Month: July 2014

Grace Is Unconditional: But It’s For You Too

I absolutely believe grace is unconditional, unlimited, and unstopping.  It is the essential mark of dignity to love sacrificially, without question.

Yet — grace does not pamper, spoil, coddle, or enable.  That would be a cheap grace.  Real grace has wisdom and discernment and confrontational momentum.  It confronts the hurt of sin and what we did. It doesn’t overlook the hurt you’ve been dealt: but plunges into the seriousness of our pain.  The very fact that we need grace means there is a very real mess which needs both our compassion and conviction.

There are boundaries when someone abuses our generosity.  Saying “no” doesn’t make you more selfish or less gracious.  There are times when you need distance, or even as a last resort, to cut someone off.  Saying “no” could be the best thing that you ever do for your friend, and for yourself.

Because grace is for you too.  It’s unfair to punish yourself into loving someone.  You can’t give away what you don’t have.  And to show instant grace when you’ve been wronged actually cheapens what’s right and wrong.  It is completely irresponsible to gloss over injustice.

Continue reading “Grace Is Unconditional: But It’s For You Too” →

The Dilemma of Loving Jesus But Hating Religion

 usemylifeforyourglory asked:

Hi! I believe in Christ and I’m experiencing His love and grace on me. I love Him but I’m so annoyed and I hate religion. I hate when people criticize others. I hate how religion divide people. I hate how they always debate who is right and wrong, true and not. I believe that His love is for everyone, that He gives us rest and in Him there is no condemnation. I’ve been in to other churches but sometimes I just don’t agree to what they say. Is it okay this is how I feel? Ugh.

Hey my lovely friend: It’s definitely okay to feel this way about “organized religion” and the disunity you see in the mainstream church.  It’s right to get angry at condemnation, legalism, hate, and oversized doctrine-heads.

But please allow me the grace to gently challenge you on one simple thing.

It’s easy for me to express discontent with the church because there’s definitely so much wrong with the flesh-driven, man-made, bully-infested hierarchy of smugness in our Christian subculture.  It’s easy for me to say, “Look at those Pharisees, those uptight religious bigots. Thank God I’m totally not like them.”  And you would be right to say that, because you have enough clarity to see how moralism kills us.

Yet the criticism we throw at the religious tends to turn into its very own sort of legalism, until we’re in a perpetual loop of grudges and animosity and division.  Making a distinction against what is wrong always begins with the noble intention of loving people, but we easily boost our own egos when we think “I’m one of the good Christians.”  We’re all prone to an elevated platform, because you know, we’re all sinners. The devil is laughing his butt off over this.

I would say that 98% of Christian blogs I read are just reactionary finger-pointing separatists that always reeks of an attitude that says, “I’m not like those other Christians.”  We tend to eat our own and shoot the wounded.  I’m well aware that even by me saying this, I’m totally defeating my own point too.  But my heart really does grieve for unity, with hope and grace even for the overbearing legalists.

Continue reading “The Dilemma of Loving Jesus But Hating Religion” →

Christian Cliches Don’t Work For Tragedy.

If you talk to anyone who’s involved in a huge tragedy, you can’t say those cute cliches like “Pain forces you to grow” or “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” It sounds hollow and stupid, and I would slap myself in the face if I said those things too.

I believe more and more that not every pain has a lesson. I think sometimes that pain is just pain, that life can be a mystery, and it’s all part of our weird wild crazy human experience. Pain is part of being human. We don’t need to spiritualize everything. We don’t need to wrap things up with a bowtie. Sometimes there is unresolved tension and we need to let it bleed.

However, here’s why I believe in the Christian faith.

Continue reading “Christian Cliches Don’t Work For Tragedy.” →

Fully Forgiven, Fully Free

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When I’m asked, “Will God forgive me no matter what I do?” — I always say yes, no matter what you do.  That’s forgiveness, to the fullest.

But often the question itself is asking for permission to do something awful, and then yank forgiveness from God like a get-out-of-jail-free card.

And if that’s the motive: then we haven’t understood that forgiveness cost the life of God’s very own son.  Our sin had to be paid, and either we do or He does.  So God paid.  It’s not some abstract ethereal doctrine in the clouds.  There was blood, nails, tears, dust, and a dirty Roman cross — and there Jesus whispered forgiveness over his murderers under a sunless sky.

