rejecting the second childhood

Hey Folks,

I'm in Australia this week and wanted to resend one of the most responded to emails I've sent to date.

Hope it spurs you on into deeper maturity.

Jon

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“A kind of second childhood falls on so many men.”

John Steinbeck

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback we hear in our world today is that we need to calm down.

I’m sure people have said this to you. People certainly say this to me. I tend to run pretty hard, but I also rest hard. I prioritize 7 hours of sleep a night, practice the sabbath, drink green juice, nap like a dog, and have deep rhythms of renewal, but that doesn’t seem to alleviate the concern. I have no desire to become a statistic, but I have even less desire to squander this season. Passion, once seen as a gift, seems to have become a threat.

I know the last few years have been hard for us all, and burnout is at an all-time high, but I think something else has snuck in amid the legitimate struggles and concerns.

A kind of selfish preservation. An exchange of sacrificial love for acceptable ease. I am concerned that we are in danger of trading burning out for not burning at all. We are swapping sustainability for mediocrity. I don’t believe in just “sucking it up” and “grinding it out” for its own sake, but I am worried that the hearts of many men have stopped pressing into the promises God has for them.

To be clear, if you are overwhelmed with anxiety or struggling with fatigue, by all means tend to it; that is the godly and wise thing to do. But it’s not the legitimate things I am worried about; it’s the temptation to shrink back because of society’s lowered expectations.

When he was in his sixties, John Steinbeck set out on a road trip around America to see what had become of the country he loved. He wasn’t seeking to recapture his youth or revisit the glory days; he simply wanted to push into what was stirring in his heart. A desire to find his place in a changing nation and rekindle the fading sense of adventure that grows dull in the hearts of men his age.

Then, the concerns began to roll in. Many thought the trip was too much, unnecessary, and a threat to his life. Why couldn’t he settle down with some smaller hobbies and a few little luxuries? He had earned, even deserved, to relax. He had nothing left to prove. His reply to these concerns was profound.

In Travels with Charley, the book documenting the trip, he writes,

“It happens to many men, and I think doctors have memorized the litany. It had happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, “Slow down. You’re not as young as you once were.” And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi-invalidism. In this, they are encouraged by wives and relatives, and it’s such a sweet trap. Who doesn’t like to be a center for concern? A kind of second childhood falls on so many men. They trade their violence for the promise of a small increase of life span. In effect, the head of the house becomes the youngest child.”

Fellas, do not retire from manhood. Do not fall back into a second childhood.

I am not for foolhardy bravado, but the sweet trap must be resisted. Hebrews 11 is called the Hall of Faith, not the Hall of Sustainability. We must press into the call of God on our lives. God has more for you than what is offered in the programs of the typical Western church.

His heart is for you to live from your heart. He wants you to step into the unknown, to the place of risk and faith. That can be as small as joining a new community of men, and as large as taking on a cause in your city. You can’t let everyone’s concern for you smother God’s call to you. Listen to His voice. It will be the one that calls you out of comfort, calls you to the cross, calls you to find life by losing yours.

Steinbeck goes on…

“And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted, pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy, and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage. My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby.”

What sort of men is our world inheriting today? How much fierceness have we surrendered for yardage? I am not trying to rage like a shadow-driven alpha male, but I think we need to begin to prioritize the voice of calling, not just the voice of concern. We need to assess whether or not the gifts of God within us are in flame or neglect.

Are there things you long for but never get to out of fear of being too intense?
Are you holding back passions for fear of being misunderstood?
Are you routing vision and drive through trivial things because they are socially acceptable?

Why not take a moment this week to get in touch with the deep desires of your heart? To see if you have buried any talents in the ground out of fear or concern.

If so, go dig them up.

Your community needs your story, gifts, wounds, passions, and heart to live. Your kids do. Your wife does.

Let’s refuse the second childhood together.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

Las Vegas, Uber drivers, and true greatness

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

Winston Churchill

“The greatest among you will be your servant.”

Jesus

A few weeks back, I was in Las Vegas for a brief layover on my way to the Wilderness Retreat. It happened to be the same week as a major UFC title fight. I have watched the UFC for 22 years now (alongside my wife).

Regardless of your opinion of the UFC, it’s a spectacle to behold. There are often controversies in the fights that get cleared up in the post-fight press conferences led by Dana White.

One of the most famous sports journalists in the MMA space is always given the first question by Dana. This journalist was early into the MMA scene and has earned a respected reputation for the way he reports. He has traveled the world covering fights and is an aspirational figure for those wanting to get into sports reporting.
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We needed an Uber from our hotel to the meeting point for our Wilderness trip. A group of dads and kids were gathering at a Starbucks for the 2-hour drive to St George in Utah. Much to my shock, when the Uber arrived, the driver was this famous journalist. After some initial discussion, confirming his identity, and talking about the UFC, I asked him about his decision to drive an Uber while going to report on the fights that night.

I was deeply moved by his response.

“I have a son who is 13 and he has his heart set on being a pilot. As good as sports reporting is and the opportunities it's given me, I want to make sure he has enough money to get the hours he needs in the air at a young age. So, instead of sitting at home and watching YouTube or Netflix, I get out and drive and put the money into an account for him to get time in the air. I want to support his dream and make sure the resources are there to make it happen.”

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During fight week in Vegas, all the attention goes to the fighters. The Headliners make all the money, seize the attention, and take the glory. Thousands of articles and opinions will be shared about who fought well, who belongs on the pound-for-pound list of best fighters, and who is the greatest in their weight class.

That weekend, two title fights were on the line. Neon billboards showed the fighters, and thousands travelled from around the world to watch them perform. For all intents and purposes, it was another week in the glory and greatness of the fight scene of Las Vegas.

Our culture is obsessed with this kind of greatness. We love winners, accomplishment, and recognition. We have opinions about how athletes perform and the legacy they leave. But it made me reflect on the illusion of greatness in our world today. Yes, there is something to acknowledge about an athlete’s skill and sacrifice. Yes, there is value in the economy created around a fight. But as I looked at the results of the fight when I got back from the trip, something else stood out to me. It was a different kind of greatness.

When we think of greatness in the world today, we often think about accomplishment, visibility, and recognition. This is not the same in the kingdom of God.
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According to Jesus, greatness is measured differently.

In the kingdom of God, greatness is defined as the sacrifice of self for the sake of others. In the world today, greatness often comes by sacrificing others for the sake of the self.

In Matthew 20:26-28 Jesus explains this.

“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

In the kingdom of God, Jesus defines greatness by what we give, not what we achieve.

This brought back two comments to my mind.

Ilia Topuria, the man who went on to win the vacant UFC title in the lead-up to the fight, talked about his motivation to win. He talked about being recognized in the street and people coming up to him and having photos taken with him. He talked about being known, loved, and celebrated in his country. It seems that he now has this.

But I could not help but think about the trip in the Uber and the man driving for his son. Most people won’t recognize him, and I didn’t ask for a photo with him when he dropped us off, but I believe his motivation to give to his son is another form of greatness—not the kind seen in screaming fans, billboards, and pound-for-pound lists, but on the ones that matter. The people close to him know his sacrifice for them, done out of love.
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Jesus doesn’t rebuke us for wanting greatness; He just redirects it. He directs us away from destructive ambition to holy ambition—ambition that elevates others, washes feet, and pays the price—the kind Jesus showed that still draws us to Him thousands of years later.

I remember talking to a young woman at a Praxis event years ago. While we were talking, she kept bringing up how great her Dad was. Intrigued, I asked her to explain what made him great.

“You have never heard of my Dad,” she said. “He hasn’t done anything that you would recognize, or anything that would get him attention. But he was always there. He sacrificed so much to be present in my life and provide for our family.”

Fellas, I want to exhort you to this kind of greatness—the sacrificial, behind-the-scenes, done-for-others kind of love—the kind that is overlooked by the masses but deeply valued by the company of heaven and those who need our love most.

The kind that drives an Uber behind the scenes, so that his son can ascend to greater heights.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. Reflect on these two versions of greatness: Biblical greatness is the sacrifice of self for the sake of others. Worldly greatness comes by sacrificing others for the sake of the self. Why is it so important to get this right in our hearts?

2. Where do you see ambition in your life influenced by the subtle desire to escape insignificance? How is this playing out?

3. Do you think it’s wrong to want to be great? How does Jesus address this in His teachings?

4. Who in your life sacrificed for you to be where you are today? What can you do to thank them this week?

5. What parts of your life are forming you into someone that can be trusted with power, safe with influence, and grounded in love?

stop judging influencers; you are one

“The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.”

John Quincy Adams

“Every man has an influence. He cannot touch a hand or speak a word without leaving a trace of himself.”

Henry Drummond

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word influencer?

Maybe it’s the Kardashians selling makeup online.
Maybe it’s a college kid on TikTok sharing failure memes for the likes.

More than likely, you don’t think about yourself in your everyday life as an influencer.

For the most part, we perceive our daily lives as inconsequential. What does driving to work, buying coffee, chatting with our neighbors, talking about the game, and completing tasks have to do with influence?

But every one of us exerts an influence far greater than we know.
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The word influencer wasn’t added to the dictionary until 2019, but the idea of influence has a long and important history. The word “influence” is derived from a Latin root meaning “to flow.” What we do in everyday life has far more of a profound impact on the lives around us than we are aware of. Who we are literally flows into the lives of others, whether we like it or not.

At our men’s retreats, we often see this in high definition: A father’s influence flows.

Sometimes, it flows in carelessness—words spoken without thought, spilling out and sinking deep into a son’s heart, leaving wounds that never fully heal, even after years.

Other times, it flows in strength—simple, intentional words spoken with love and clarity that build and bless. Those words, though small, can flow through a man’s life as a source of joy for decades.

Tommy Spaulding notes that in its most basic sense, “Influence means having a lasting effect on the character or behavior of another person.”

Every man is an influencer. But the compound effect of this over a lifetime is extraordinary.
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Imagine you are standing out in front of a huge stadium—something like Accor Stadium in Sydney or AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas (Home of the Dallas Cowboys). Inside are 80,000 people, all waiting for something to happen. It’s not a rugby or football game; it’s to acknowledge the influence you had in their lives.

This is not a fictional reality; it’s true for every one of us.

Jon Gordon said…

“A recent study showed that the average person will influence eighty thousand people in their lives, positively or negatively. That’s 1,025 people impacted per year, or 2.8 daily.

What will those 80,000 people say about your influence? What impact will you have had on them for good and bad?

Now, to be clear, this isn’t just about interactions, but about impact. We will interact with people we will not influence, but in every moment, we have the possibility of being the worst or best moment of another person’s day.

SHAKE SHACK AND THE RENTAL CAR

I had two memorable moments of influence on a recent trip.

The first one was a beautiful encounter that came out of nowhere. While renting a car in San Antonio, a woman asked me about the purpose of the rental. I told her I was hosting a retreat for men that helps heal the hearts so that they live with freedom, sacrifice, and love.

To my surprise, she teared up and said, “I wish my ex-husband could have come on one of your retreats. He left me with a couple of kids and never participated in their lives. I raised them as a single mom, working two jobs.”

She then took her phone out, showed me her kids, and beamed from ear to ear. I gave her an awkwardly long round of applause, some encouragement, and some money to take herself out for a night of celebration. I thanked her for the years of grinding it out, denying herself, and paying the price.

As I left, she thanked me for recognizing and celebrating her sacrifice and wished me luck working with the men. It was a small, dramatic kingdom moment on a regular day that had nothing to do with the reason for my trip, but a moment I believe both of us will remember. I will be in her 80,000-person crowd, and she will be in mine. Tears at a rental car booth and recognition of sacrifice may mean more than we know.

The second one is a somewhat shameful moment.

While returning through the airport, I wanted to grab Shake Shack. Shake Shack is a non-Christian version of Chick-fil-A, common grace in edible form.

But the customer service was awful. I mean, horrific.

Being familiar with Danny Meyer’s vision of hospitality from his book Setting the Table, I took it upon myself to highlight the gap between my customer experience and the vision of Shake Shack as a company. I gave a play-by-play critique of what went wrong and said it with a sarcastic tone. This was followed by an apathetic dismissal on the part of the employee that fueled my frustration. He put his AirPods in and walked away. It was probably for the best so that he did not hear what came out of my mouth next. I am pretty sure that I was not his customer highlight of the day.

2.8 people per day shuffle into the stadium that is the influence and impact of our lives. What are they walking in saying about how we made them feel?
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In Matthew 25, Jesus makes a startling claim. He ties the treatment of other people to divine encounters in disguise.

Whatever we do to the least of these, we do to Him. But what stands out to me in Matthew 25 is the shock and surprise of both the faithful and the wicked.

In verse 40, the righteous are told,

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

In verses 44-45, the wicked are told,

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Our lives are not waiting for some moment of greatness to go viral. Every moment has the power to be an interaction with Christ Himself and shape eternity.

2.8 times a day we are filling our stadiums with rebuke or reward. Divine encounters or missed opportunities.

Every man is an influencer, like it or not.
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Mel Lawrenze writes…

“Influence is not a weaker word for leadership. It is the hidden power behind leadership… Just think of the effect if massive numbers of believers woke up to their potential to exercise spiritual influence in the schools where they teach, in the boardrooms where they deliberate, in the clinics where they care for people’s health, in the churches where they serve, in the assemblies where they legislate, in the homes where they raise their children.”

So much of Jesus' influence on human history comes from His ordinary interactions with everyday people.

Touching a leper, healing a bleeding woman, welcoming sinners, eating with a tax collector—not dramatic in themselves, but they created entire categories of justice, inclusion, love, and hope throughout the ages, all through one-off encounters of love.

It's been said before, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Are you making people feel the compassion of Christ or the critique of a judgmental culture?
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I want to nudge the world towards the kingdom of heaven, one interaction at a time. When I die, I want a stadium full of people who are grateful for the love, attention, and care that I showed. I don’t want it half full of people I wounded, overlooked, or judged in the daily moments of my life.

Francis Schaeffer said it so well…

“With God there are no little people and no little places.”

I want to treat every person as Christ in disguise, with the possibility of the kingdom breaking in at any moment.

Here’s to filling a small section of our life stadium with love this week.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. What kind of emotional and spiritual atmosphere flows from you when you enter a room—peace or pressure, safety or uncertainty, indifference or intentionality?

2. Where have you recently used your influence to wound—through sarcasm, distance, harshness, or retreat—and what would it take to repair that damage with humility and love this week?

3. What would the person at the end of your most “insignificant” interaction today say about how you made them feel—noticed, rushed, dismissed, seen? Why?

4. What compliment, affirmation, or blessing did someone once give you that still fuels you today, and what would it look like to give that kind of blessing to someone else this week?

5. If Jesus said, “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me,” how might that reshape the way you talk to the barista, the janitor, or the guy at work who annoys you this week?

dying on the altar of good intentions

“Never underestimate the destructive power of good intentions.”

Karl Popper

“While we are postponing, life speeds by.”

Seneca

We all carry regret. It’s part of the human condition. But not all regrets weigh the same. Some regrets come from what we did: words we said in anger, decisions we rushed, relationships we damaged. But others, often the ones that haunt us the longest, come from what we didn’t do. The phone call we never made, the risks we didn’t take, or the silence we were afraid to break.

Psychologists Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec researched how people experience regret across time. They found that in the short term, people tend to regret their actions more—the wrong things they did. But over time, a dramatic shift occurs. In the long run, people overwhelmingly regret inaction more than their mistakes.

