treatment” is that taking mental health medication is a fad today… it doesn’t mean it’s not helpful, but our culture glorifies taking drugs as long as they come from a pharmaceutical company. I’ve personally come across this as I’ve shared my struggles and official AuDHD diagnosis with some friends - and it’s clear that some of them give these ads and medicines every ounce of their faith and that’s frankly concerning in its own way

Two Systems | East v West #

I’ve become critical of the modern Western perspective on neurodivergence and mental/behavioral health. It’s primarily that I’d be much less skeptical if it wasn’t for all the money… I notice patterns as well that I don’t find comforting - such as the focus on symptoms and isolated treatment of them or groups of symptoms rather than looking at a human-being as an entire organism or system. I know that certain pieces of a system can break, and sometimes treating those isolated breakages is the way to go - but also we (in the West) seem to avoid thinking about ourselves as 1 whole thing… There’s language that younger people use about their “whole self” but honestly I only see them talk about sexuality as if that defined everything about a person… that’s 100% not what I have in mind here…

Every one of my psychiatric appointments up through the last few years had never sought to get me off my medication… It got me thinking the goal was for me to be a customer for life. I don’t like being reliant on anything external and the fact that there was never a goal for me to be self-sufficient in my own health became troubling.

My philosophical issues arising with our modern medical systems have led me to becoming more open to Eastern medicine and as I explore how those systems have historically analyzed patterns and attributed those patterns to different ways of thinking, I think the pattern-analysis and subsequent recommendations can be extremely valuable. This is where adaptogens come in for me.

Lifestyle Changes #

I’d heard of Lion’s Mane via some Joe Rogan clips (have become a bigger and bigger fan of him over the last few years), and then got a subscription to FourSigmatic which is a coffee company that offers mushroom-replacement and supplements for coffee and tea basically. So I’m drinking coffee with Lion’s Mane, and have added a few other mushroom tinctures with Reishi and Chaga specifically, as well as Eleuthero and Turkey Tail as a means of introducing adaptogens into my routine and maybe it’s confirmation bias again, but as I’ve gone on and off the Lion’s Mane specifically I notice a significant difference in my cognitive function… When I’m diligent about putting the Lion’s Mane tincture into my coffee in the morning it is like unlocking on-demand hyper-focus some mornings…

Wrapping It Up

This post is mostly a stream-of-consciousness as I reflect on the atpypical nature of much of my life, how that fits into the modern Western discourse of mental health, and how the Western perspective might end up not being a helpful lens through which to process these behavioral issues.

With sufficient context, a faithful summary of my journey is that I don’t mind being labeled as AuDHD - there’s plenty that’s helpful with it. However if an Ayuverdic Shaman “diagnosed” me as a person whose elemental make up was primarily earthy and watery with an odd flare of fire, and that elemental make-up is what explains some of my tendencies (needing to know the correct answer, tunnel-vision and hyper-focus, literal understanding of the world, etc.) then I want to understand that with the same amount of “weight” as being AuDHD..

TLDR

At the end of the day there’s multiple ways to label people based on observation - either at the micro or macro levels of humanity. I don’t think that the Western systems of medicine get everything right, and the Eastern models have been around for thousands more years so I want to treat them with an equal amount of respect and validity

I Hate Corporate America

2025-05-27T08:11:52Z

Rant

The longer I’m in corporate America - and the longer I homelab and listen to podcasts - a cliché truth becomes more and more apparent to me, which is a lot of people are full of bullshit, and a lot of initiatives are built on nothing, and a lot of people feel the need to be/feel important.

Danger

That makes it hard to do things and find things that are actually valuable.

So, for this rant to be healthy I suppose I’ll muse for a little while on finding things of value in these contexts that suck.

I want to be thankful for finding things that matter when I’m forced to participate in contexts that I think are stupid.

Redemption

So what good has come? The first is financial blessing - I hate that money runs the worls, but God has given me a skill-set where the work does afford a moderately comfortable life.

I’ve met some good friends of faith through the machine that is corporate America, and the friendships are a source of regular encouragement via The Boys Chat.

I’ve also met a couple friends of tech (so to speak) and through those friendships I’ve discovered fun hobbies which have affected my family life and home in very positive ways.