More than that: God aims not only to cover our disobedience, but also give a new direction.  Forgiveness is not only for what we’ve done, but it also empowers us into a fruitful, powerful life of abundance and joy.

Of course God will forgive you over and over, no matter what, but it’s an altogether different thing to embrace the fully forgiven life, in which God’s forgiveness isn’t just for our failures, but also for our future.  To cut short the work of this forgiveness is to only ask for less of God’s grace, and not more.  To see forgiveness as simply an erased record is only half the picture.  That’s to settle for less, and I don’t want that.

Continue reading “Fully Forgiven, Fully Free” →

Question: Truths and Myths About Healing

lovedbythecreator asked:

How do you let God heal you?

Hey there my wonderful friend.  Before I even answer with a whole lot of functional details, may I just say: if you’re going through anything right now, I’m really sorry and I got crazy love for you.  Here’s a prayer even as I’m writing this, and after too.

The thing about healing is that it hurts, sometimes even worse than the original wound.  Most people think healing is just a “matter of time” or “don’t bring it up,” and while that’s partially true, it also involves an active confrontation with yourself to get where you want to be.  When a bone breaks, you set it.  When you get scraped, you use peroxide or alcohol.  When you get bruised up, you endure an ice pack.  I don’t mean to take the metaphor too far: but if you only allow “time to heal,” then you could end up with a mangled bone or an infection.

Continue reading “Question: Truths and Myths About Healing” →

A Conversation With My Non-Christian Mom About Being A Pastor.


My mom asks me what it’s like to be a pastor, and how hard it must be to get so involved with so many lives.  She says, “It has to be like living with a bunch of people all at once” — and that was probably the best description I’ve heard of ministry.

At one point my mom says, “Be careful though.  If you blow up just once, you’ll never be respected ever again.”  She said this was true in marriage, in parenting, in business, at home.

I had to disagree here.  I couldn’t believe in “You mess up one time and it’s over.”  My mom kept repeating, “No, when someone blows up on me one time, I cut them off and it’s done.  Because they’re showing me who they really are and they’re just a low-class nobody.”

So I tell her: “Mom, you know: I’ve hung out with people long enough to see them the moment after they blow up, that part when they regret what they said and wish they could take it back and want to re-do the whole thing all over again.  No one sees that part.  I see it all the time.  The look in their eyes, like they just want to punish themselves.  Their stammering confession.  The guilt.  This idea that they thought they were making progress, but suddenly they melted down, so they doubt that they’ve ever done anything good.  It kills them.  I talk to these same people at 3am and they can’t sleep because they think their life is over from their one mess-up, and they’re convinced that one time marks them forever.

“But the thing is that we’re all pretty crazy inside.  Seriously, I thought I was pretty crazy, but church people are really crazy.”  At this, my mom laughs.  “I mean we all are, more or less, you know.  There’s this thing that lives inside us that’s not really us.  I mean you see a person’s fault and flaws and they’re lashing out and everything” — and I sweep my hand to show a flat surface — “but underneath this is something very broken and hurting and needy” — and I make a fist to show a curled up soul below it all.  “There’s this back-story and upbringing and a long history behind their actions, and it doesn’t excuse what they did, but it’s an explanation.  If I can get there, and not attack where they messed up, then maybe they can change for the next thirty years.  Maybe we can break out of that pattern.

“I mean I’ve said and done a lot of things I want to take back too: but I hope no one ever just writes me off for some tantrum I had when I was seven.  I’m sure you had some moment like that, but the people who love you didn’t hold it against you very long. Even if what we did is wrong, or we mess it up more than once, I don’t think anyone is beyond change or forgiveness or redeeming themselves.  I think God knows that too.”

My mom nods, slowly.  Her face has changed a little.  She is seeing the stirrings of grace.

She gives me a long hug before I leave her place.  I think she is tearing up, or it’s just the street light.  She knows the person I used to be, that selfish horrible kid who threw things and used up people and cursed God at the top of my lungs.  She tells me, “I’m glad you have God.  If you can see people that way, then maybe God is good for something.”

I tell her, “I’m not always like that.  It’s hard.  But God understands that too.”

— J.S.


The Reckless, Relentless, Sloppy Grace of God: The Church That Jesus Had In Mind


Hello lovely wonderful friends!