While sitting around a campfire last week on the Wilderness trip (mentioned in my previous email), we got into a discussion about risk. These kinds of trips into the wilderness tend to bring up topics like this. As we were sitting there, Steve, the founder, said a phrase that made me stop the conversation and have him repeat it again.

“So many people’s lives die on the altar of good intentions.”

No one sets out to live a mediocre life of compromise. Yet for so many, this is the case.

So many people’s dreams do die on the altar of good intentions.
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In Matthew 21:28–31, Jesus tells a simple but potent parable:

“There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said,

‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing.

He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus affirms that it is not the promise that counts, but the obedience. Words and appearances can be deceptive; it’s the actual doing of God's will that matters in the kingdom of God.

The Bible does not shy away from this theme.

The servant who buries his talent in Matthew 25:14–30 isn’t punished for wasting resources, but for doing nothing. He was paralyzed by fear and justified his inaction. Jesus calls him wicked, not for failing, but for refusing to risk.

In Ezekiel 33:31–32, God tells the prophet that His people “Come to hear your words… but they do not put them into practice.” He compares their listening to a love song—something beautiful, emotional, and ultimately useless.

The theme is painfully clear: God is not impressed by emotion, intention, or admiration. He’s after obedience.

Men in modern society live caught in the tension of the second son. They say, “Yes, I will,” but then they don’t. Their faith lives in good intentions, not transformed behavior.

What’s particularly dangerous is that this isn’t rebellion; it’s self-deception. Perhaps worse, we are surrounded by people in the modern church who will comfort us, encourage us, and have empathy for our disobedience.

Theologians often speak of the ordo salutis, the order of salvation. But in today’s society, I think we also have an ordo stagnationis, an order of spiritual stagnation.

If I were to map it out, it would look something like this:

Inspiration, then good intentions, then distraction, then delay, then rationalization, and eventually, resignation.

Many men live in this loop indefinitely. They’re always planning to follow through, just later.

But why does this happen despite our best intentions?

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DRIFT

Many men today carry dreams, desires, convictions, and visions that never make it out of their heads or journals. They mean to lead their families, reconcile relationships, and reorient their lives toward God. They say yes in their hearts, but the vineyard of obedience remains untouched.

What’s happening here isn’t just spiritual; it’s also psychological.

There’s a concept called the planning fallacy, the idea that we always think we’ll have more time, energy, and clarity tomorrow. So, we say yes today, but we count on “later” to follow through. Later is when we’ll get serious. Later is when we’ll really show up. Later is when we will lead our families, serve at church, open our hearts, and follow through.

But later keeps moving. It’s a mirage that’s always “just beyond today.”

It’s not that they don’t care. It’s that they’re exhausted, overstimulated, and unsure of how to move forward. They settle for good intentions, and over time, the soul pays the price.

Psychologists call this vicarious moral licensing, the idea that just thinking about doing the right thing gives us a false sense of moral credit. We say things like, “I meant to reach out,” or “I’ve been praying about that,” and we feel a small sense of relief, but it’s not obedience; it’s illusion.

When that gap between intention and action widens over years, it leads not just to regret but also to the quiet death of integrity, identity, and spiritual formation.

This isn’t just a psychological dynamic; it becomes a scheme of the enemy. Satan loves men who talk about obedience, value obedience, have massive vision for the future, but who never do anything about it. He doesn’t need to sabotage our plans when we never follow through with them anyway. This is more common than you think.

Our churches are filled with men who agree with sermons but avoid spiritual discipline. Our friend groups reward sarcasm more than seriousness, and our online lives are curated to give us the illusion of movement while our real lives remain untouched. The result? A generation of men with a backlog of commitments they never fulfilled.

So much of our faith is marked by over-promising and under-living.

Jesus never applauded good intentions.

He didn’t say, “Well said, good and faithful servant.” He said, “Well done.”

Jesus teaches that the kingdom is for those who go. Those who obey, even if we wrestle to do this at first. This is the scandal and beauty of the first son we read about in this parable. He starts in defiance but ends in repentance, and repentance, not promise, is the currency of heaven.
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So, how can we move from intention to transformation?

You don’t become the kind of person who prays by intending to pray. You become that person by praying. You don’t become generous by meaning to give. You become generous by giving.

So here are some practical ways to make sure your calling doesn’t die on the altar of good intentions.

Name the Lie
Brutally examine the story you’re telling yourself. “I’ll get to it later.” “It’s not the right time.” “God knows my heart.” These lies must be replaced by a fierce love for truth.

Close the Gap
Pick one area where your intention has not become action—just one—and go to the vineyard. Today. Text your friend. Confess the habit. Wake up and pray. Apologize. Lead the meeting. Turn off your phone. The smallest act of obedience begins to heal the rift.

Build Accountability Around Your Action, Not Just Your Ideals
Find a man who won’t let you die in theory. Make your accountability based on obedience, not intention. Fight for friends who will question your labor in the actual vineyard and who love you enough to refuse your excuses, yet walk with you on the path of obedience.

Repent of Romanticizing Conviction
Conviction is not transformation; only obedience leads to freedom. Repent for all the times you mistook emotion for change. Resist resonance with actual obedience.
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Jesus is not condemning the weak-willed; He’s calling them to wake up.

Notice what Jesus says: “Go and work today in the vineyard.”

Not tomorrow.
Not when life slows down.
Not when the kids are older.
Not when the calendar clears.
Today.

You don’t need a new vision; you need to act on the one you already have.
You don’t need to feel it more; you need to move.

Let’s not die with journals full of good intentions and lives that never leave the page.
Let’s not leave obedience in the realm of imagination.
Let’s not die on the altar of good intentions; let’s live in the freedom of obedience.

Imagine your future self, 10, 20, 30 years from now, looking back on this season of your life.

What will you regret?

Will it be a risk you took that didn’t work out? Or will it be the love you never expressed, the prayer you never prayed, the calling you never pursued, the son you never initiated?

You were made for more than ideas. So don’t die on the altar of good intentions.

Hope to see you in the vineyard.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. What is one thing you deeply value, but haven’t acted on in weeks or months? What excuses have you been making to justify this?

2. Where have you used spiritual language to delay obedience?

3. What lie do you need to name before it becomes your legacy? What is the root of this lie?

4. What part of you is quietly dying from the gap between who you say you are and what you actually do?

5. What is one act of obedience you can take this week, so you don’t die on the altar of good intentions?

stuck in Utah without my phone

“Yet, the news about Him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

Luke 5:15-16

“Nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

John Muir

Several months back, my wife and I moved into an apartment in the Theater District of Manhattan. At 478 square feet, we are strategically perched five blocks above Times Square and five blocks below Central Park. When you step outside, you enter the sciatic nerve of the city.

Learning to sleep was hard when we first moved in. Even with blackout curtains, the lights of Times Square found a way into our apartment. There is a kind of light pollution that is, in some ways, beautiful, but in other ways, it is a menace. For the first time in my life, and much to the mocking joy of my wife, I now wear a sleep mask at night.

The stimulation of living in Midtown is hard to describe. There is a visceral shock for people who visit, but I don’t see it anymore. I have become numb to it in many ways. Unbeknownst to my conscious self, numbness to stimulation is not good for the soul. I found my concentration beginning to wane. We all know the danger of being distracted on a smartphone, but living in Manhattan, where I do, is like being in a smartphone.

You probably feel this in some ways, too. We live in a world where our attention is under siege. The devices in our pockets, the ads on our screens, the pings and notifications, the pressure to respond to everything immediately—all of it demands our focus. Over time, it takes a toll. It’s not just our energy that gets depleted; it’s our ability to see clearly, think deeply, and love well.

I could feel this happening in my soul—imperceptibly at first, but acutely as of late. When I began to try to make sense of what was slowly forming me, I came across something that would reshape my life: Attention Restoration Theory.
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Back in the 1980s, two environmental psychologists, Stephen and Rachel Kaplan, noticed something fascinating. People who spent time in natural settings—forests, lakes, and parks—reported feeling mentally clearer, more focused, and emotionally refreshed. The Kaplans dug into this and developed a framework they called Attention Restoration Theory. You may have heard of forest bathing; it’s a version of this :)

The core idea is that our attention is a limited resource. When we use directed attention, we get tired. Reading, solving problems, working through conflict, filtering distractions—all of these require effort. If we don’t rest from that kind of attention, it breaks down. Prolonged overuse of directed attention leads to mental fatigue, which many of us now recognize as cognitive exhaustion.

Living in the heart of the city and pastoring people dealing with city life was slowly breaking my attention down. But the antidote, they propose, is not simply doing nothing; it’s engaging with environments that offer soft fascination, scenes or settings that draw our attention in gentle, non-taxing ways. It turns out that when your brain shifts into this mode, it begins to heal.
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I am sitting by a waterfall in Utah next to Zion National Park. For the last three days, I have been riding UTVs through some of the most beautiful countryside in America. I am with a group of Dads and Kids who have connected with the work we do with Primal Path and Forming Men. This trip is hosted by the folks at Wilderness Collective, and they have an important requirement for their trips: phones must be locked away the entire time.

It’s now the third day, and as I sit by this waterfall in the early morning, I am slowly becoming conscious of something. I am strangely aware of my surroundings. It’s kind of like the world is in high definition again. My brain feels like it has been reset. I am not distracted or reaching for my phone to take a picture. I am just present before God, reading His first book of creation with gratitude and wonder.

In his book The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter makes this same claim.

“A study out of The University of Michigan discovered that 20 minutes outside, three times a week, is the dose of nature that most efficiently dropped people’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol. The catch to that study, of course, was that the participants couldn’t take their phones outside with them."

Even small amounts of nature can make a difference. Just having plants in the office is a game-changer.

“One study, conducted across multiple offices with hundreds of workers—found the boost was about 15 percent more work completed. The workers also said they liked their jobs more.”

Easter makes the case that research shows the sweet spot of real healing for our brains is about three days.

Three days out in nature.
Three days out in the backcountry.
Three days with a waterfall nearby.

It’s called the “three-day effect,” and there is research to back it up. But there is a resonance in my own personal experience that has been a gift. God promises to restore our souls, but I am finding that this restoration includes our attention.
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According to Attention Restoration Theory, four characteristics make an environment restorative, and these are worth pondering, not just psychologically but spiritually.

Being Away
Restoration begins when we get psychological distance from the places and problems that drain us. It doesn’t always mean a trip to Utah. Sometimes “being away” is simply walking home slowly or sitting in a local park. Jesus often “withdrew to lonely places.” Sometimes, “away” is where we hear God best.

Fascination
The best kind of restoration happens when something gently holds our attention. Nature is masterful at this. You don’t need to analyze a mountain or make a to-do list about a river. You just watch and wonder. This is soft fascination, and it is the opposite of doomscrolling. It’s what happens when we remember that life isn’t just about utility but beauty.

Extent
A restorative space needs to feel immersive and whole. That doesn’t mean it has to be big, but it has to feel like a world you can enter. Even adults need a Narnia sometimes. Central Park has become this for me. The Psalms often speak of creation as a kind of temple, a vast and holy space in which God’s presence can be encountered. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Creation has depth, layers, and meaning if we’re willing to slow down.

Compatibility
The setting must match your intent. In other words, you can’t go on a hike while checking your email and expect to feel refreshed. Restoration requires alignment between your environment and your purpose. Jesus didn’t just withdraw into nature; He went there to be with His Father. There is no value in retreating into distraction.

These categories align remarkably well with biblical anthropology. We are finite creatures in need of rest. We are aesthetic beings drawn to beauty. We are covenantal beings made to live in ordered, meaningful worlds. And we are teleological beings whose activities must be directed toward the proper ends.
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What does all this have to do with following Jesus? Everything.

Because attention is deeply spiritual. What we give our attention to shapes our hearts.

In the Gospels, one of the most remarkable things about Jesus is how present He is. He is not hurried or fragmented. He pays attention to people in pain, to beauty, and to the Spirit.

I don’t think that’s accidental. I think Jesus lived with an inner rhythm of restoration. He moved from noise to solitude, from pressure to prayer, from distraction to delight.

That pattern is still available to us.

The beauty of A.R.T. is that it gives us a practical, research-backed way to return to this kind of life. It tells us that restoration isn’t just possible; it’s natural. It was built into the world by a Creator who knew we would need it.

Where then, can we begin?

First, we must recognize that attention is a form of love. What we choose to attend to reveals what we value. If we never attend to God, it is not because we lack time but because our loves are misdirected.

Second, we must cultivate habits of attentiveness. This includes practical things like:

• Scheduling walks without our phones

• Creating daily rhythms of silence

• Observing the beauty of the world around us

• Practicing Sabbath not as legalism but as liberation

• Getting to Central Park as often as possible if you live in the city :)

Third, we must see restoration not as an end in itself but as preparation for mission. The purpose of healing attention is not personal tranquility but spiritual attentiveness, so that we may hear the still, small voice and follow Christ faithfully in a broken and bleeding world.
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I have started walking the five blocks north to Central Park in the mornings. It may not seem like much, but in some small way, it helps me remember who I truly am—not a producer, not a consumer, but an image-bearer. I am a creature of dust and breath, made to behold, wonder, and love.

Estee Zandee has this beautiful prayer that I find rising in my heart.

"At Your least, You are the silence in my soul.
At my most, I am the sound of Your Word in the world."

That, in the end, is what we truly long for. Not merely to think clearly, but to live rightly. Not merely to be focused, but to be formed into the likeness of Christ, whose attentive love sent Him into this distracted world.

Hoping to bump into you in Central Park one of these days.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. How have you slowly gotten used to a level of noise, busyness, and distraction that once felt too much, and how has that made it more difficult for you to want God, hear Him clearly, or enjoy His presence?

2. If what we pay attention to shows what we love, what does your attention right now say about what matters most to you, and what would need to change for your attention to be shaped more by the kingdom and not the world?

3. If Jesus made time to get away and pray even when things were growing and busy, what does your resistance to rest and retreat reveal about how you think about success, pressure, and what makes your life valuable

4. Where in your closest relationships, or even your own heart, have you missed something important, not because you weren’t physically there, but because you weren’t fully paying attention?

5. What habits in your life right now are helping you give your attention to God, and which ones pull your attention away from Him, even if they seem small or normal?

practicing the resurrection

"That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.”

Philippians 3:10

“In many respects, I find an unresurrected Jesus easier to accept. Easter makes Him dangerous. Because of Easter, I have to listen to His extravagant claims and can no longer pick and choose from His sayings. Moreover, Easter means He must be loose out there somewhere.”

Philip Yancey

At this time of the year, the wonder of Easter is far behind us.

Most churches are well into their summer sermon series, and most believers are seeking respite in the summer months from the unsustainable pace kept in other seasons. The resurrection we celebrated months ago seems to have faded into the background.

We know Christ is risen from the dead, that we have eternal life, and that God is moving in the world through His Spirit, but we somehow settle back into life as normal. The burdens and boredom relegate the resurrection to a special, not regular part of our lives.

Why does this keep happening? A dead man rising again in the middle of human history to redeem us all should have a more lasting effect on us than that.
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In his book, Living the Resurrection, Eugene Peterson notes, “The resurrection of Jesus is the action at the core of all Christian spiritual formation.” Easter is not some peripheral event; it’s the central event of every day of every year of the Christian life. Peterson goes on to argue that we are called to practice the resurrection. Not in the sense that we try or audition to do life in a world where Jesus is alive, but in the sense that we live in partnership with Him and live from that life in all we do. He says…

“The resurrection life is a practice. It's not something we practice like practicing musical scales or practicing our golf swing. It is practice in the more inclusive sense in which we say a physician has a practice, work that defines both his or her character and work day.”