Ending the rant

There can be good redeeming things anywhere, and it’s kind of a meme to hate corporate America this much, but I really do and I look forward to Heaven coming to Earth fully. Until then, gratitude is a good daily practice

A New Perspective on Being God’s Child

2025-05-18T07:15:06Z

Intro #

I was in men’s group the other day, and one of the things that came up almost inevitably is a debate between God’s sovereignty and predestination, and then an idea of free will. I have been a part of these conversations for years - I’ve been in hundreds of them certainly, and they all go in a very similar direction. Almost irrespective of the theological prowess or training of the group of people I’m in the unspoken goal always is the same… to find a hard and fast line between the 2 things or to find some comfortable verbiage for the tension

My Anecdotal Experience With Other Believers #

People with no real theological background have very simple ideas and understandings of free will and God’s sovereignty. They typically equate God’s sovereignty with “He willed everything to be, and so you don’t actually have any real choices.” Then they think that because God has ultimate sovereignty, but they have free will, they can somehow contradict God’s will, but then they don’t understand that that is a violation of the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. So those conversations are typically hard to sit through, and my historical thought on that, ever since I believe I’ve come to a pretty mature position on the matter, has been that in the Hebrew mind, these things aren’t at odds, and we create the division with our Western ideals on what it means to make choices, and what it means to be free.

Freedom #

As a quick parenthetical remark on that - freedom is not doing whatever you want. True freedom is living in accordance with your creation, bound by the things that create order, because it is within those boundaries that you were designed to live - and thus the life you live within the boundaries is the best the life could be… Freedom isn’t the ultimate goal, it’s a byproduct of living in accordance with our design. When you break those boundaries though - then life is scary, and you are not free but rather a slave to the environment you made for yourself - an environment not designed for you because you designed it for yourself, it isn’t what the Maker made for you

Freedom - Child’s Play #

An easy example is kids on a playground. If you give a bunch of little kids a playground with nice high fences, and you tell them to do whatever they want in the playground, they’ll have a great time. But if you take all the fences away from that playground, maybe even move it out further away from the school, kids tend to feel a lot less safe. Because now, not only can they just wander as far away from it as they please, perhaps by accident, but dangers can now enter their playground… The fences gave them the freedom to enjoy the life appropriate for them.

Back To the Debate #

Returning to the sovereignty and free will discussion… With no academic, theological, or honestly even critical thinking applied, we have this very silly juxtaposition of sovereignty - as if it means you can’t make choices - and free will as if God’s sovereignty could be usurped by us. However, in groups where we have more theological training present, we really just have the same (directionally speaking - the same) conversation, with a larger vocabulary. Now we have words like “agency”, and “scope of choice”, things that kind of seek to explain away the tension by introducing new dimension or element of abstraction to the argument.

At the end of the day, we’re now just cutting the cake into smaller pieces. We’re just filling in some of the gaps that we can see. There’s still nuance. There’s still the Western influence of needing to label everything. There’s still, in my opinion, the ancient truth that in the Hebrew mind, Yahweh’s sovereignty and the human’s choice to live their life are not at odds with each other.

A New Perspective #

But here’s a thought I started to formulate just recently…

a recent thought

Even for a PhD in theological studies or in theology or an expert in church history or church fathers or whatever - for somebody today to think that we can define these terms in a totally correct and understandable way is another manifestation of the PEAK ARROGANCE of the West (Blog on Western v Eastern medicine in the works)

I don’t mean to claim here that I have the right understanding of sovereignty and free will. But Paul has some choice words for believers who love quarreling and debates, and he calls them spiritual children who aren’t ready for real food.

2 Timothy 2:23-24

23 But reject foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they breed quarrels. 24 The Lord’s slave must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient,

1 Corinthians 3

1For my part, brothers and sisters, I was not able to speak to you as spiritual people but as people of the flesh, as babies in Christ.a 2I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it. In fact, you are still not ready, 3because you are still worldly. For since there is envya and strifea b among you, are you not worldly and behaving like mere humans? 4For whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,”a

It's you

I’ve often heard the Corinthian church used as an example of a bad place to be - and no doubt it was. But modern American Christianity may be much closer to Corinth than Thessolinca as far as maturity and Christ-like living goes.

He says things like “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food, since you were not yet ready for it” I used to think that the “real food” was these theological debates, that you learn more about the Bible, you learn more about humanity, and then you can have these more in-depth conversations. But I think the real wisdom is easly seen with a metaphor

Who’s the child here? #

I have two daughters in different developmental stages, and so we have 3 characters… There’s my young daughter, my older daughter, and me. Right away, I think we often talk about knowing God in this kind of a term where, you know, I’m his child and I have children. So there’s a parent-child relationship. And then in the God-human relationship, I understand my position better now as a parent of real children, of humans, which helps me understand my position as a child of God.

!!! failure "" I don’t think we take that very seriously.

Success

I think use this more as comforting language rather than a humbling truth - I’m a child of God But really, I think the TLDR is that even the most highly trained theological individual - that person is not a grown-up in the eyes of God. He or she is still a child, and our understanding is still limited to what a child can understand.