This is a message I had the privilege to preach at an amazing college ministry in Gainesville, FL.

The message is titled: The Reckless, Relentless, Sloppy Grace of God: The Church That Jesus Had In Mind.

Of anything I’ve ever preached, this one is the truest message of my heart: that we would become a community of reckless honesty that gets entrenched into the mess of real lives with thoughtful nuance and that costly love called grace.  Whether you hate church or you’ve attended your whole life, I believe this is what God is after.

Stream here or download here!

 

Some things I talk about are: My time at the mental institution with drug addicts and sex addicts and recovering mental patients, the awkward harrowing nerve-racking experience of bringing your friend to church (and it happens to be sacrifice-a-live-animal day), the cringe-inducing moment when the preacher goes political, finding out what percentage of the church is actually God’s intention, the recent trend of movies where bad guys are not really bad but have a tragic back-story, what saying “I do” really means, that time I fought a pastor in a parking lot, and sculpting a real eye-to-eye face-to-face friendship over coffee.

Here are other messages from the podcast.

Be blessed and love y’all!

— J.S.




Question: Journeying From Atheism To Faith


unfadinggrace asked:

How did you get to the point to being an atheist to now believing in Christ? What changed?

Hey there my friend: Here are a few thoughts on my journey from atheism to faith.  I know that we won’t see eye to eye on everything, and  maybe some of this will sound ridiculous or outlandish, but this is simply part of my discovery. I understand some will hate this or bring a reductionistic wit to bash it all, and that’s okay.  I hope we have at least enough humility to admit we’re all still learning.

– I found atheism to be completely untenable and unsustainable.

If I were to actually follow the logic of atheism down to the bottom, it would be an endless rabbit trail of contradictions.  No atheist truly lives out to their obvious conclusions, because no one really lives life as if there’s no meaning or it happened by accident or it’s a random blob of flesh and pebbles spinning off to nowhere. At some point, I had to realize as an atheist that I was being fundamentally dishonest.  A hypocrite.

And those who did follow it to the end either had to 1) stabilize it by smuggling in the morality of other worldviews, or 2) went insane and killed everything.  Any time your belief system needs to borrow outside itself, that’s a nail in the coffin.  And any time your belief system concludes with genocide or eugenics, you’re probably better off becoming a vegan Buddhist.

Continue reading “Question: Journeying From Atheism To Faith” →

Question: Praying For A Faithless Friend

 ahookintheheart asked:

Hey Pastor J, I have a quick question about prayer. How do you pray for someone who is, as far as you know, not a believer, and is making very poor and (potentially) dangerous life choices that could ruin their life (for lack of a better phrase)? I know that more often than not, people come to God when they get to the absolute end of themselves and realize they need a change. There’s a guy I know that has shut me out of his life,so the only thing I can do is to pray for him,but I don’t know how.

Hey my dear friend: You’re really awesome to be so concerned and loving for your friend.  He or she is very lucky and blessed to have you.

I think prayer is an automatic necessity, and it can’t be emphasized enough.  I’m always wary about giving too many instructions for prayer because it can easily be a formula, but I think it’s certainly okay to pray for a divine face-smashing intervention.  It’s okay to pray that your friend totally gets that uppercut wake-up call.

Here are some other things to consider.

1) You can show there’s way better than the world.

I know this will feel like a waiting game until your friend crashes and burns: but you don’t have to wait.  Before I really came to know God, my Christian friends would always take me out to the movies or dinner or their home to show that you can have fun without reckless substances and liquids and chemicals, and that there can be a good time without all the cheap mindless, sexual, gyrating pig-slop.  They didn’t really give me a “Christian lite version” of something, but it was really their total love and laughter and craziness, and most importantly, their vulnerability.

I found that the biggest difference between my Christian friends and everyone else was that I didn’t need to “measure up” all the time by puffing out my chest.  When I was at the club or at a drunken party, there was always this sizing up ego-pissing-contest with certain code words and cool language and false bravado.  It was exhausting.  But most especially with my genuine Christian friends, I could relax.  I could be myself.  I wasn’t relying on alcohol to build a pseudo-interaction or to make me fun.  I could be loud and nerdy and messy and not worry about being the social definition of a “man.”  When I saw a better way, I wanted that.  I wanted how God wanted things to be.