Paul reminds us in Ephesians 2:5-6 that "God made us alive together with Christ, and raised us up with him and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus."

Jesus wasn’t just raised for us, we are raised with Him. If we are united with Him, that resurrection life is ours.

When we believe that Jesus is alive, anything is possible.
When we believe Jesus is alive, the kingdom of God is available.
When we believe Jesus is alive, new creation is inevitable.

I wonder how life would be different if we began to practice resurrection each day, instead of celebrating it once a year.
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In the spring of 1799, during the Napoleonic Wars, the small Austrian town of Feldkirch stood on the brink of disaster. Nestled near the border of Switzerland and Austria, Feldkirch was of strategic importance. Word had spread rapidly among the townspeople that Napoleon Bonaparte's forces, having swept across much of Europe, were now ready to descend on their peaceful valley. His troops had been spotted on the surrounding hills, and fear swept through the community.

The town leaders, stunned by the prospect of facing Napoleon’s battle-hardened army, arranged an emergency council. Could they mount any sort of defense? They had neither the manpower nor the military resources. Should they resist, beg for mercy, or raise the white flag in defeat?

That day, however, was not just any day, it was Easter Sunday.

Easter is the day we Christians declare the resurrection of Jesus Christ, His triumph of life over death and hope over despair. The local Lutheran pastor, a humble and godly man known for his conviction and faith, stood before the frightened council and addressed them:

“Friends,” he said, “we have been relying on our own strength, and it has brought us fear and uncertainty. But today is the day of our Lord’s resurrection. It is a day of victory. Let us do what we would do on any Easter Sunday. Let us ring the church bells, hold our worship services as usual, and place the fate of our town in God's hands. We know our weakness, but not His power to deliver.”

Despite the imminent threat, the council agreed. That morning, as the sun rose over the Alps, the church bells of Feldkirch rang out joyfully, sounding through the valley.

To the French forces stationed on the heights above the town, the sound was unexpected and disorienting. They had anticipated a frightened village ready to surrender. But the defiant bells suggested something else entirely: reinforcements must have arrived during the night, perhaps a detachment of the Austrian Imperial Army.

Believing they had lost the element of surprise and would now face stiff resistance, the French generals ordered a retreat. By the time the worship service had concluded, the enemy forces had broken camp and vanished from the hills.
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Satan is playing an intimidation game with us all. He wants us to believe that we are powerless and left to deal with our sin and brokenness on our own. But when we begin to live out of the resurrection power within us, begin to practiceresurrection as a way of life, we can see the work of God within us begin to move through us, bringing life and hope through the challenges and heartache we face. 

I want to urge you to sound the bells of resurrection life with all of your might today regardless of what you are facing in the moment. Jesus came so that we can live fearless and free.

Hebrews 2:14-15 declares:

“Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

You are going to live forever because Christ has been raised.
You are going to rule and reign as a king and a priest in a new heaven and new earth.
You are going to see Christ face to face and all of our suffering will melt away in joy.

You are not random particles, merged by chance, with a flickering moment of consciousness, doomed to eternal nothingness. You are in a story where you are wanted, chosen, redeemed, gifted, with a glorious destiny in front of you.

I don’t want to celebrate the resurrection one day of the year and then grind out the rest of my days with exhaustion, obligation, and fear. I want to live the resurrection everyday to show the world that the life of Christ is present, available and beautiful. I want to be a parable in a culture of death that life is here, and that life can be yours.

Paul reminds us in Romans 8:1 that this, in fact, is the truest reality of all. “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

Lets those words sink in.

The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead DWELLS IN YOU.

Not the spirit of fear.
Not the spirit of rejection.
Not the spirit of anxiety, apathy, or despair.
The Spirit of resurrection life.

Here’s to living like men who have been raised from the dead with nothing to fear.

Hoping you bump into the dangerous Jesus who is alive out there this week.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. In what areas of life have I slipped back into a ‘post-Easter amnesia,’ living as if death still reigns and I have to handle life on my own?

2. Where have I made peace with a domesticated Jesus—distant, silent, and manageable—and how would my life be disrupted if I fully believed He is alive and active right now?

3. What old narratives of shame, failure, addiction, or fear still haunt me, and how would I live if I believed those stories died with Christ?

4. Where in my life have I settled for mere survival instead of resurrection power, and what vision might God want to resurrect in me?

5. What practices, rhythms, or moments could help me live each day as if resurrection were my present reality, not just a past miracle or future hope? How can the story of Jesus re-narrate my mundane and pain filled moments?

the war is where you are

“Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.”

Audre Lorde

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.”

1 Corinthians 16:13

I recently watched the movie Small Things Like These. It’s based on an award-winning short novel and centers around a man named Bill Furlong, a coal merchant in a small Irish town in the 1980s. He lives a quiet, simple life, delivering fuel, raising five daughters, and loving his wife. Nothing about his life seems courageous or heroic. He’s not chasing influence or greatness. He’s kind. He works hard. He’s content with his lot.

But one cold December day, while delivering coal to a convent-run girls’ school, he stumbles upon something horrifying: a teenage girl locked in a coal shed. Shivering, filthy, and forgotten.

She’s part of the Magdalene Laundries, a real, hidden system where “fallen” girls were imprisoned under the guise of religious reform. It was abuse wrapped in piety. Everyone in town knew: the priests, the politicians, the neighbors. They all looked the other way.

In the film, you watch an agonizing inner conflict take place in Furlong's heart. Everything around him tells him to simply go on with his life. Everyone around him tells him to leave it alone. Everyone believes the church knows best. Besides, it wasn’t his daughter, his job, his fight. He should shut the door, do his job, and drive away.

Yet, everything in him tells him this is the moment he must stand up as a man.

Somehow, he knows if he doesn’t act, a part of him will die. So, he goes back to help the girl and confront the system of abuse, not with fanfare, but with faithfulness. He decides to risk his reputation, disrupt the peace, and lose his place in the community.

The reason the movie resonated so deeply with me is that it touched on something we all know but often overlook. The things we are called to fight and fight for are right in front of us, buried under the normalcy of life in a broken world. Furlong didn’t get to choose the time, the arena, and the manner of the conflict, but he fought where he was standing. The battle was brought to him. He had to fight where he was.
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We often imagine courage as something reserved for grand, heroic moments. Men’s movements have conditioned us to believe that Braveheart, Gladiator, and John Wick moments await us. We fantasize about great evil being overcome in a great way by great good. But Hollywood sells dreams; it doesn’t build men in real life.

The real war will be won where you are. Most of the truly heroic stuff we will do in our lives will be invisible to others. The battles we face will likely take place in courageous obscurity.
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Caleb is a young man in our youth group. He has gotten a vision for God and a passion for the kingdom. When I visited our youth camp last summer, he was in the front row, on his face, seeking God. But Caleb goes to a Christian school where none of the other kids his age respond in worship during chapel. Some don’t even sing or worship at all. They attend, but they don’t express. It’s a formal culture, and the emphasis is on academics, not encounter. Caleb had gone along with this for a while. Passion at church, passive at school.

I bumped into Caleb's dad last week. It was a moving conversation. He shared that Caleb had an inner moment of resolve, recognizing that Jesus was worthy of passionate devotion in all environments, not just some. So he blocked everyone out, closed his eyes, lifted his hands, and began to worship in chapel. One kid standing alone, hands raised in the air, breaking his bottle before God. This may not seem like that big of a deal, but when you are in the formative years of your adolescence, and the only one taking a bold stand for God, it costs a lot. It requires real and biblical courage.

His dad shared how proud he was to attend a chapel and see his son as the only one with his hands raised, caught up in worship. A young man of passion in a sea of passivity. They won’t make a documentary about this, but it’s the development of this kind of conviction in the hearts of young men that our world is aching for today.
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The war is where you are, not where you wish it could be.
What is happening around you that God is calling you to do something about?

My friend Brett is a pastor in Canada. His kids were in the local high school when an outside group came in to teach a radical inclusion seminar on sexuality that normalized porn, was horrifically graphic, and wildly inappropriate. Rather than turning the other way, he did something. He drafted an open letter, confronted the school administration, and refused the sexual indoctrination of the kids. His post gained massive traction, stopped the indoctrination, and thousands of others thanked him for having the courage to bring to light what others had left in the dark.

He fought where he was, with what was needed in the moment. Maybe not dramatic, but actually heroic.
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Men, the war is where you are. It’s in your actual life.
What is happening in your marriage that you need to fight with or for?
What is happening in your kids’ lives that you need to fight with or for?
What’s happening with your friends that you need to fight with or for?
What’s happening in your church that you need to fight with or for?

Fighting on the screen is vicarious warfare.
Fighting for what’s in front of you is actual warfare.

The stakes are high where you are. The victory is more beautiful in real life than we have been led to believe. The hard-fought hallelujah will always mean more than the dramatic event in the distance.

You can’t fix everything in our world, but you can fight with your whole heart where you are.

With you in the pursuit to cultivate obscure courage in our actual lives.

Cheers.

Jon.

send the whole army

“The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don’t need you!’

And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you!’

On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable…”

1 Corinthians 12:21-22

“When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness.

Our seemingly separate lives become meaningful as we discover how truly necessary we are to each other.”

Margaret J. Wheatley

This past week, I had the honor of being at the Hebrides Revival Conference in Stornoway, Scotland. Those of you who know me know what an impact the 1949-52 revival had on my vision of ministry and awakening. It was a glorious time.

I witnessed a biblical miracle during my time there. A woman was dramatically healed when God moved in the room and removed a large lump from her chest.

I had the opportunity to sit with 98-year-old Pastor Willy MacLeod and his wife, Margaret, as they shared stories of what God did during the revival and still wants to do now.

I watched Pastor Donna MacNeil preach on resetting the plumbline around Jesus and a need for passion in the church again. God's power came down in a remarkable way.

However, one of the most important encounters occurred during the sermon from Matthew MacNeil on God being glorified among the generations…
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We live in a moment where everyone is talking about what God is doing among Gen Z, and in many ways, rightfully so.

The latest data coming out of the USA and the UK is beyond encouraging. Barna called Gen Z the most spiritually open generation they have researched. Young people are turning to Jesus in significant numbers, and University campuses are seeing public baptisms numbering in the thousands. This is the stuff we have been praying for—for years.

But Matthew pointed out that if we aren’t careful, in our excitement for what God is doing among the young, we will unintentionally send a message that other generations don’t matter. Young people have zeal, but they also lack life experience and a measure of wisdom. Middle-aged folks may not have the zeal of youth, but they have experience leading and organizing organizations, churches, and movements. Elderly folks may not be managing and leading as much anymore, but they have decades of wisdom and discernment to offer insight into what is happening now.

If we are not careful, we may only be sending a part of the army in the spiritual battle of our age, while signaling to older generations they are not needed for the fight.

Where battles are fierce, you don’t only send in new recruits.

You send the whole army.
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The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place in April and May of 1943. In the heart of Nazi-occupied Poland, in a corner of Warsaw walled off from the rest of the city, lived over 400,000 Jews crammed into the Warsaw Ghetto. Disease, starvation, and systematic deportations to extermination camps had decimated the population. By 1943, the remaining 60,000 residents had nothing left to lose. The Nazis planned a final liquidation of the ghetto. But the remaining Jewish community refused to go quietly to their deaths. The uprising didn’t begin with soldiers, but with students, tailors, mothers, rabbis, and orphans who made a commitment to resist. Everyone was needed.

On April 19, 1943, as German troops and SS units entered the ghetto for the final purge, they were met not with submission but with gunfire, Molotov cocktails, and barricades. The Jewish resistance had formed underground months earlier. Groups like the ZOB (Jewish Combat Organization) and ZZW (Jewish Military Union), armed with a handful of smuggled pistols, rifles, and homemade bombs, fought with impossible courage. They sent the whole of the community into battle.

Children served as messengers, slipping through sewer lines and ruins. Women served as lookouts, soldiers, nurses, and smugglers. Entire families were involved. When bullets ran out, they fought with knives. When buildings were burned down by the Germans, they fought from the rubble. For nearly a month, they held out against one of the most brutal armies in the world.

Though the uprising was eventually crushed, and most fighters either killed or captured, the Nazis had expected to finish the operation in three days. It took them nearly a month, and the psychological blow was immense. The sight of a community—men, women, and children—fighting together with nothing but courage and a few weapons became a symbol of defiant human dignity in the face of unspeakable evil. As one survivor noted: “We did not fight to save our lives. We fought to prove we were human. That we had a right to live, and a right to die with honor.”

When the battle is fierce, you don’t send a part of the army.
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The apostle John knew the power of all the generations fighting in the kingdom of God. He valued the whole army. He wrote:

I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.

I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father.

I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.

I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

(1 John 2:12-14)

We need the wisdom of the sages.
We need the heart of the mothers and fathers.
We need the zeal and passion of the young.

The next move of God will not just be a move among Gen Z, but a multigenerational move. We need the whole body of Christ for what God wants to do.

Sages, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters fighting together. This is what Jesus prayed in John 17. Not just across traditions, but across generations.

Wherever you are coming from, you are needed for the fight.

Let’s send the whole army into war.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

cracks...

“Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive the power of sin over him.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“He that follows me, shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

Jesus

I just got back from a men’s retreat that was as amazing and tragic as any I have attended.

There was confession, deep friendship, vision to live with integrity, and a resolve to walk with Jesus in the light. I wish everyone could experience a brotherhood like this.

But it was also tragic as story after story unfolded of friends whose lives had seemed to implode. Good men. Talented men. Formerly zealous men. Now undone by hidden compromises, emotional affairs, addictions, isolation, or moral exhaustion.

The more we processed, the more a sobering truth emerged: the things overlooked in our twenties and thirties have the power to destroy us in our forties and fifties.

As I prayed and processed these gut-wrenching stories, my mind kept returning to King David.David was called a man after God’s own heart. A warrior-poet. A military leader. A beloved king. Yet, when most people hear his name, what do they think of? Bathsheba.

CRACKS IN OUR CHARACTER

We are all familiar with the story of Bathsheba. In the time of the year when the kings went to war, David stayed back from battle. He walked on his rooftop and saw Bathsheba bathing. He had a palace full of wives, a house full of concubines, and a heart that loved God. But in that moment, all of it blurred into the background. He coveted another man’s wife, coerced her with his power, got her pregnant, and then murdered her husband to cover it up. Thinking he had gotten away with it, God sent Nathan to confront him about the sin that no earthly king could cover up.

How does something like this happen? How does something like this seemingly come out of nowhere? Turns out it didn’t. It wasn’t a one-off lapse. It was a crack in David's character that had been forming over decades, and it finally gave way when opportunity presented itself.
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We like to think that sin rushes into our lives suddenly. But more often than not, it’s the fruit of years of neglect. This was true for David. David had a thing for women from the very beginning, a trait that is evident throughout the story of his life.

It first appears in the request for the reward with Goliath. He asked multiple times about the reward for killing Goliath, including the promise of a royal wife (read the account for yourself). But he was not content with one wife. He married Michal, then Abigail, then Ahinoam, then Maacah, Haggith, Abital, and Eglah. By the time he got to Jerusalem, he took more wives, more concubines, and more sons. His household and his fatherhood were in a state of disarray.

