Book Audio Coming Soon!

Our life with Christ and our faith journey is anything but safe except at its very end. Life contains unending uncertainties. At times, we are met with an avalanche of surprise circumstances, unplanned life events, and moments of shock and awe, all surrounded by seemingly too few moments of calm. Yet through it all, we are immersed in God’s love. Even while Paul wrote Ephesians, he was imprisoned. From his jail cell, Paul remained the encourager to his church in Ephesus, willing them to better understand the extent of God’s love. In the moment, despite the urgency of our present challenge, our relationship with God’s love cannot be measured. Our strength to endure and resilience to overcome is not from ourselves but from Him. I recently met with parents whose son was injured in a head-on collision. With multiple broken bones and crippling trauma to his internal organs, he continues to fight for his life after 100 days. In prayer, God extends to me His assurance their son will be physically restored, and will be spiritually renewed with a better understanding of “...how wide and how long and how high and how deep His love is.” (Ephesians 3:18). As importantly, God affirms His presence through the entire trial, leaving us thankful, not “for” the experience but for our relationship with Christ “in” the experience. Surprise either drives us to the peaks of victory or plummets us to the valley’s depths. It delivers the highest and lowest highs physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It can spur the most significant experiences, life-altering innovations, and life-changing revelations of God’s presence. It can also shatter lives and rob us of our most treasured earthly possessions. I witness most people face the unknown with fear and hesitation. As a default, I treat the future as something to avoid or, at a minimum, to endure. Instead of racing into the mystery, I often choose a static and in-control life, embracing only certainties with identity, shape, and form. Living this way is a dormant life that advances with a steady plod, void of anything but the ‘norm!’ God wants more for us.