My Christian friends also cooked crazy good food, and that’s one thing you can’t ever enjoy at a drunk drug party where everyone is throwing up on their shoes.  Not to judge anyone: but I like chicken parmesan better than half-digested chips and salsa.

Continue reading “Question: Praying For A Faithless Friend” →

How Do I Even Hear The Voice of God?

artemis-pixie asked:

It really confuses me when people say,listen to God,what does this mean, how? God obviously won’t just talk to me like how I talk to other people, so how do I listen when there is no sound? I’ve meditated but, I can’t get what God means from silence.

Hey my dear beloved friend, you know: I’ve always had trouble with this idea of “hearing from God.”  I always side-eye those super A+ put-together Christians who were hearing from God every week, and somehow I was outside the door of some secret club where God was throwing around fortune cookies full of His life-changing secrets.

I remember a pastor once telling his leaders, “I can teach you how to hear the audible spoken voice of God.”  No joke.  At another Bible Study, they asked us every time, “What did you hear from God this week?”  And we’d go in a circle saying increasingly spiritual things that “God laid on my heart” until the last person was writing an extra chapter of Revelation.  Some kid thought that God told Him to do missions on the foothills of Tijuana, or Siberia, or some other uninhabitable place, and we would cheer with cringing desperation.

I got frustrated with all this because I began to expect God to boom down from the rafters and for angels to explode from the ceiling.  Of course, I believe God could do that if He wanted to.  He parted a sea before and He made the sun stop.  BUT — God didn’t do this every Thursday.  Those were bonafide last-resort miracles, and I think asking for God to do this every week was like having a wedding everyday of your marriage.  The expectations were killing us.

Eventually I spoke up to say, “Actually man, I did not hear from God today.  Not for a long time.  Is that okay?”  And I think this shocked a few people.  I think someone tried to lay hands on me to re-fill my spirit tank.  A few others thought maybe I was possessed or gone prodigal or had “unconfessed sin.”  But most of us felt the same way: we were in this exhausting run-around of trying to hear God’s voice all the time and feeling like crap because we didn’t.  At least not in the way we were taught to hear Him.

To be truthful, I think many people who say they “hear from God” are too afraid to say anything else.  We’re always appealing to the gatekeepers of faith to chest-bump our spiritual masculinity, but there’s hardly any room in church for vulnerable real talk.  So a bunch of us affirm each other over “God told me” when really we just make it up on the spot to look spiritual, and it’s basically a Cold War stand-off.

Continue reading “How Do I Even Hear The Voice of God?” →

Quote: Christ-Life


“That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are just trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or—if they think there is not—at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.”


— C.S. Lewis


Ocean, Motion, Joy.


To see a marriage so bubbling and intimate and alive, to see a business with its interlocking efficiency, to see a work of art filled with splashing colors and the smallest of lines — none of these things happened out of whimsy.

We can look at a picture of life in motion and assume that it was instant magic.  We’re tickled by “love at first sight” because it stirs our easy-button of convenience.  And it looks like luck falls out of the sky for everyone else.  But: dreams take sweat and scars and apologies.  Hopes are stitched with false starts and valleys of failure.  The ease of intimacy you see in a single conversation took many, many turns through the desert.  Romance is not romantic.  A building begins with the smashing of elbows and hammers.  Our art, whether song or dance or writing or film or poetry, takes months of anxious labor.  The band you see on stage rocking the stadium spent directionless weekends in pubs in front of disinterested strangers.  Art is never born from safety and stillness.

Please don’t be fooled by the seduction of bite-sized daydreams.  Real dreams begin with dirt, with intensity.  Don’t be taken in by the highlights of social media.  They may fuel you: but life needs you to be all there.  And when you’ve pushed past the initial illusion of lake-shallow emotions: you will find an ocean of richness and depth that was worth the pain, worth the risk, worth your tears and busted seams.  There, you will find the deepest laughter.  There is a joy that hurts.

— J


Accepting The Reality of Hell

llmaime asked:

Hey, I really appreciate your blog. Your honesty is convicting, and it has prompted a lot of growth in my life. I’m just wondering, and maybe you’ve already written about this, but how did you come to terms with the reality of hell? I’ve known a lot of people who have dismissed Christianity because they couldn’t accept the thought of the majority of mankind enduring eternal torment, especially when God claims to be good. How do you navigate through all of that?