This wasn’t just bad decision-making. It was a direct violation of God’s law. In Deuteronomy 17:17, God gave clear instructions for the kings:“He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray.” These commands weren’t optional or advisory; they were meant to guard the king’s heart from pride, compromise, and idolatry. The accumulation of wives in ancient royal culture was a sign of power, prestige, and political alliance, but God wanted His king to be different—set apart and holy.

David, despite being a man after God's own heart, ignored this. There is no record of confrontation about his polygamy early on. We have no record of his mighty men bringing this up. Maybe this was overlooked because of his military victories. Maybe because of his rich life of worship, or because he was the anointed one and a better king than Saul.

God have mercy on the leader whose success silences others from calling him out.

Yet every wife he added, every boundary he crossed, subtly reshaped his vision of leadership. It turned anointing into entitlement that resulted in disaster. David's story is a case study in how unchecked compromise accumulates over time to devastating effect. What begins as devotion turns into ambition. What starts as gratitude can morph into greed. What God forbids becomes something we justify in the name of success.

A DANGEROUS EQUATION

Here is an equation for failure that starts small but builds towards collapse.

Weakness + Neglect + Opportunity = Failure

David had weaknesses. So do we. That’s not the problem. The problem is when we neglect them, hide them, minimize them, or spiritualize them instead of confronting them. Over time, these neglected cracks create fault lines in our souls. And all it takes is one opportunity: a moment of discouragement alone, a season of stress, a DM at the wrong time, and the dam of accumulated compromise breaks.

FORGIVENESS AND CONSEQUENCES

Psalm 51 is a beautiful cry of repentance; it's worth meditating on slowly. But forgiveness doesn’t remove consequences. David’s family unraveled in violence and betrayal. Amnon assaulted his sister. Absalom murdered Amnon. Absalom slept with David’s concubines on the rooftop. And the baby born from David and Bathsheba’s union died.

As Hosea noted:sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.

David's life is a sobering reminder that you can be anointed and used by God and still lose everything if you refuse to deal with your shadow. What a tragic cost sin exacts when left on its own.

Marriages ending.
Children confused.
Churches wounded.
Legacies lost.

But the greatest tragedy? Most of it could have been prevented if someone had dealt with the cracks earlier.

GOING UPSTREAM ON LEADERSHIP FAILURE

If you’re reading this and feeling that inner jolt of conviction…good. That’s the mercy of God. He loves us too much to let us be controlled by our sin. Don’t listen to the lie that you will deal with secret sin later, or that this won’t affect anyone else, or that you can handle it on your own. Bring it into the light, ask for help, and be honest. Sin on its own won’t destroy your life—God can forgive and redeem—but hiding it and trying to manage it on your own will.

Friends, I am pleading with you.

Confess your cracks
Where are you vulnerable? Where are you hiding? What issues have you minimized for years? Find a brother or a counselor you can talk with. Say it out loud. Let the light in.

Strengthen your soul
Read the Word not just for content, but for power. Fast. Pray. Go to therapy. Get rid of whatever is numbing you.

Set up guardrails with teeth
Don’t wait for the opportunity to arise. Cut it off. Build rhythms of confession into your life. The best way to fight temptation is to avoid it.

Do not delay confession
So often in our competence,education, and skill, we think we can manage our sin behind the scenes. This is only delaying the inevitable.

Remember Proverbs 28:13:

“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.”

FIXING THE FOUNDATION

The world doesn’t need more successful men. It needs more holy men.

Men who are ruthlessly honest.
Men who confess before collapse.
Men who hate what others tolerate and fight towards the light.

David's story doesn't end in failure, but it is marked by regret. My prayer is that we would take his story as a warning and learn from his pain without having to experience it ourselves.

Let’s be the kind of men who confront the cracks before the collapse.

There is mercy waiting for you; take hold of it today.

With you and for you, with a heavy but hopeful heart.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. What is a secret sin you’ve carried, maybe in different forms, maybe buried under busyness or church involvement, that has quietly followed you for years, that you’ve never fully confessed?

2. Where have you convinced yourself that you're in control of a private struggle, when in reality it’s been controlling the tone and direction of your inner life? Would you be willing to confess that now?

3. What subtle cracks in your character (patterns of lust, pride, resentment, escapism, exaggeration, deceit) have you allowed to persist because your gifting, impact leadership, or people skills have seemed to cover them?

4. In what areas of your life have you learned to project light while privately walking in the shadows, hoping no one ever looks too closely?

5. Who have you actually trusted with the unedited version of yourself, and what parts of your heart have you intentionally kept off-limits, even to God’s healing presence?

_____________________

the gates of grief

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

C.S. Lewis

“A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief”

Isaiah 53

I am a cup-half-full kind of man.
I am a cup-overflows kind of man.
But there have been a few moments lately where my cup was bone dry.

These were moments of grief.

We don’t talk about grief in men’s spaces that often. We talk about men’s discipleship, men’s ministry, men’s wounds, addictions, porn, ambition, anger, and loneliness, but we often skip over grief.

Maybe it’s worth bringing grief back into the conversation.

The Bible uses over twenty words to describe grief, from loud wailing at death to quiet cries for help. Grief was not a stranger in redemptive history. There was liturgy and ritual, space and place to let the pain of the heart breathe. In modern society, where we have sentimentalized death and have no patience for ongoing pain; we hurriedly demand that grief be quiet and quick.

We're subtly taught to bypass our sorrow, to move efficiently into acceptance without fully acknowledging what we've lost. But this can have catastrophic consequences for the heart. When we neglect grief, we risk numbing our hearts, breeding bitterness, fostering addictions, and even dismantling our faith through disappointment and deconstruction. According to a study from Harvard Medical School in 2020, unprocessed grief can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, insomnia, and a weakened immune system.

The reason grief hits at a visceral level is because it’s about loss—soul-level loss. Grief, at its core, is love without a home. As Nicholas Wolterstorff notes, “Every lament is a love song.” To mourn openly and honestly is to affirm the depth of our love and the pain of its loss. Or as Stephen Wilson Jr puts it, “Grief is only love that’s got no place to go.” (Grief Is Only Love by Stephen Wilson Jr)

THE GATES OF GRIEF

Part of the pain of grief is that it seems to sabotage our lives and intrude without permission. Knowing where grief gets in can slightly soften its blow. That’s why I was grateful that a friend recommended The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller to me. I listened to it driving home from doing my father-in-law's funeral. It’s a book you must filter through, but one that contains incredible explanatory power for the grief we experience in our lives.

Weller identifies five gates through which grief enters our lives:

Gate 1: Everything we love, we will lose
Inevitable losses, such as family, friends, health, and dreams.

Gate 2: The places within us that haven't known love
Neglect, emotional wounds, and unfulfilled needs.

Gate 3: The sorrows of the world
Grief over injustice, violence, societal brokenness, sin, and alienation.

Gate 4: What we expected but didn't receive
Dreams that didn't materialize, careers, relationships, and achievements.

Gate 5: Generational and collective grief
Pain passed down generations, family trauma, and historical wounds.

I have since spent real time examining these gates of grief. They have helped me understand and categorize much of what I have experienced. If you are facing things you are struggling to name and identify, these could help. Perhaps your grief is hidden behind unfulfilled dreams or family wounds that silently shape your reactions and decisions. Maybe it's a childhood ache that you carry, a burden you bear quietly, isolated from those around you.

Research shows that being able to name and identify the source of our grief (affective labeling) is a step towards healing. In a conversation with my wife recently, where I was angry, this happened for me. She graciously said. “It may not be anger you are feeling, it may be grief. You may want to go on a grief journey with this to see if you are confusing the symptom with the cause.” That naming and framing transformed how I walked through the confusion and pain I was feeling.

GRIEVING WITH HOPE

Christians are not exempt from walking through grief. Even after a personal encounter with Jesus, a trip to heaven, and raising the dead, Paul still wrote, “We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself.”

Jesus wept, even though He knew He would raise Lazareth from the dead. He sweat drops of blood at the cost of the cross, even though He knew He would rise from the dead. To bypass grief, even though we know we will live in a future without “mourning, crying, or pain,” is not helpful. Grief gets us ready for the glory to be revealed.

That’s why Walter Brueggemann’s insights on the Psalms are so helpful. He suggests that the Psalms describe life through three movements.

1) Orientation (when all feels right and stable)
These psalms reflect stability, gratitude, and trust in God’s Word. They’re rooted in creation, Torah, and covenant faithfulness.

“Like a tree planted by streams of water…”(Psalm 1)
“What is man that you are mindful of him?”(Psalm 8)
“The heavens declare the glory of God…”(Psalm 19)
“Bless the Lord, O my soul…” (Psalm 103)

2) Disorientation (when grief and chaos upend our world)
These psalms are honest cries from the pit. They include lament, rage, grief, betrayal, sickness, and loss. Brueggemann argues that these are the most underused and urgently needed psalms in modern faith.

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?” (Psalm 13)
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22)
“Darkness is my closest friend.” (Psalm 88)
“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.” (Psalm 69)

3) Reorientation (when we discover new depths of faith and gratitude through God’s restoration)
These psalms emerge after disorientation, not a return to naïveté, but a deeper, tested gratitude. They reflect a hard-won joy, often after deliverance.

“You turned my mourning into dancing.”(Psalm 30)
“He lifted me out of the slimy pit.” (Psalm 40) 
“I love the Lord, for he heard my voice.”(Psalm 116)
“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.” (Psalm 126)

The Psalms teach us to lament without reserve, to wrestle honestly with God, and to wait patiently for renewal. If we dismiss the disorientation, we end up as shallow, scrambling, self-sufficient men. Paul wrote that the reason we encounter hardship is so that “…we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

It is God raising us, not our own self-effort or spiritual bypassing, that lets us grieve with hope.
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DISORIENTING DISCIPLESHIP

We so often talk about orientation and reorientation in the church, The goodness of God and the redemption of God. But if we want to live from whole hearts, and go deep with each other, we must do discipleship in the place of disorientation.

We must meet each other in the grief, pain, and heartache of life. When we “weep with those who weep,” we build a trust and depth, a communitas that can journey through the valley of the shadow of the table of death to a table in the presence of our enemies.

It is there we learn the participation with His sufferings, not just the power of His resurrection. A participation then enables us to genuinely become wounded healers, not just teachers of the Bible but bystanders to the pain of life.

I am learning to grieve well. I may be a slow learner, but I look behind me and see grace and progress in my life. I am learning to mourn loss, embrace disorientation, and trust that God will reorient me in His own time and way.

I pray the same for you. As C.S. Lewis wrote in A Grief Observed, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

May God give us the grace to have the courage to walk forward, even as we grieve along the way.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.
___________________________________

Discussion Questions:

1. C.S. Lewis said grief feels a lot like fear. Can you remember a time you reacted with anger or anxiety but were actually grieving? What were you grieving?

2. Which of the Five Gates of Grief feels closest to your experience right now? What loss or pain does this bring up for you?

3. Life often moves between feeling stable, feeling overwhelmed, and then finding hope again. Which stage are you in right now? Are you honestly facing what you’re feeling?

4. When you experience loss, do you usually slow down to feel it, or do you rush past it to get on with life? How might your life change if you paused and really faced your grief?

5. Jesus is called "a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief." How does knowing that Jesus felt deep sadness help you deal with your own grief?

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cheap pizza, La Quinta Inn, and creative redemption

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”

Marcus Aurelius

“Making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”

Ephesians 5:16

My daughter graduated from college this past weekend.
It did not go as I had planned.

I had booked the flights months in advance and was working with very little margin to make the weekend work. My wife drove from New York to Chattanooga, my son and daughter-in-law had to fly in from Newark (Newark!!!), and I had to fly in from a Forming Men retreat in Brady, Texas.

What could possibly go wrong?

My flight from Austin was delayed three times. When I arrived in Nashville, it was so late that no one was there to tow us into the gate. Then, when someone did come, there was no one to operate the jet bridge, so we got off the plane. Then, when I got to the rental car desk, there was a line.

Then I had to drive 2.5 hours in less-than-ideal conditions to Cleveland, Tennessee. I arrived at 3.35 am, utterly exhausted and full of frustration.

The next morning, I awoke to an overcast day, a tired family, and frustration in the air.

The graduation itself was wonderful. Haley was amazing, and the sense of accomplishment was tangible, but there was tension, time constraints, and a lack of needed joy.

To make matters worse, every restaurant was booked out after the ceremony, so we had the college celebration lunch at Chick-fil-A. We had all driven in separate cars, and it was so busy that we all ate at separate times. As much as I love Christian chicken, this was not it.

Not after years of Haley's hard work.
Not after 6 figures of tuition and expenses.
Not after years of dreams, vision, and hope.

After dropping Nate and Mai at the airport (where their flight would be delayed for hours), Christy and I returned to the very classy La Quinta Inn to try to sleep it off with a long nap.

Why does life have to be such a stubborn collaborator sometimes?
___________________________________

I've always been fascinated by how people respond to limitations and frustration, especially artists whose work depends on the right equipment and conditions. The week before the graduation, I had been listening to the Köln Concert album by Keith Jarrett. Jarrett is one of the most accomplished and celebrated Jazz pianists of all time, and the Köln Concert album is his most popular work. If you are not familiar with it, it’s a live recording from the Köln Opera House recorded in 1975. (You can listen here)

Lying on the bed at the hotel, I put my headphones in to listen to this album again and was struck by a reminder of how this remarkable album came to be. Jarrett was scheduled to play at the Köln Opera house on January 24th, 1975, but due to the booking of the promoter (a remarkable 18-year-old woman), she could only get the space at 11:30 pm, after another opera performance.

Due to the time constraints, nothing went to plan. Jarret had requested a grand piano for the performance, but with such a late notice and some confusion, the wrong piano was put on the stage. Rather than the Bösendorfer 290 Imperial concert grand piano, a smaller practice piano was put on the stage. This was a disaster because the sound was shallow in the upper keys, weak in the bass, and had malfunctioning pedals. Jarrett initially refused to play. But due to the pleading of the young concert organizer and the fact that the recording gear for the live album was already set up, he decided to work with what he had.

If you listen to the recording (and I recommend you do), you'll hear something remarkable: a musician who has surrendered to the moment, who is playing not despite the piano's limitations but in response to them. There are moments when you can hear Jarrett vocalizing, humming, almost groaning in delight, as if his whole being is involved in the act of creation. Through frustration, disorganization, and the need to improvise with what he had, he ended up creating one of the most transcendent live albums of all time. It would go on to become the best-selling Jazz album in history and the highest-selling piano album ever.

Beautiful things can happen with redemptive improvisation.

DOMINO’S, LA QUINTA, AND REDEEMING THE DAY

After our nap, we woke up and decided we couldn’t let the weekend end like it had. So, my wife and I invited Haley to join us in our room at the La Quinta Inn, just off I-75. Instead of continuing to mourn what hadn't happened, we began to work with what we could. Haley came over and we talked honestly about our disappointment. We cried a little. We laughed more. We ordered Domino's pizza and ate it sitting on the beds. I put the Köln concert on in the background, and we processed the last few years.

We celebrated with what we had, which didn’t look like much, or what I had envisioned, or what I had commuted across the country for, but it turned out to be exactly what we needed—each other.

Looking at the photos we took that evening, I see no trace of the frustration that preceded them. I see only genuine joy; the kind that comes not from perfect circumstances but redemptive celebration. I see light in my daughter's eyes as she processes her accomplishment. I see the evidence of love that transcends frustration. (Here is a pic that I snapped)

Our graduation weekend may seem trivial compared to the profound sufferings many people face. But considering all Haley had overcome to reach that point and all the sacrifices we made to provide for her education, our improvised celebration felt like a sweet, small redemption. The Domino's pizza and hotel room laughter became not a poor substitute for what we had planned but a genuine expression of what mattered most.