Let’s continue with the metaphor…

You could ask either one of my daughters if they know me, and of course they would both say yes, and they know me to different degrees. Perhaps because the older one knows more about me - does that mean that she knows me better than the younger? I think it would be silly to say yes. Both of my kids know me to the fullest capacity that they can know me. So what about love? Do they both love me? And do I love them? Of course. And do I show my love to both of them in the same ways? Of course not. Not only are they unique, but they’re at different stages in life…

For example - I don’t exercise the same amount of discipline towards my youngest because she’s not ready for it - it’s not reasonable to expect the same things of her as our older daughter. Speaking of her - she absolutely is ready for some more discipline and for some higher expectations, and so I will train her up in the ways that she is mature enough to understand. Now, does that mean I love my younger daughter less, or does it mean I love my older daughter more? No. It means I’m loving them in a way that is appropriate for where they are at developmentally, for their better good. So that they grow up to be ordered, to be competent, to be self-controlled, and to not grow up to be wild adults with no regard for boundaries and rules.

So to be specific about the metaphor and the example I just laid out: I don’t want my children to ever hurt or suffer, but I also know that suffering is required for learning and for them to grow to be mature individuals. I know how to control some of the inevitable suffering a child must endure, especially if it’s in the form of discipline, for my children so they are safe, protected, loved, but also corrected and molded into competent human beings.

The Kicker #

Now would it be appropriate for my older daughter (who understands that suffering is required for learning) would it be appropriate for her to look at my younger daughter and tell her, “dad wants you to suffer”? That’s tough, isn’t it… Because she’s not really lying, but more importantly she’s also not telling anything close to the whole truth and she is also not talking to somebody who is capable of understanding the nuances of that truth.

In the eyes of God, I’m still a five-year-old.

And for me as a five-year-old boy in the eyes of the Lord, to try and explain things that I think I understand or that I understand to the best capability that a five-year-old can - If I go try to teach a three-year-old things about God in ways that they can’t understand, I am not loving that other person and I’m not even loving God very well. I’m just stuck in my own arrogance of understanding, thinking that I now get it because I’ve come to my own realization.

I recognize there’s a little irony now in writing this post because I’m saying I think I kind of understand that I don’t/can’t understand the sovereignty and free will relationship. I wouldn’t say I can explain that away, but I think I understand who I am better in the eyes of the Lord and what I could reasonably expect to understand from an academic standpoint.

So What? #

The lesson for me, and for my community of faith - is to calm down about the debates…. They’re fun over a drink and cigars, but when boots are on the ground we need to remember that the Bible has information that we need to know, it doesn’t have all the information that we want to know - and the American Church must drop its arrogant need to explain away every mystery and instead hold fast to the God of those mysteries.

Reflection - Wisdom in Relationships

2024-10-12T05:40:11Z

This morning I finally felt some motivation for a short Bible Project video. The app is great (💯 would recommend) and gives me daily reminders that are unobtrusive.

The passage is Matthew 7:1-2

that you judge, you will be judged.

And with the measure that you measure, it will be measured to you. ```

There are some personal things going on for me as I wrestle and work through an
AuDHD diagnosis and there's a lot for me having grown up as a (almost
certainly) undiagnosed mild-autistic. These 2 verses are in a larger section of
Scripture called "The Sermon on the Mount", Jesus starts it by basically saying
he'll summarize the Law and Prophets in Matthew 5, then concludes it in Matthew
7 by saying he summed them up with what we call the Golden Rule - `do unto
others as you would have them do unto you` is how my Souther Baptist Grandma
used to say it.

I've grown up into knowing it's simply silly to expect non-Christians to live
Biblically - I do not understand the judgement some Christians throw at
non-believers for things like cohabitation or getting drunk... It's literally
what I would do without Jesus guiding my lie. However I've always felt a pretty
unreasonable responsibility to point out where Christians are living by double
standards. Jesus addresses this with another commonly known question - "Why do
you take the spec our of your brother's eye but ignore the log in your own
eye?". I'm very personally aware, almost to a hyper degree, but I definitely
don't have perfect-awaremenss, and I don't know if I'm losing zeal as I get
older or actually growing into wisdom but I am sliding more and more into a
position of just not worrying about what other people are doing. As long as my
family is safe I'm basically a full-blown libertarian when it comes to people
living their lives.

The BP message this morning was just great confirmation that this is
directionally correct, at least right now for me. I spent a lot of time as a
kid worrying about other Christians living appropriately (this was partly
driven by needing older Christians to help me live appropriately and so I felt
responsiblity to help provide that environment for myself... combination of
God's grace and undiagnosed AuDHD methinks). Now as an adult I spend most of my
time thanking Jesus for saving me from myself and I simply trust that he will
save who he saves. Because that's not up to me I can focus on what I can manage
- my own life and family.