Hey my dear friend, thank you for your very kind words and thank you for asking. I know this is a tough question that divides many people.

Please allow me the grace to point you to some posts.  The first one here is a little snarky because I was sort of irritated that day, but here you go —

– Do Christians Have To Believe In Hell?

– Hell and Heaven As Motivation For Faith: A Mega-Post

Here are just a few thoughts on this to consider.

1) I believe most people already believe the concept of Hell, whether they admit it or not.

Those who don’t believe in Hell are also saying, “I don’t believe in justice for evil.”  You can’t say one without the other.

I don’t think just anyone goes to Hell.  But certainly there is justice for those who continually choose destruction, tyranny, manipulation, and oppression.  When someone says “There is no Hell,” it means they’ve never faced rape in Rawanda or a murdered child or a national genocide like the Khmer Rouge.  It means they never had to watch their relatives shot in the head right in front of them (my Cambodian friend’s mom watched all five of her brothers executed).  It means they never had to watch their parents get exterminated in an oven. Instead the naysayer’s suffering has only consisted of credit card debt or an egged car at Halloween.

Only over-privileged Westernized Post-Enlightenment thinkers who have been Pavlovian-conditioned with so-called “logic” could ever say that there’s no Hell, because they’ve never been ravaged by evil. [C.S. Lewis calls this “chronological snobbery.”]  And the only motivation for the victims of injustice to stop declaring war is to trust that there is a Hell which ultimately deals justice, so we don’t have to.  [This idea is from Miroslav Volf, a Croatian theologian who is a pacifist and well understands human indignities.]

Continue reading “Accepting The Reality of Hell” →

The Error of Narrow-Gate Theology: Jesus Is Bigger Than A Single Bible Verse

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Whenever a fellow Christian brings up the “broad road of destruction” — that is, the single verse that implies most people are going to hell — I have to question this with, you know, the whole Bible.

Because Matthew 25 tells us a story about these ten bridesmaids preparing for the wedding, and half of them are ready.  Which implies that probably half of us are going to make it.

Or in Matthew 3, we learn about the wheat getting separated from the chaff: which actually implies that the majority of us are going to make it.

So which one are we cherry-picking for our agenda?

Do we only use the narrow gate to scare the hell out of people?  What about the bridesmaids, and the wheat, and the entire list of others issues besides sexuality, and the stuff about helping the orphans and the foreigners, and how about the criminal next to Jesus who made it in the last ten seconds of his life?  What’s the theology that makes the church hate poor people?

Like my seminary professors used to say, There’s no content without context.

Continue reading “The Error of Narrow-Gate Theology: Jesus Is Bigger Than A Single Bible Verse” →

Question: Running In Place, Dead In My Faith

tworoadsdivergedblog asked:

Do you ever feel like you just aren’t getting anywhere? Like you’ve been in the same position for a very long time and you just need change? I’ve been in a standstill with God and the world in general and this is sort of embarrassing but it’s really been screwing with my vibes, man. Especially now during the summer, because that’s when my depression peaks. I don’t know how to move forward, or what He wants me to do or anything, but I know i have to keep moving. Any advice?

On a long enough timeline, when I talk with friends who are of any and every belief, race, age, and gender — I always find a restless discontent that plagues them everywhere they go.  Me too.  It doesn’t matter how happy we are with God, with our marriages, with our career or college or kids.  It’s always the same itchy awkward gap between who I want to be and who I really am.  Almost no one is truly satisfied with their lot in life, and sometimes it’s because they could definitely do better, but other times they just know that this world isn’t our real home.

In some ways, this dissatisfaction is easy, and entire blogs are dedicated to yelling at everything that’s wrong.  But it’s a symptom of the real issue. I think the huge expectations we have over life can feel like knocking backwards on the door of nostalgia, to an unreachable fountain of unquenched thirst that won’t happen on our side of the door.  Of course, we must strive for joy and fight against evil and pursue healing.  But when you feel like you’ve stalled out or that your faith is dry or you’re all worn down, it’s perfectly natural to feel restless and itchy in your soul sometimes.