THE 4 CHOICES

The question is not whether disruption will come but how we will respond when it does whether we will respond out of frustration or move toward the more challenging but more life-giving work of redemption.

We really have four choices in moments like this.

Complain. This isn’t what I wanted.
Blame.  It’s your fault this happened.
Withdraw. I’m done trying.
Redeem.  How can I bring something beautiful out of this?

I want to play well with what I have been given, not what I demand. I want creative redemption to become a spiritual discipline. I want to learn to play within the broken boundaries to produce something beautiful anyway. I want to look back and see devotion, not disaster; formation, not failure.

OUR GREATEST WORK

As Jarrett discovered at that broken piano in Köln, sometimes our greatest work emerges not from perfect conditions but faithful engagement with what is actually in front of us.

Jesus entered a world of brokenness, sin, and hell, not the Edenic life of Genesis 1. Yet, He worked with what was in front of Him. He didn’t complain, blame, or withdraw; He creatively improvised in the face of heartache and despair, and gave to us the gift of grace and joy amid the wreckage of sin.

The most beautiful work of redemption came from the horror of the cross. Because of that framing of radical grace, redemption can come in our broken moments, too.

Too often, my instinct is frustration, not redemption. But I am resolved to get better at what God puts in front of me. I am resolved to improvise with creative redemption, even if it begins with cheap pizza and a southern hotel.

I’m here for the work of redemption, not circumstantial perfection.

Hoping to hear stories coming from your lives of creative redemption, too.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. When was the last time life handed you something unplanned, and what did your response reveal about your inner life?

2. What area of your life have you paused, postponed, or withheld from simply because it hasn’t matched your expectations?

3. What would it look like to name the loss, but still lead toward beauty in your marriage, parenting, and calling?

4. In disruption, every man is handed four options:

• Complain: This isn’t what I wanted.

• Blame: It’s your fault this happened.

• Withdraw: I’m done trying.

• Redeem: How can I bring something beautiful out of this?

           Which one are you prone to choose, and what habit or belief would have to
           shift for you to take the fourth path consistently?
       5. What would change if you shifted from controlling the outcome to
           stewarding the moment with creative redemption?

the work of love

“When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Matthew 9:36

“Let us learn to think of tears as liquid prayers.”

Charles Spurgeon

Last week was one of the most complicated and challenging weeks I have had in ministry in a long time.

It wasn’t one thing; it was everything.

Emails unanswered.
Messages piling up.
Pastoral needs pressing in like a rising tide.
A sermon to write.
Behind on curriculum.
Crises to mediate.
Spiritual attacks that don't make the news but shake the soul.
Leadership burdens that don't fit in a calendar app.
Travel that looks glamorous on Instagram but feels hollow when your body is in motion and your heart is somewhere else entirely.

Last night, I stopped mid-stride in my apartment, half-thinking and wondering: Is any of this even making a difference, considering all the needs?

These moments are rare for me, but when they hit, they hurt.

EROSION OF THE SOUL

Men today rarely burn out from one dramatic moment. It’s a slow erosion, barely perceptible, but pernicious in its effect that does the damage.

Brené Brown speaks of a "culture of scarcity" characterized by the mantras "never enough time," "never enough accomplishment," "never enough impact."
I was having a “never enough” kind of week.

The real ache was not so much the amount of work as the kind of work.

A hundred good tasks that buried the critical ones.
A thousand screens that numbed my attention.
A pace of life that honored God in theory but forgot Him in practice.

I felt a spiritual danger creeping in.

The danger of becoming a Christian executive, not a lover of the living God.
The danger of becoming a strategist of revival, not a recipient of love.
The danger to stop standing still and be astonished by grace.

Howard Thurman, mystic and mentor to Dr. King, once wrote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

I've been pondering this because what makes us come alive isn't always what fills our calendar. I have never met a single person whose job description and core responsibilities include “doing what makes you come alive.”

THE DANGER OF SPIRITUALLY DEPLETED MEN

Psychologists speak of "cognitive depletion,” the progressive exhaustion of our mental resources that leads to diminished self-control and decision quality. But there's a spiritual depletion, too, that's harder to measure and more hazardous to the soul.

It manifests itself in subtle ways:

• Prayers that feel mechanical

• Scripture that no longer moves the heart

• Ministry that feels like mid-level management

• A heart that's professionally compassionate but personally numb

I don’t want to become a man who is externally composed while internally dissolving.

HITTING THE WALL

Last night at the end of the week, I hit a wall.

I had a list of things to do that were simply impossible based on the time I had available. In the midst of it all, the voice of accusation came in.

You're not doing enough. You're not making a dent. You will let your people down.

I felt powerless and useless, and for reasons I couldn't fully explain (perhaps the Spirit, perhaps desperation), I simply stopped. I walked out of my apartment and into the city.

No more work. No plan. No phone. No agenda.

I simply walked the streets of New York.

I passed the hurried, the jaded, and the weary.
I passed men with too much power and others with none at all.
I passed men picking up trash. 
I passed doormen staring off into space.
I passed women in groups headed to Broadway shows.

And somewhere around 52nd Street, I slowed down, looked up, and I prayed.

PRAYING THE CITY BACK INTO MY HEART

I prayed not because I had the perfect words but because I needed to remember that God loves this city more than I do. I needed to remember that the ache I feel is not a sign of failure but of love.

I stood on Broadway and watched a mother laughing with her son.
I saw a man asleep on a piece of cardboard next to a bakery.
I saw teenagers laughing with headphones on, utterly unaware of the spiritual forces surrounding them.

And my heart broke again. Not in a dramatic, visible way. But in the quiet way that helps you remember who you are and what you're here for.

I reflected on a few lines from Mary Oliver that I have come back to over the years.

“Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still
and learning to be astonished.

My work is loving the world.”

My work is not to fix the world; my work is to love the world, and love is enough.

TO LOVE IS ENOUGH

I walked back up 7th Avenue and saw a man asking for change. I gave him what I had and looked him in the eyes and did my best to bless him.

"Most people just throw things at me and walk off. But you talk to me like I'm an actual person."

That's when I was reminded…

THIS is the ministry.

Not just the engaging sermon. Not the next book. Not the next meeting.

It's presence. It's prayer. It's proximity.

It's the holy ground of standing still and learning to be astonished by the beauty of the imago Dei all around me.

MIND ON WHAT MATTERS

We are so prone to hyperbolic discounting today, our tendency to overvalue immediate rewards and undervalue long-term benefits. Ministry often suffers from this same distortion. We privilege visible, measurable outcomes over the slow, hidden work of spiritual formation. We fall into the trap of thinking that solving the current problems will lead to permanent solutions. But the work of love comes daily and slowly.

That’s why Mary Oliver's words hit me so hard. They reminded me of the true work. These words from her poem won't sell out stadiums, win leadership awards, or go viral. But they just might heal our souls.

Let me keep my mind on what matters,

which is my work,

which is mostly standing still

and learning to be astonished.

My work is loving the world.

Brother, if you're feeling overwhelmed and unseen, I get it. I often feel that way, too. But maybe this isn't merely a sign you're failing. Maybe it's an invitation.

An invitation to slow down.
To step outside.
To stand still.
To be astonished.
To pray for your city.
To serve without an agenda or outcome.
To love the world, even when it doesn't love you back.

I am reminded…

The city doesn't need my exhaustion; it needs my wonder.
The city doesn't need my strategic plan; it needs my sanctified presence.
The city doesn't need my perfect execution; it needs my embodied love.

I refuse to let my ministry expand while my interior life contracts.

I am seeking the work of love.

LOSING PACE, GAINING HEART

Jesus isn't asking you to carry the world; He already did that.

He's asking you to love it. Not abstractly, but daily, tangibly, locally. He's asking you to be interrupted, to be healed as you serve, and to remember that awe is still available if you’re still enough to see it.

There's a rhythm to sustainable ministry that flows from the life of Jesus Himself:

• Creation and limitation

• Work and rest

• Effort and surrender

• Speaking and listening

• Action and contemplation

This isn't merely practical wisdom but theological truth. The incarnation itself demonstrates that God values process and embodiment, not just outcomes. Jesus spent thirty years in obscurity before three years of public ministry. This ratio should give us pause.

So, turn off the podcast.
Close the laptop.
Walk outside.

Your soul isn't broken; it's buried. Let wonder dig it back up.

Here for an astonishing life of love.

Hoping to bump into you on the streets of New York City one day.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. In what ways have you experienced the "slow erosion" of your soul rather than dramatic burnout moments in your own life?

2. When do you feel the disconnect between what makes you "come alive" and what fills your calendar right now? What impact is it having on your heart?

3. Where do you see our modern obsession with measurable outcomes undermining the "slow, hidden work of spiritual formation" in your life right now?

4. How might Jesus' example of withdrawing to pray despite pressing crowds help you establish rhythms that sustain rather than deplete your spiritual life?

5. What is one practical thing you can do this week to regain some wonder and joy? What is it, and when will you do it?

enough is enough

"Money flows effortlessly to that which is its god."

Tim Keller

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
1 Timothy 6:10

In his book Enough: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life, John C. Bogle shares a story that I return to often.

"At a party on Shelter Island hosted by a billionaire hedge fund manager, author Kurt Vonnegut turned to his friend Joseph Heller, the writer of Catch-22, and said, "Joe, our host made more money yesterday than you’ve earned from your famous book over its entire history."

Heller simply replied,

"Yes, but I have something he will never have… enough."

That line pierces through the fog of comparison, envy, and cultural ambition like a dagger.

ENOUGH.

It’s a word our generation barely knows how to say anymore.
We scroll, swipe, click, and consume. Always more. Always better. Always next.
But if you never define enough, you will never be free.
And if you are never free, you will never be generous.
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C.S. Lewis understood this.

When his literary success began generating substantial income, he and his brother made a deliberate and countercultural decision not to elevate their lifestyle but expand their generosity. They established what became known as The Agape Fund, a private trust through which Lewis quietly directed nearly two-thirds of his royalties toward anonymous charitable giving.

They even infused the fund’s name with theological depth and wit, calling it "The Agapony"—a subtle inversion of the Greek word philargyria, translated in 1 Timothy 6:10 as "the love of money." By replacing philos (affection rooted in self-interest) with agape (self-giving, sacrificial love), Lewis reframed wealth not as a source of corruption but as an opportunity for communion and grace.

Their conviction was simple yet radical:

If the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil,
then perhaps the love of generosity is the root of all kinds of good.

It’s not just a clever wordplay; it’s a prophetic reframing.

Imagine your life being driven by the love of generosity.
Imagine financial decisions shaped not by fear of lack, but by joy in blessing.
Imagine wealth not as status, but stewardship.
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The Apostle Paul exhibited remarkable theological intentionality in how he spoke about financial generosity, particularly in his appeals to support the impoverished believers in Jerusalem. He didn’t reduce giving to a transactional act or an obligatory duty. Instead, he elevated it into a deeply spiritual practice, one that reflected the multifaceted nature of the gospel itself.

Rather than simply instructing the churches to "take up a collection," Paul layered his language with rich theological nuance. In various epistles, he uses five distinct Greek terms to describe this act of giving, each one revealing a different facet of its spiritual significance:

Logeia — a collection (1 Corinthians 16:1–2). This is the most straightforward term, acknowledging the practical reality of gathering financial resources. But even here, it’s not mechanical; it assumes community participation and shared intent.

Eulogia — a blessing (2 Corinthians 9:5). Here, Paul frames giving not as loss, but as a bestowal of grace. The word echoes the Hebrew concept of berakah—a tangible manifestation of divine favor passed from one to another. Financial giving becomes an instrument through which the goodness of God is extended to others.

Leitourgia — a liturgical or priestly act (2 Corinthians 9:12; Romans 15:27). In using this word, Paul situates generosity within the realm of sacred worship. Just as priests in the temple offered sacrifices on behalf of the people, so the giver becomes a participant in spiritual service, offering not incense or animals, but material resources consecrated to the good of the Body.

Koinonia — fellowship or communion (Romans 15:26; 2 Corinthians 8:4; 9:13). Far from being a cold financial exchange, giving becomes an act of solidarity. It creates and reinforces relational bonds, expressing shared identity and mutual responsibility within the family of faith.

Diakonia — ministry or service (2 Corinthians 8:4; 9:1, 12–13). This word, often used for practical acts of care in the early church, underscores the idea that generosity is not peripheral to Christian ministry; it is ministry. The distribution of funds is as much a work of gospel mission as preaching or healing.

Taken together, these words reflect a theology in which generosity is not merely what we do with our money but who we are as the redeemed people of God. Giving becomes a lived expression of worship, communion, service, and blessing rooted not in compulsion but in communion with the One who gave Himself for us.

That’s stunning.

When you give—sacrificially, joyfully, intentionally—you are not simply paying a bill or transferring funds. You are blessing, worshiping, building fellowship, ministering, and offering priestly service to the Lord. You’re engaging in a form of sacred liturgy.

So, let’s say it again:

If the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil,
then maybe the love of generosity is the root of all kinds of good.

Money is not neutral. It flows with instinct and intensity.

As Tim Keller once put it, "Money flows effortlessly to that which is its god."
For many, that god is security. For others, it’s status. For some, it’s the self.
But what if, for us, the god of our money was Yahweh, the generous, self-giving Father?

What if we didn’t have to be prodded or pressured to give, but we loved to give?
What if our budgets looked less like spreadsheets and more like liturgies?

Of course, not all giving is created equal.

Some give out of guilt.
Some give out of pressure.
Some give to control.
But Jesus was never in the business of guilt-based asking.

As one author puts it, "Giving out of guilt cannot sustain generosity. It only makes us ask: ‘How low does my lifestyle need to go to appease my conscience?’ It doesn’t liberate our hearts. It just rearranges our shame."

Jesus never used guilt as a motivator. He used grace. The kind of grace He modelled throughout His whole life. "Though He was rich, for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich." (2 Cor. 8:9)

This is why we give.
Not to appease guilt, but to echo grace.
Not to earn favor, but to extend the favor we’ve already received.

Guilt-based giving is reactive and short-lived.
Grace-based giving is intentional and transformational.
One gives in response to a need.
The other gives in response to a new nature.

We don’t give because we’re pressured.
We give because we’re free.
We give because we have enough.
We give because Jesus gave everything.

So, what would it look like for you to move from guilt to grace? Not just in theory, but in practice.

Here are a few suggestions:

Define "Enough"
Set a clear standard for sufficiency. Everything beyond that line?
Treat it as seed, not surplus.

Pick a Stretch Percentage
Choose a level of giving that stretches your faith, joyfully, not reluctantly.
Don’t wait to feel rich to start living generously.

Practice Secret Giving
Give in hidden ways that bypass applause and direct your reward toward heaven. It purifies the motive and deepens the joy.

Create an Agape Fund
Set aside money exclusively for kingdom generosity. Not for upgrades, just for impact. Start small and scale it up.

Train Your Heart to Love It
Ask God to form in you a joyful instinct to give, not under compulsion, but out of grace.

Imagine a generation of men so free, full, and joyful in Jesus that their generosity breaks cycles of greed, comparison, and fear. Men who look at wealth not with hunger in their eyes, but joy in their hands. Men who say (like Heller),

"I have something the billionaire will never have… enough."

