The Difference Between Rest and Escape
Rest has been reduced to a pause button. We speak of switching off as if the soul has an off switch — as if the work were only the thing we do, and not the thing we have become while…
Weekly Journal
Is It Secret or Sacred?
Somewhere tonight, a door will close. Behind one door, two people will speak honestly about a marriage that has been quietly losing its warmth. Behind another, someone will delete messages before walking into the house. A child will close a…
When the Line We Draw Becomes the Life We Live
There is something almost unserious about the phrase “drawing a line in the sand.” You can make a line with the heel of your shoe, the end of a stick, or even your finger if the soil is soft enough.…
Labels vs Discernment
Some words are serious because they help people name serious things. But people, let us be careful not to become fluent in labels while lacking in discernment. Because not every disagreement is gaslighting.Not every calm person is nonchalant.Not every private…
2ND Half
There is a moment in life that feels like injury time. The clock is almost gone. The plan did not land the way you pictured it. The goals you wrote down in January are staring back at you like witnesses.…
A Label ≠ Attention
Do we not often make conclusions from labels before we have met the substance? We hear a word, a name, a church, a political party, an accent, a surname, a qualification, a neighbourhood, a movement, or a style of speaking,…
A Kind of Emptiness.
Leadership empties people. It won’t always happen in a dramatic, collapsing, “I cannot do this anymore” kind of way. Sometimes it is quieter than that. Sometimes you are still showing up, still answering messages, still making decisions, still carrying responsibility,…
Part 3: God is Omega. Not closure.
This is the final reflection in the Before God, Without the Story series. In the first reflection, God Was Not at the Centre, I sat with the danger of using spiritual language too quickly – how a sentence can sound…
Part 2: The Weight of Covenant
Can I talk to men for a minute? Gentlemen, what we carry before God is heavier than what we explain to people, or even convince ourselves of. In this 3-part series, covenant is the heaviest topic for me because I…
Part 1: God Was Not at the Centre
I have been thinking about a phrase/statement/sentence we use a lot. It is a sentence I have heard. It is a sentence I have understood. It is a sentence I have probably used, or nearly used, or imagined using when…
Saved. Kept. Compelled.
I have often shied away from the spotlight. Sometimes I have called it a preference. Sometimes wisdom. Sometimes humility. Sometimes discernment. And perhaps, at times, it has been those things. But honest self-reflection requires me to admit or, at least,…
Paying for a story you didn’t create
There’s a unique frustration that comes not from your actions, but from what others assume. You walk into a room and suddenly things feel tense. People decide you’re “too much,” “unsafe,” “greedy,” “cold,” or “above it,” and you end up…