So please have grace for yourself on this.  We all experience these up-and-down seasons as much as the weather changes, and I think if we were told this from the start, then preparation would already win half the battle.  When my body gets into that strange rhythm of sudden discontent, I can already tell myself, “I’m on to you, bro.  You don’t get to tell me who I am.”  I find contentment in knowing that tiny little itch will always throb at me, and that’s part of being human.

Sure, all this stirring could indicate that you need to change a few things.  It could mean to let go of something or start some things anew.  Maybe God has for you a totally new vision, a new city, a change of career.  I would talk this out with a friend, face-to-face, one-on-one, to share that disembodied urge.  It can help for someone to say, “Yeah man, me too.”  If you feel depressed, please please please talk that out in safety with a friend.  We need honesty to move forward. And it helps to share our discontent before we make decisions from it.

But there is always this inconsolable longing for Eden that will remain a wounded vacuum which can drive you crazy.  And it’s okay.  It’s there.  It shouldn’t be so foreign to us that we feel like foreigners on earth.  And in the midst of that, even a tiny mustard seed of faith is enough to move the mountain and keep climbing.  God is cool with our weak hearts, and maybe prefers them.

Continue reading “Question: Running In Place, Dead In My Faith” →

Question: Am I Too Far & Too Late With God?

lionheartedgiirl asked:

Is there a point where we’ve pushed the line too far with God? I often get caught up in verses like Hebrews 6:4-6 or the ones about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. I’m trying to return to Christ but I keep messing up and I’m scared the one day I’ll push God too far

Hey my dear friend, please let me tell you the truth right up front —

The very fact that you even messaged me about this shows that it bothers you enough to care, and if you care even a tiny little bit about your relationship with God, you’re in a much better place than you think.  And even if you didn’t care at all, God doesn’t suddenly pull the lever to the trap door to hell.

I promise that I’m not trying to promote a lazy or lukewarm faith.  Certainly God cares that we’re true to Him, that we pursue Him, that we want what He wants.  But God also knows we’re fragile fallen squishy human beings, and at times we fail to live up to what we were made for, which is the very exact reason that Jesus had to die for us, and was glad to die for us.

Continue reading “Question: Am I Too Far & Too Late With God?” →

The Magical Fix-It Bullet For Faith: 8-Minute Abs For Your Spiritual Life

I wish I could fix your faith with a single surgical Bible verse or the perfect mix of eloquent argumentation. I wish there was a twelve point diagram or a three point sermon or an eight minute program that could get your faith in shape, for the low-low price of Jesus’s grinning thumbs up.

When someone tells me to “Just cheer up” or “Be positive” or “Believe,” there’s nothing in me that doesn’t want to flip a switch and charge up my faith-meter. To tell me that I need to “just just just” is not as easy as a pat on the back of praying away your problems.

Faith isn’t a light switch. It’s a journey.

And that means it takes more than one epiphany. It’s more than one sit-down over coffee. It’s more than any one sermon or blog post or book or Sunday service. Certainly there are life-changing moments in each of these things: but faith is more of a woven tapestry knit by all these unique interlocking fabrics that paint a larger mosaic in the end, and no one can rush this with a magic formula. There’s no 800 number to grow a seed.

No one has the patience for this. It’s not natural to let things grow in their own pacing. We so badly want it now. We want the pain and doubts and frustrations to pass quickly: when we forget, this is all part of the journey too, and it’s all the deepest part of who we become.

Without growing pains, we only end up shallow and misinformed. Without pushing through the initial illusions of an easy faith do we begin to arrive at the rich vibrancy of a faith that bleeds and breathes.

Continue reading “The Magical Fix-It Bullet For Faith: 8-Minute Abs For Your Spiritual Life” →

Jeremiah 29:11, The Most Misquoted Verse of Scripture: God Has A Plan To Put You Through Fire


Hello lovely wonderful friends!

This is a message from the podcast on one of the most misquoted verses of the Bible.  The message is titled: God Has A Plan To Put You Through Fire.

It’s about how God is actually preparing us with resolve for the dry desert seasons of life.

Stream here or download here!


Some things I talk about are: Finding Jesus for three easy payments of $9.99, the mathematical impossibility of soulmates, the surprising difficulty of planning for a wedding, fighting against our natural inclination to fight against God, how martial arts teaches us about reacting to the trials of life, and how every Unresolved Tension will meet Happily Ever After.

Here are other messages from the podcast.

Be blessed and love y’all!

— J