And those who go one step further…

"Because I have enough… I get to give."

The world is aching for a generation of generous men.
Let’s show them it’s not only possible, but it's actually the life that is truly life.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. What does "enough" look like for you, and have you ever taken the time to define it? Where might redefining it free you to live more generously?

2. In what ways has guilt, rather than grace, been driving your giving? How might shifting that motive change your posture toward generosity?

3. Which biblical lens on giving, worship, blessing, ministry, or fellowship most resonates with or challenges you right now? Why do you think that is?

4. If you were to create your own "Agape Fund" this year, what would you want it to support first? What people, causes, or moments are stirring your heart toward generosity?

5. Where might God be inviting you to move from loving money to loving generosity? What first step could you take in response?

will this be the day that complacency kills

“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”

Andy Grove

"You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober."

1 Thessalonians 5:5-6

I was recently in a prayer meeting with a man known for his deep walk with God. When praying through the Lord’s prayer, “lead us not into temptation” and “deliver us from evil,” he got after it. He rebuked, resisted, declared, and denounced the plans of the evil one with a violent intensity that I have rarely witnessed. After the meeting, I asked him how often he prays with this kind of fervor.

He looked at me kind of incredulously and replied...

“Every day, man. We are in the middle of a war. Pastors and leaders are being taken out left and right. You need radical vigilance in seasons like this.”

Radical vigilance.

You don’t hear men talking about that much these days.

You hear about burnout, anxiety, frustration, and fear, but rarely the need to get upstream and resist these forces that are climbing the walls of our hearts.

I shared my experience with some of our team, and one of the pastors noted that it reminded him of his friend in the Marines. When stationed overseas, they had a sign on the wall that said, “Will this be the day that complacency kills?”

Things that destroy our lives often happen in small moments. We get complacent, and they sneak in.

A pastor I know blew his life up with an affair that caused untold heartache and damage to his family and church. It began when he got an email from a woman he met at a church leaders conference. That day started like any other, but that day ended up being the day that complacency killed.

Satan does not fight fair. He is more like a terrorist than an enemy waging conventional war. Luke’s gospel tells us, "When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.”

Complacency gives the enemy the moment he seeks.

THE DISCIPLINE OF WATCHFULNESS

The Puritans used to talk about watchfulness, the long-forgotten doctrine of diligent attention. We need to recover this discipline. But what exactly is it?

Far from a paranoid anxiety, true watchfulness is the disciplined practice of staying spiritually awake to the reality of God, your own heart, and the subtle forces shaping you every single day. It’s refusing to drift, refusing spiritual numbness, and actively guarding your heart against the quiet assaults of temptation, distraction, and compromise.

You could summarize it in Hebrews 2:1, which says, “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

Our culture offers a false form of vigilance centered on security, achievement, and control. But Jesus redirects us: "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Matthew 26:41). True vigilance isn't about external performance but interior attentiveness and humble dependence.

THE DANGER OF THE COMPLACENT MAN

Military history illustrates the devastating consequences of complacency. Pearl Harbor, the fall of Singapore, Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn, and Stalin's denial before Operation Barbarossa each represent a failure of vigilance with catastrophic results. These mirror the spiritual catastrophes that can result from our own failure to remain alert to the realities that shape our souls.

Scripture maps out the terrain where our vigilance is most needed:

Vigilance in prayer: Jesus says, "Watch and pray," because prayer is not merely a spiritual practice but the fundamental posture of dependence that keeps us awake to God's presence (Matthew 26:41).

Vigilance against evil: Peter warns, "Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour"(1 Peter 5:8). This isn't primitive superstition but recognition of the reality of evil, both personal and systemic, that seeks our destruction.

Vigilance for Christ's return: "Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come" (Mark 13:33). This eschatological vigilance isn't about apocalyptic speculation but about living with the awareness that our choices have eternal significance and Christ may appear at any moment.

Vigilance of heart: "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it" (Proverbs 4:23). In Hebrew anthropology, the heart is the center of our being—the core of our thoughts, feelings, and will. What we allow to take root shapes everything we become.

Vigilance in leadership: God told Ezekiel, "I have made you a watchman for the people of Israel" (Ezekiel 33:7). Those entrusted with the care of others bear a particular responsibility for vigilance on behalf of the community. Woe to us if we fall asleep on the wall.

SHAKING THE HEART AWAKE

One of the best ways to confront complacency and cultivate watchfulness is to probe our hearts. Here are some questions I have been asking myself to stay alert to the dangers around me:

• Where am I saying, “That could never happen to me,” because of pride or overconfidence?

• Where am I currently dropping my guard because I feel exhausted, frustrated, or spiritually worn out?

• What things am I now justifying or allowing into my life that I used to strongly resist? (Particular shows, standards, habits)

• Where am I ignoring clear warnings—from friends, mentors, or God—that I know I should take seriously?

• In what areas am I feeling spiritually numb or indifferent, indicating a loss of vigilance?

• Where is compromise slowly creeping in, disguised as convenience or entitled reward?

• Am I letting any form of resentment or disappointment cause me to lower my spiritual defenses?

• Where am I relying too heavily on past spiritual victories instead of staying alert today?

• Am I hiding struggles from others out of fear, shame, or pride, instead of bringing them into the light for accountability?

To be clear, true vigilance is not about anxious striving or rigid moral perfectionism. It is about living with a contemplative awareness that keeps us present to God, to ourselves, and the world around us. It is about refusing the cultural narcotics that dull our spiritual senses and diminish our capacity for wonder, gratitude, and love.

As Kevin DeYoung puts it, “Being a child of God means confidence, but it never means complacency.”

THE GIFT OF A VIGILANT MAN

Brothers, the world doesn't need more sleepwalking men going through the motions of life and faith. The world needs men who are awake to God, to themselves, to others, and to the beauty and brokenness all around us. Men who haven't anesthetized themselves against pain, wonder, or holy discontent. Men who are vigilant not out of fear but out of love.

In the first of his Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot describes the state of so many men today:

"Over the strained time-ridden faces

Distracted from distraction by distraction

Filled with fancies and empty of meaning

Tumid apathy with no concentration

Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind…"

I refuse to be distracted from distraction by distraction.
I want to wake up.
To watch from the wall.
To fend off the lukewarmness coming for my heart.
To resist the evil one so he has to flee.

Jesus warned us that we would be sent like sheep among wolves. He told us we would need the shrewdness of the serpent and the gentleness of doves.

May God give us all the grace to hold the tension between peaceful trust and radical vigilance, and may He give us the grace to be men wide awake.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. Scripture says, “Let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober” (1 Thess. 5:6). Where are you currently numbing yourself through distraction, entertainment, or comfort instead of staying spiritually alert?

2. Spiritual watchfulness involves guarding your heart from subtle forces shaping you. What specific forces, such as frustration, exhaustion, or entitlement, are causing you to drop your guard right now?

3. Complacency is subtle, slow, and often hidden from view. Is there an area in your life where you’re ignoring clear warnings from friends, mentors, or God Himself? What would it take for you to bring this fully into the light and regain vigilance? Are you willing to do that right now?

4. Ezekiel was called a watchman for Israel, responsible for seeing danger and speaking boldly. Where have you stayed silent when you should’ve spoken up, either in your own life or someone else’s?

5. Radical vigilance means holding tension between peaceful trust and fierce watchfulness. Where in your life do you most need God’s grace to awaken you, protect you, or strengthen your resolve right now?

get to the gates

“Serving others breaks you free from the shackles of self and self-absorption that choke out the joy of living.”

James Hunter

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

If it is to lead, do it diligently.”

Romans 12:6-8

I first came to New York in my early twenties after 9/11 to pray for the city.

Our church in Tennessee was looking to build its prayer ministry, so we came to the Brooklyn Tabernacle for their Tuesday night prayer meeting. I was struck by the power of a praying church and by the power of a faithful pastor building his ministry around prayer. I wanted fresh wind and fresh fire.

This week, almost 25 years later, I had dinner with Jim Cymbala. Seated around the table were many of the Fathers of the body of Christ in New York. Both honored and slightly intimidated, it was a revelation to see these men speak freely about their time leading the city.

There was godly power coming from the table of these Fathers.

Most of the men were in their sixties and seventies, with Pastor Cymbala being 81. In my forties, and having been here for twenty years, I still felt like a freshman in the city. Towards the end of the night, Dr. Marc Rivera, a city statesman, turned to me and said something unexpected:

“This needs to be you at some point. You need to become a city father.”
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One of the great tragedies among men today is the lack of aspiration to lead.

Due to the combination of moral failure, narcissism, and suspicion of institutions, many men have backed away from leadership and lost a vision to serve something beyond their own domain.

So many have calibrated their vision to something smaller and safer, settling for personal success instead of kingdom leadership.

We need a generation of men whose hearts are stirred with holy ambition to lead again.
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There is a lot of debate about the dynamics and qualifications of elders in churches today. Issues like divorce, formal theological education, and gender arise, but one issue is rarely mentioned: the need for ambition.

Paul said to Timothy, “Whoever aspires to be an overseer desires a noble task.”

Aspiration in Greek means “to set one’s heart on, strive for, desire, long for.”

We need men with vision and aspiration, willing to serve and seek the good of their communities. Like in the days of old, when men gathered at the gates to care for the issues of the city, we need godly men to gather at the gates.

LEADERSHIP AT THE GATES

Proverbs 31:23 says, “Her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.”

In the Old Testament, one of the greatest honors for a man was to be an elder at the city gates, a role charged with spiritual and social importance. The gate was where divine law and community values met with the practical affairs of daily life. Elders bridged the sacred and the secular, symbolizing leadership aligned with God's vision for justice, mercy, and prosperity.

We need men to bridge these divides again today.

THE KIND OF LEADERSHIP CITY FATHERS BRING TO THE GATES

Someone is going to shape the future of your community. It will either be activists, corporations, secular elites, power-hungry politicians, incompetent snoozers, or you.

But what influence are we called to bring as Elders and Fathers in the community?

Wisdom and Integrity
Elders at the gates were known for upholding God’s justice and walking in integrity. In a time when truth is often twisted and character compromised, we need leaders who reflect God’s moral clarity, make decisions anchored in righteousness, and live in a way that others can trust.

Public Accountability
In the ancient world, decisions made at the gate were visible to all. It was a place of open deliberation, not hidden manipulation. Today’s leaders must embrace that same posture, leading with transparency, inviting scrutiny, and stewarding influence with humility and honesty.

Guardians of Justice and Mercy
The gate was a place where the vulnerable came to plead their cause. Elders were charged with protecting the weak and ensuring fairness. Modern Fathers must step into this same role: confronting injustice, refusing to be silent in the face of oppression, and embodying both courage and compassion.

Promoting Community Flourishing
Elders helped shape the moral and spiritual health of the city. They were not just legal authorities; they were builders of peace and prosperity. Leaders today must ask, “What does it look like to steward power not for personal gain, but for the good of those entrusted to my care?”

Intergenerational Influence
Wisdom at the gate was passed down through example and mentorship. Elders trained the next generation not only through instruction but also through imitation. We, too, must live in a way worth imitating, investing in those coming behind us and multiplying our impact through intentional guidance.

GET TO THE GATES

We need men who want to get to the gate; those who aspire to be leaders of conviction and compassion, who model integrity and wisdom in a world of corruption and foolishness.

Gentlemen, we need to get our act together and we need to get to the gate.

WORTHY OF IMITATION

Mike Tafoya was the first elder ever installed in our church nearly 20 years ago. Once wild and lost, everything changed when he met Jesus. He went on to live with integrity, become a doctor to serve the broken, raise three godly children, and earn deep respect from our community.

I will never forget what he said at his Elder installation service.

“Jesus has brought me a long way. I have come from generational dysfunction, made it through medical school, and accomplished a lot compared to where I have come from. But there was one honor I always hoped that God would grant. That I would live with such faithfulness to Jesus that others would want to be under my influence as a godly man. That this community believes that about me is the greatest honor of my life.”

Men, we should all aspire to honor like this. That we would walk with God in such a way that others would seek to learn from us. That there would be something astonishing about us because we have been with Jesus. That our lives would be worthy of imitation because of how we follow Christ.
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Leadership in the way of Jesus isn’t about leveraging a platform for gain; it’s seeking power for the good of others. We need men to lead like this again.

We need Fathers. We need Elders. We need godly men at the gates.

Robert Bly reminds us, “A boy cannot become a man without the active intervention of older men.” I believe it’s time for such an active intervention right now.

If you have seen the latest Barna research on the rise of faith, one trend stands out to me: the growing faith of men. Faith among Millennial men is up 19 points, and among Gen Z men, it is up 15 points.

Who is going to disciple them?
Who is going to serve them?
Who is going to make sure their energy is shaped for Kingdom good and not secularism or the self?

The answer? We are. We are going to be the Fathers that the moment needs.
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Later that night, as I walked back to my apartment in Midtown Manhattan, I walked past Times Square Church. David Wilkerson, the founding Pastor, was a Father in the body of Christ, but he is gone now.

He has left a legacy, but also a void.

As I crossed the street in the glow of the lights from Times Square, those words from Dr Mark Rivera came back to me.

“You need to be a city Father.”

Not a tyrant, not an influencer, but a servant.
A man with vision that transcends the boundaries of his own concerns.

As I said my evening prayers, I felt something rise in my heart.

Godly aspiration.

A desire to get to the gate. To love, to serve, to fight for, and to care for the people of this city. Jesus wept over Jerusalem. I want to weep for New York.

Praying God gives you tears for your community, and a vision to be a father at the gate.

Cheers.

Jon.
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Discussion Questions:

1. What internal fear, past wound, or cultural narrative has convinced you that you’re not ready, or worthy, to lead with conviction and purpose?

2. If a younger man were quietly watching your life, what would he learn about how a godly man carries responsibility, handles pressure, and honors Christ? Be specific.

3. Where do you feel a persistent pull toward something greater than yourself, and could that stirring be the voice of God awakening holy ambition? How can you discern the difference between worldly ambition and holy ambition?

4. If your current way of living were multiplied into a legacy, what kind of spiritual inheritance would you leave behind for your family, church, and city?

5. Who are the “Fathers” in your community, and where are the modern “gates”? Take a moment to thank a father who has been faithful in your community this week and ask God for a specific picture of what you can do to serve your community.

woe to you when all men speak well of you

“[We] are being persuaded to spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about.”

Tim Jackson

“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven."

Jesus

When I first moved to New York in 2005, I met with every Christian leader who would give me time.

I wanted to learn what ministry was like in the city.

I wanted wisdom on how to start a church, reach people far from God, and avoid the traps most people fall into when they move here. I received a lot of wisdom from various sources, but there was one man who gave me advice that has haunted me to this day. It was also the shortest meeting of them all.
___________________________________

Stan Oakes was the president of The King’s College for many years. He had a wise and gentlemanly demeanor, but you could tell he could throw down if he needed to.

A friend introduced us and set up the meeting, so I started my spiel:

“I’m a young leader with a desire to learn from others in the city who have been here longer than me. I’m asking for any advice you would give me as I start a church in New York.”

He had this big book he had written something in, and he opened the page and read the following words to me from Luke’s Gospel:

“Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you.” — Luke 6:26

“That’s really what you need to know about doing ministry in this city,” he said. “You can’t love the city biblically and need its approval at the same time.”

He offered a few kind words of hospitality, and that was it.

No 10-year strategy. No reading list. No “Let me tell you how we did it back in the day.”

Just a warning, and a holy warning at that.

That was the shortest, most insightful advice I have ever been given.
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We live in a world of reputational management. Maybe it’s because we have a fear of being canceled. Maybe because there’s biblical truth to a good name. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because we want to be liked and need the approval of others more than we’re willing to admit.

Psychologists call this our “social mirror”; we see ourselves not as we are, but as we believe others see us. This deep need to be affirmed, admired, and accepted is hardwired into our nervous system. It touches something primal in us, the longing to belong.

But here’s the problem: if your identity is always up for vote, you will live in chronic anxiety—always adjusting, always performing.

Stan’s advice would ring out in my heart and test me deeply five years later when our church plant was featured in the New York Times on Easter Sunday (you can read the article here).

Being called “The Evangelical Squad” wasn’t exactly a compliment. Something in me bristled at how we were presented. We were caricatured a bit; well-dressed kids with Bibles moving into neighborhoods to do something old in a new way. But then I remembered those nine words.

I wasn’t called to be spoken well of by New York City; I was called to be spoken well of by Jesus.

We did our best to contextualize, preach the truth in love, and genuinely serve our community. But the gospel doesn’t always get applause. It is, as Paul said, “the aroma of life to those being saved, and the aroma of death to those who are perishing.” (2 Corinthians 2:15–16)
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“Woe to you…” These are strong words. Jesus isn’t issuing a casual suggestion here. He’s throwing a warning flare into the sky. When you shape your life around universal approval, you may find you’ve walked off the narrow path. At some point, being faithful to Jesus will put you out of step with culture, critics, and even your own desire to be liked.

This doesn’t mean we chase offense; it means we choose obedience over optics, clarity over comfort, and truth over trends.

Leonard Ravenhill said, “The early Church was married to poverty, prisons and persecutions. Today, the church is married to prosperity, personality, and popularity.”

He goes on to say…

“If we displease God, does it matter whom we please? If we please Him, does it matter whom we displease?

The temptation today is subtle: blend in just enough to gain a following, be edgy but not holy, be spiritual but not surrendered.

I constantly remind myself not to mistake human applause for divine affirmation or to confuse a crowd with a calling.

Sociologists note that living to be universally liked is not only exhausting but also unsustainable. It requires constant self-surveillance, emotional regulation, and social calibration. You have to remember what version of yourself you presented to which group. It’s not just tiring; it fragments the soul.

But Jesus offers something scandalously freeing—you can be fully known and still deeply loved. You no longer need to edit yourself for mass approval when you’re already approved by the One who matters most.

His invitation isn’t “Be impressive”; it’s “Be faithful.”
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There is a deeper kind of success, a hidden kind, that doesn’t show up in headlines or follower counts but echoes in eternity. That’s the kind worth building your life on. Let the world misunderstand you, so long as Christ understands you. Let the city mislabel you, so long as your name is known in heaven.

As much as I love New York and consider it my home, I am only passing through. Even if I am here 40 years, I will still just be an interim pastor. The next generation will lead, I will leave, and the gospel will go forward.

Stan was right.

Woe to you when all men speak well of you.

But the reverse is also true. Blessed are you when Jesus speaks well of you.

Will you join me this week in making that the only voice that truly matters?

Cheers.

Jon.

Discussion Questions:

1. In what hidden place of your life are you quietly shaping your choices more around approval than obedience, and what fear is keeping you from bringing it into the light?

2. When did your love for culture last lead you to compromise your convictions just enough to stay liked, and how did you justify it to yourself?

3. Whose opinion do you fear losing the most, and how is that shaping who you’re becoming when no one’s watching?

4. What relationship or opportunity have you lost, or watered down, because living fully into the gospel felt too costly?

5. If the only reward for faithfulness was being known and approved by Jesus, not seen or celebrated by anyone else, what would you start doing differently today?

start with yourself

“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”

John of the Cross

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

Leo Tolstoy

I have a confession: I struggle with a hidden addiction, and it's one that quietly makes life miserable for me and those around me.

I am addicted to judgment.

I can easily become one of the most critical and judgmental people I know.

My personality doesn’t help. On the Myers-Briggs paradigm, I’m an INTJ (for those who care: introverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging). That “J” part can be particularly challenging. According to the framework, my personality type tends to be overly analytical and judgmental, perfectionistic, uncomfortable discussing emotions, and sometimes appearing callous or insensitive.

But personality tests aside, I know this struggle runs deeper than psychology. It speaks to something profoundly spiritual.

We live in a culture that has perfected the art of judgment. Our political discourse, social media feeds, and even our church conversations overflow with critique. We’ve become experts at noticing others’ failures while remaining novices in examining our own hearts.

I keep coming back to this nagging question: Why the constant urge to judge?

Perhaps it’s because categorizing others into neat boxes of approval or disapproval spares us the messy, uncomfortable work of confronting our own contradictions. But the truth is, our world doesn’t hunger for more critique; it desperately craves mercy.

James puts it bluntly: “There will be no mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others. But if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when He judges you.” The kingdom of God runs on mercy, not judgment.

Tolstoy understood this clearly: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” It’s always easier to diagnose someone else’s sickness than to submit ourselves to self-examination.

Jesus illustrated this with His unforgettable image in Matthew of logs and specks. A vivid, almost comical picture of someone with a timber protruding from their eye, carefully trying to remove a tiny splinter from someone else’s. “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the log in your own?” This scene would be hilarious if it weren’t so painfully relatable.

The Pharisees never recognized their pride precisely because they were proud of their humility. That paradox haunts me.

The spiritual life isn’t about gathering knowledge or perfecting our theology; it’s about surrendering to the uncomfortable truth that God is continually renovating us from the inside out. Paul urged the Corinthians to “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” A life of self-examination isn’t just good philosophy; it’s essential discipleship.

In the desert tradition, when monks complained to their elders about another’s faults, elders would often respond gently but pointedly, “And what is this to you?” It wasn’t dismissive; it was an invitation—an invitation to explore their own spiritual journey more deeply.

THE THREE LEVELS OF SELF-AWARENESS

What if we saw irritations as invitations? What if each person who annoys us becomes a mirror reflecting something hidden within ourselves, something we’ve been unwilling or unable to confront?

I have been trying to deepen my awareness of being judgmental to invite Christ to form me.

• Level 1: Noticing someone else’s behavior and judging it.

• Level 2: Recognizing our own habit of judgment: “I see that I am being judgmental right now.”

• Level 3: Asking deeper questions: “What does my judgment reveal about me?”

I am learning, slowly and reluctantly, that my strongest reactions to others usually reveal not only something about them but something essential about me. Carl Jung wisely noted, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

The people who frustrate me most often carry fragments of my unacknowledged shadow.

Spiritual growth is not about achieving moral perfection; it’s about cultivating compassion—for others, yes, but also for ourselves. It’s about recognizing that our irritations are often invitations in disguise.

James declares, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” This isn’t sentimental; it’s revolutionary. In a judgment-addicted world, mercy becomes radically counter-cultural. Yet, we cannot extend to others what we haven’t first received ourselves. Mercy must penetrate our own critical hearts before we can genuinely share it.

I’ve discovered, for instance, that my strongest judgments cluster around qualities I struggle with myself. My impatience with others’ inefficiency reveals my discomfort with my own limitations. My irritation at others’ neediness unmasks my hidden hunger for approval. My annoyance at rigidity exposes my own fear of change. This is not about self-condemnation or obsessive introspection. Healthy self-knowledge always leads us back to God and toward others with greater compassion.

Imagine how our homes, churches, and communities might transform if we approached irritations not as opportunities for judgment but as divine invitations to grow. What if our reactions became God’s gentle nudges, pointing us toward areas still needing healing?

John of the Cross captures this beautifully: “In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.” Not on being right or expertly diagnosing others’ faults, but on how deeply and authentically we loved. Love begins when judgment turns inward, transforming irritation into a mirror of grace.

The beautiful irony is that as we become less preoccupied with others’ failings and more attentive to our own spiritual growth, we naturally grow more compassionate, recognizing our shared struggles and universal need for grace.

So, what irritates you about yourself? Start there, not with harsh self-criticism, but with honest acknowledgment that opens the door to healing. Those very qualities that frustrate us in others often become our greatest teachers if only we sit with them long enough to hear what they have to say.

What if our judgments aren’t mere reactions but sacred interruptions, revealing not just what’s happening around us but what’s happening within us?

Here’s a simple practice to try:

1. Notice the trigger: When irritation rises, pause.

2. Label your judgment: Identify precisely what you’re judging.

3. Look in the mirror: Ask yourself, “Where does this quality exist in me?”

4. Take one small action: Make one tiny step toward addressing this quality in yourself.

In our divided culture, this practice feels not just spiritually crucial but culturally essential. James reminds us again, “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” In a world drowning in criticism and judgment, mercy gives us a chance to breathe again.

Here’s to becoming a more merciful man.

Cheers.

Jon.

Discussion Questions:

1. Who consistently irritates you, and what specific quality bothers you most about them? How might this quality reflect something about you?

2. When you strongly judge another, what does it reveal about your own insecurities or unresolved issues? Can you think of a recent example?

3. Do you invite trusted friends to identify your blind spots? What would it look like to create humble accountability among your friendships?

4. How does unexamined self-judgment affect your leadership? Share a time when addressing the “log in your own eye” improved how you guided others.

5. Which of your judgment patterns might connect to past hurts? How might recognizing this connection change your approach to others and yourself?

10 words from a modern sage that woke me up this week

"Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord."

J.I. Packer

"If you remain in me and my words remain in you,

ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."

Jesus (John 15:7)

Last week, I got to spend some time with John Eldredge.

It was life-changing.

Not in the hyperbolic way we often use that phrase, but in the quiet, tectonic shifting of priorities that happens when you glimpse something more real than your daily responsibilities and obligations. It was also completely different from what I expected.

God dug a well of joy and insight that I will draw from for many years to come.

This time coincided with my reading of Eldredge's Experience Jesus. Really. A title that might sound simple and obvious until you realize how rarely we do precisely that—experience Jesus, really. Most of us settle for experiencing church programs, theological concepts, religious duties, or spiritual techniques instead of the living Christ.

The greatest takeaway from my time with him was the time spent in prayer together.

It's one thing to read an author’s books but another to get a small glimpse into their life with God.  A startling amount of light came from the crack in the window he opened for me. It made me want to go deeper into my life with God. It created a fresh hunger to keep swimming into the deep end of the pool and away from the wreckage of shallow, modern life.

There is a profound depth to Experience Jesus. Really, and I honestly believe this will become a spiritual classic for generations to come. So, I thought I would share ten words from this book that I believe will shake your sleeping soul and call you back to the ancient path from which too many of us have wandered.

"THE TURNING OF THE HEART" (5 WORDS)

At its core, spirituality is about attention and intention: what we notice and what we choose. The mystic Evelyn Underhill noted that those who experienced God most deeply did so "not because He loved and attended to them more than He does to us, but because they loved and attended to Him more than we do."

The Hebrew Scriptures use the word "return" (shuv) almost a thousand times. This perpetual invitation to reorient ourselves toward God enables daily repentance and awareness of His presence, which becomes a haven in the chaos of modern life. Regardless of what we are facing—sickness, broken relationships, or a cycle of shame—the great invitation speaks into our circumstances that we are welcome to return to God for mercy and grace.

This isn’t primarily a dramatic outward change but an inner orientation of the heart. Like the prodigal son, our physical return is preceded by an interior turn.
You can turn your heart in the middle of a pig pen or the middle of the boardroom. It matters not to God. He is always scanning the horizon of life to welcome our weary hearts home.

It’s worth asking yourself…

Where has your heart wandered?
What preoccupations have displaced God at your center?
What lesser loves have become ultimate concerns?

The spiritual journey always begins with an honest assessment of our current location and then a simple reorientation toward God. All you have to do is turn your heart to Him.

He is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He is waiting for you even now.

Turn your heart to Him.

THERE IS NO NEUTRAL (4 WORDS)

Our secular culture lives in the spiritual delusion of neutrality.

It tells us that at each end of the cultural spectrum are extremes to avoid and the middle is where the sensible self settles in.

Yet, C.S. Lewis reminds us:

"There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter-claimed by Satan."

For my Reformed friends, Kuyper echoes this idea in Lectures on Calvinism.

"In every domain of human life, there is a battle between two principles, two starting points, two worldviews: the regenerate and the unregenerate, the children of light and the children of darkness."

This isn't simplistic dualism but spiritual realism. The self that refuses God's kingdom doesn't remain independent; it merely changes allegiance. When Jesus said, "Whoever is not with me is against me," He wasn't being exclusionary but descriptive.

To opt out of the kingdom of God is to opt into the kingdom of darkness, even if we describe it as the kingdom of self. The kingdom of self is merely a small plot of land in the dominion of darkness.

John, the apostle of love, understood this: "We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one."

Colossians 1:15 says, "For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves."

Eldredge notes…

The World as we envision it—society, culture, commerce, the arts—is under the power of the evil one, meaning it is under his jurisdiction, his rule, his sway. Which means this world that we so often perceive as relatively neutral is actually an extension of the kingdom of darkness. This reality is truly disruptive, even for many followers of Jesus.

I don’t think I would need to convince you of this if you were a Jew living in Nazi Germany or a Christian living in an Islamic regime. But many small European countries were hoping to remain neutral in the early stages of World War II, countries like Belgium and Czechoslovakia. Their fragile delusion evaporated when Hitler’s forces rolled in and swallowed them up in a day.

Our Western Christianity has made peace with the myth of neutrality, finding comfortable middle ground between the kingdom of God and the systems of this world. We've convinced ourselves we can serve both God and mammon by keeping them in separate compartments—Sunday faith and Monday pragmatism.

This is a delusion. This is a lie.

A kingdom of darkness. A kingdom of light. These are your choices.
Children of wrath, or children of God. These are your choices.
Heaven or Hell. These are your choices.
Life or death. These are your choices.

Choose today whom you will serve.
Declare allegiance to the kingdom.
Wake up from the delusion of neutrality and recognize that every choice moves us either toward or away from God.

There is no spiritual Switzerland, folks.

IF (1 WORD)

God’s love may be unconditional, but His blessing is not. We love God's promises but often ignore their context. There is one word that determines what we encounter in our relationship with God.

IF.

"If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." (John 15:7)

Eldredge notes…

That "if" is revelatory. The refuge of God and his Kingdom is only for those who choose to take part in it. This fact is so irritating to human nature. We just want to get on with our life and have God cover us. That’s not quite how things work.

We've been sold a spirituality of entitlement; God's blessings without discipleship's demands. We want Psalm 91's protection without Psalm 91's requirement to "…dwell in the shelter of the Most High." We want John 15's answered prayers without John 15's abiding.

The conditional promises throughout Scripture aren't God being stingy; they're God being relational. Like any genuine relationship, our walk with God involves reciprocity, response, and responsibility.

This means paying attention to the conditions attached to God's promises.
It means declaring war on the lie of neutrality.
It means resolving to respond rather than merely receive.

Our consumer mentality wants benefits without membership, intimacy without fidelity. We're drawn to the promises of answered prayer, divine protection, and spiritual blessing, but we resist the conditions attached to these gifts.

The "if" of scripture invites us into covenant, not transaction. It calls us to resolve, to choose, to participate in our own transformation. It reminds us that while grace is freely given, it must be actively received.

This conditional element of faith doesn't contradict God's unconditional love; it manifests it. Real love always respects freedom and invites response rather than imposing itself. God's "if" statements honor our dignity as meaningful participants in our relationship with Him.

To transform "if" into "I will" means moving from spiritual consumer to committed disciple, tourist to pilgrim, and admirer of Jesus to follower. It means choosing to abide, deciding to dwell, resolving to remain.

In our age of commitment phobia, such decisive spiritual choices may seem countercultural. But the deepest joys have always been found not in keeping our options open but in giving ourselves fully to what matters most.

THE INVITATION

10 words. 3 invitations.

Turn your heart to Him.
Reject the lie of neutrality.
Choose to abide.

May God give you grace this week to transform "if" into "I will."

And may you know the reality of the promise that…

The Lord has made His face shine on you, and His face is turned towards you to give you peace. It’s the love of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ that is waiting for you even now.

May you experience Jesus, really, this week.

Cheers.

Jon.

Discussion Questions:

1. In what specific areas of your life have you unknowingly embraced the myth of spiritual neutrality, and how does that impact your intimacy with God?

2. How might recognizing that there is no spiritual Switzerland challenge your current approach to career, relationships, entertainment, or finances?

3. What subtle preoccupations or lesser loves currently have your attention, causing your heart to wander from wholehearted devotion to God? How can you turn your heart to Him in the midst of this?

4. If God’s promises are often tied to conditions ("if"), how might acknowledging this reshape the way you approach your relationship and expectations of God?

5. Reflecting on Evelyn Underhill’s insight that those who experience God most deeply do so "not because He loved and attended to them more, but because they loved and attended to Him more," what deliberate practices or intentional shifts could help you more deeply love and attend to God in your everyday life this week?

how an attachment therapist changed my life with a single sentence

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."

Carl Jung

"For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart."

1 Samuel 16:7

Recently, I was reviewing notes from a men’s event I attended last summer when a single sentence caught my eye. It was from a session led by an attachment therapist on tending to the heart in marriage. The sentence was simple, yet profound:

"What’s happening in your wife’s heart is more important than what’s happening between you."

In my personal experience, and for many men I’ve worked with over the years, this is the opposite of how we usually approach relationships. Most men instinctively focus first on:

• What’s happening around us (calendar, bills, sickness, stress, schedules, work)

• What’s happening between us (connection, intimacy, communication, interactions)

• Then, if there’s any leftover time or energy, we consider what’s happening within us (our longings, fears, pains, frustrations, guilt, grief)

Focusing on things in this order can have profound and lasting effects on a relationship—often negatively.

THE INTERIOR COUNTRY

The Bible uses the wordheartnearly 1,000 times. It refers not merely to emotions but to the core of our being; our thoughts, feelings, will, and desires. When Jesus taught that what defiles a person is not what enters but what comes out of them, He emphasized the same truth—what happens inside shapes everything else.

As a pastor in New York for two decades, I’ve sat with countless couples who’ve lost their way. When we talk, they come armed with grievances about what’s happening between them but rarely with insight into what’s happening within each other. It’s like studying the boundaries of nations without knowing the cultural dynamics within them.

Your wife’s heart is such a landscape; vast, complex, sometimes arid and sometimes flourishing, shaped by forces both ancient and immediate. Entering this territory requires reverence and respect. The ground is holy.

Consider an ordinary Tuesday evening. You come home in a good mood but notice your wife seems withdrawn. She gives short answers at dinner and seems distracted, and your mind immediately constructs a narrative based on what’s happening between you. Perhaps she’s upset about a recent argument, losing interest, or silently punishing you.

But what if the invisible reality is entirely different? What if her withdrawn presence has nothing to do with you at all? Maybe she’s battling internal comparison after seeing a friend’s carefully curated social media post that morning, questioning if her body, career, or life measures up to impossible standards.

Or maybe as you share about your success at work, her subdued response sparks your insecurity. You wonder why she’s not celebrating your achievements. Yet, internally, she may be counting the hidden costs of your success, missed evenings with kids who grow too quickly, disrupted family rhythms, or increased burdens at home.

THE PATIENT WORK OF ATTENTION

With the insane pace of modern life, perhaps our most tragic loss is attention itself. We rarely truly see each other anymore. As a result, we often resort to quick fixes and techniques. But our spouse’s heart isn’t something we can scan like a barcode for immediate answers. Understanding it requires lingering, careful listening, and creating space for revelation.

This echoes the disciples' experience on the Emmaus Road. They walked miles with Jesus, failing to recognize Him until later, exclaiming,"Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked?"The heart perceives truths the mind hasn’t yet processed. Recognition comes slowly, through presence and time.

How can we learn to recognize what’s happening in our wife’s heart?

1)Slow Down- Frederick Buechner wrote that God speaks through our lives, but if we’re moving too quickly, we’ll miss the message. The same applies to marriage. Your wife’s heart speaks softly in whispers, micro expressions, or the spaces between words. Move too quickly and you’ll overlook these subtle revelations.

2)Perspective- Resist the impulse to interpret her actions primarily through the lens of yourself. When she declines physical intimacy, your first thoughts may gravitate toward rejection or relational trouble. But perhaps her heart is caught up elsewhere, processing a harsh comment from a supervisor, wrestling with unrealistic societal images of beauty, or simply carrying exhaustion from always prioritizing everyone else’s needs above her own.

COUNTERCULTURAL ATTENTION

Attending to the heart runs directly counter to cultural values.

• Our culture prizes speed; attending to the heart requires slowness. Your wife’s inner world unfolds through rhythms of trust and revelation, not efficiency metrics.

• Our culture seeks immediate solutions; the heart asks us to dwell in mystery. We want simple steps for better communication or conflict resolution, but hearts resist such formulas. The Psalmist says, "Deep calls to deep." Such depth demands reverence rather than technique.

• Our culture celebrates visible achievements; attending to the heart honors invisible experience. Understanding your wife’s heart won’t earn public recognition. Like most sacred work, it remains hidden and profound.

REVERSING THE ORDER

Recently, I’ve recognized the importance of reversing my usual order. Instead of starting with external tasks and relational dynamics, I’m learning to prioritize the heart; my own and those closest to me. What’s happening within us matters far more than what’s happening around us.

This week, I’ve intentionally focused on the hearts of those I love and not just on surface interactions or logistics. Even in this short period, I’ve felt a noticeable shift.

Dr. John Gottman, a renowned relationship researcher, says,"Every conflict is really an opportunity to understand your partner better."I’ve been trying to live this truth by going beneath the surface, seeking what’s happening in my wife’s heart and my own.

Attachment theory emphasizes that secure relationships aren’t about avoiding every disagreement but about creating emotional safety, where each partner feels seen, valued, and understood. Conflict isn’t the enemy; it’s often a symptom of deeper realities in the heart. I have been trying to prioritize those.

Sociologists similarly differentiate between surface culture (observable behaviors) and deep culture (hidden emotional worlds and values). Many marriages remain stuck because they obsess over surface issues without addressing deeper heart-level realities. I’m focusing on the deep culture of our marriage and not just the surface dynamics.

Men are often socialized to value external solutions, "Fix it. Solve it. Move on." But what if true strength means slowing down and paying attention to emotional currents beneath the surface? Imagine if every conflict became an opportunity for deeper intimacy instead of something to fix or avoid. I am trying to reimagine my relationships through that lens.

TENDING TO THE HEART

How can we practically develop this capacity to see beyond the surface? Here are some intentional steps:

Sabbath space:Create regular times of undistracted presence with your spouse; not to solve problems, but simply to be together. Ask questions inviting her inner thoughts: "What’s on your mind lately?" or "What are you looking forward to or dreading in this season?"

Remember her whole story:Your wife existed before you met, shaped by family history, experiences, cultural messages, and her spiritual journey. When her response seems disproportionate, consider what earlier chapters might be influencing her reaction.

Honor her complexity:Scripture doesn’t shy away from complexity; David was worshipper and adulterer, Peter courageous and cowardly. Similarly, your wife contains multitudes. She can simultaneously love and be irritated by you, feel confident professionally yet insecure socially, committed to your marriage yet sad about roads not taken.

Notice small relational bids:Jesus noticed subtle details revealing hearts such as the widow’s mite, a woman touching His cloak, and the fear in the disciples' faces. Pay attention to subtle cues: tension around her eyes, the silence of disappointment, changes in posture signaling feeling unseen.

Create space for grief:The Psalms model authentic relationship including grief, doubt, and disappointment. Allow your wife to express difficult emotions without rushing her to solutions or corrections.

THE PATH FORWARD

A couple can live together fifty years and yet remain strangers, never knowing what lives inside each other. Many do. It’s a quiet, common, avoidable tragedy. I don’t want to go out like that.

Attending to the heart isn’t just about being a better husband (though you’ll become one). It isn’t just about intimacy or avoiding conflict. It’s about living in truth rather than illusion, knowing another human deeply, and savoring one of life’s greatest privileges.

The therapist was right. What’s happening in your wife’s heart matters more than what’s happening between you. Everything important happens there first.

Imagine approaching your spouse not as a problem to manage but as a beautiful mystery to behold. What if you stopped focusing solely on schedules, logistics, or surface issues and instead simply asked...

"What’s happening in your heart right now?"

In that simple question lies profound wisdom, and perhaps the recovery of wonder.

I’ll be asking that question more and more in the years ahead.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.

Discussion Questions:

1. When it comes to your closest relationships, what keeps you from paying attention to the deeper issues of the heart, causing you to focus instead on tasks or surface interactions?
   

2. Reflecting on a recent conflict, what hidden emotions or unspoken hurts might the other person have been carrying, and how could seeing that reality have changed your response?
   

3. What uncomfortable truths or difficult emotions might you be avoiding by not slowing down to honestly look into your own heart?
   

4. If God were to fully reveal the current condition of your heart right now, what secret struggles, fears, or desires might come into the light?
   

5. What fears or insecurities arise in you at the thought of asking your spouse or someone important to you, "What’s truly going on in your heart right now?" and why?

refusing to settle

“The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”

Thomas Merton

“We now live in a time when consumer Christianity has become the accepted norm, and all-out engagement with and in Jesus’ kingdom among us is regarded as somewhat ‘overdoing it.’”

Dallas Willard

Ronald Rolheiser once observed that when we’re young, we struggle to contain our energy. But in midlife, we struggle to summon it.

That insight struck me this past week as I listened to Luke LeFevre preach at The Altars Conference we host in New York City. Luke preached from Genesis 11, highlighting a sobering truth hidden among a familiar passage: the danger of settling for less than our full inheritance.

We often think of Abraham as the father of our faith. His name is invoked in the “Abrahamic” religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. But in an often-overlooked passage, it seems the original call to go to Canaan was given to Terah, Abraham’s father, not Abraham himself.

Genesis 11:31-32 records:

One day, Terah took his son Abram, his daughter-in-law Sarai (his son Abram’s wife), and his grandson Lot (his son Haran’s child) and moved away from Ur of the Chaldeans. He was headed for the land of Canaan, but they stopped at Haran and settled there. Terah lived for 205 years and died while still in Haran.

Terah did something remarkable. He left Ur of the Chaldeans, a center of pagan worship, where the moon god Nanna (Sin) was venerated. Joshua 24:2 suggests that Terah himself likely participated in this idolatry before God called him out. His departure wasn’t just geographical; it was a break from a culture of idolatry and a step toward worshiping the one true God.

But here’s the tragedy: he stopped short.

He set out for Canaan, but he settled in Haran instead. He died there, halfway to the promise, halfway to his calling.

This narrative gives us what theologians call the pattern of partial obedience, a pattern that repeats itself in the lives of so many men today.

Terah’s journey was real but incomplete. He heard the call but never finished the course.

THE DANGER OF HARAN

Here’s what unsettles me: We’ve built a Christian culture that often celebrates Haran-level spirituality. We mistake movement for arrival. We applaud partial obedience as if it were full surrender.

Terah’s story is a warning.

Imagine the tragedy if St Augustine stopped his journey from hedonism at Manichaeism or Neo-Platonism instead of Christ. Imagine the tragedy if you trade passionate devotion for going through the motions. Terah moved away from obvious idolatry but failed to reach true worship.

Haran, in a sense, became his halfway house, a place of partial reformation that substituted for full surrender. He exchanged one idolatrous city for another, just with a little more respectability.

That’s the real danger. Haran wasn’t a place of outright failure but of partial success. It was better than Ur, but “better than” isn’t the same as “arrived at.” This is what haunts me when I look at men today. We start strong. We hear a call. We take steps forward. But somewhere along the way, we stop.

Sometimes, pain slows us down, and sometimes, it’s exhaustion. But often, it’s success.

Terah’s story exposes the subtle seduction of comfort—of good enough. We can build impressive lives in Haran while Canaan remains untouched.

THE HARANS WE SETTLE FOR

In our time, Haran looks different, but it functions the same. It’s where we stop short of radical surrender and trade full transformation for a safer, more manageable faith.

In the Dutch Reformed tradition, there’s a concept called “common grace stopping points,” the places where God works to bring partial reformation but which can actually prevent full conversion. These might include:

• Orthodox theology without heart transformation

• Moral reform without gospel dependence

• Religious activity without spiritual intimacy

• Cultural sophistication without biblical fidelity

Haran is where we settle, not for outright rebellion but for a respectable faith that doesn’t cost too much.

We leave our personal Ur, whether that’s addiction, materialism, or selfish ambition, only to settle into a refined, comfortable version of the same thing. We exchange obvious idols for subtle ones: success, reputation, or control. We keep moving, but only far enough to feel like we’ve changed.

DON’T DIE IN HARAN

But here’s the good news: as long as you’re breathing, you can still move forward.

Peter’s story doesn’t end with denial.
John Mark’s doesn’t end with conflict.
Cleopas’ story doesn’t end in the village of Emmaus.

You can resume the journey.

Terah stopped, but Abraham continued. He pressed on where his father quit. Because of that, he became the father of nations, inheriting the promise of God.

Maybe that means…

• Revisiting your original calling—where have you stopped short of the full call God gave you in your early years?

• Identify the idols that have made you comfortable—what success, security, or approval have you settled for?

• Evaluate your current decisions—are they made through the lens of faith and full inheritance or just “good enough” and respectability?

___________________________________

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.”

That’s what Terah missed. That’s what many of us miss. We fear the struggle, but spiritual growth isn’t about avoiding hardship. It’s about pressing into greater and greater battles, growing stronger with each one, and getting further down the road of redemption to our full inheritance.

WHERE HAVE YOU SETTLED?

Eugene Peterson talked about "the domestication of transcendence,” the tendency to remove the wild, costly call of divine encounter with respectable religion. Dallas Willard warns that if we go all in for Jesus, we will be seen as those who overdo it.

If wholehearted obedience is what it takes to deliver me from Haran, I want to overdo it.

I refuse to stop halfway.
I refuse to mistake respectability for transformation.
I refuse to trade a risky faith for a safe religion.

Haran is a trap. It’s a spiritual graveyard for men who started strong but settled too soon.

Don’t let that be your story.

As Luke LeFevre reminded me…

Don’t die in Haran.

By God's grace, when it's all said and done, you will find my bones in Canaan, and I hope yours will be there, too.

Here for a full inheritance.

Cheers.

Jon.

PS. - If you are looking for a way to keep moving forward in your faith, why not grab a copy of Fighting Shadows, grab a couple of brothers, and keep pushing forward? Jefferson and I address the seven core lies that keep men from becoming fully alive, the same ones that keep so many men out of Canaan today.