Month: April 2016

From Mountain High to Valley Low: Finding an Oasis in the Darkest Desert

Photo by Lenny K, CC BY 2.0


Hello dear friends! This is a message I preached called, From Mountain High to Valley Low: Finding an Oasis in the Darkest Desert, on the story of Elijah from 1 Kings 18-19.

It’s about finding our way through discouragement, distress, and depression, and how God speaks to us in those seasons and how we speak to one another. As a lifelong sufferer of depression, this is hugely personal for me. Stream below or download directly here. I’m also on iTunes here.

Some things I talk about are: The sudden mental replay in the shower and the late-night regret twitch, the one common denial from every patient in the hospital, when you just need a hamburger and a really long nap, the hidden fear of men getting honest, the panic moment when someone sees your text messages and photos, how Yoda finally got through to Luke Skywalker, and Elijah versus depression versus the world.

All messages are here. Be immensely blessed and love y’all!
— J.S.

Kindness, Kindly.

CS Lewis kindness instagram

“The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he ‘likes’ them: the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds him liking more and more people as he goes on — including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.”
— C.S. Lewis

Foreword to My Newest Book, by T.B. LaBerge

Grace Be With You Foreword TB LaBerge


My very good friend and blogger T.B. LaBerge wrote the Foreword to my newest book, Grace Be With You.

The book is a collection of short stories, poems, and thoughts, many of which you’ve seen here on this blog.
It’s available now in paperback and ebook!


http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Be-With-You-paperback/dp/069269031X/

http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Be-With-You-ebook/dp/B01E4XXCVM


My Newest Book: Grace Be With You, a Compendium of Stories, Thoughts, & Poems

Grace Be With You paperback


Hey dear friends! This is my newest book, Grace Be With You: Stirring Truth and Abundant Joy for Fellow Travelers. It’s a collection of stories, quotes, and poems, most of which have gone “viral” on this blog, with all new content. The Foreword is also by my wonderful friend T.B. LaBerge.

The book has four chapters, each a unique theme: to encourage, convict, engage, and transcend. Contained are quick quotes, humbling plot twists, and everyday encounters on the road, at the hospital, at cafes and gas stations and funerals and churches.

The paperback is only 8.99 here and the ebook is only 3.99 here and it works on every device. If you’re blessed by the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.

Be immensely rocked by His grace!
— J.S.


Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Be-With-You-paperback/dp/069269031X

Ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Be-With-You-ebook/dp/B01E4XXCVM

Doggie Break.

Rosco tanning April 2016


Hello friends! I’ll be then taking a much-needed break for the rest of April after announcing my newest book Grace Be With You tomorrow. I’ll still be checking my inbox but won’t be regularly posting until May. Love you friends, and thank you for all your encouragement and prayers!
— J.S.

p.s. – My spoiled dog prince Rosco has inspired my break. May his disarmingly happy face be an inspiration for us all.

Bible Showdown: Literal Vs. Allegorical Interpretation

horizontescuriosos asked:

I came across one interpretation of Genesis that I thought might be insightful to ask someone about. The idea I found is that Genesis is really an allegory about human sin … Like before sin, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed. Then Eve tried to sneak eating the apple, sin entered, and from then on Adam and Eve wore clothes out of shame … As a pastor, do you think this idea of Genesis being an allegory for human sin has credit? (Edited for length)

Hey dear friend, I’ve definitely seen Genesis (and much of the Bible) interpreted as allegory, and it’s a legitimate way of reading the Bible, called the Alexandrian method, that’s been around for centuries.

However, I personally view most of the Bible as literal, factual history — or at the very least, I assume that the Bible authors had an original intention that wasn’t meant to be stretched towards a “spiritualized” meaning that says whatever we fancy.

Scripture doesn’t read as an allegorical account, but more like a news periodical. There are parts of Scripture that are definitely allegory, but it’s usually obvious, with the author even saying so.

Ancient accounts of legend only revealed details that were much like Chekov’s gun, which were set-ups for a moral lesson. From the Epic of Gilgamesh to Beowulf to The Odyssey, no detail was wasted. But Scripture would describe things that had no other purpose but to describe them. Jonah talks about buying an actual ticket to board a ship. Peter and his fellow fisherman caught 153 fish, which has no other meaning, except that they caught 153 fish. When Jesus is arrested, a naked guy totally flees the scene. Mythological stories never read this way. Most of Scripture has a prosaic, open-ended description that was not a type of genre for myths back then, but for eyewitness testimony.

While the Alexandrian method certainly has merit, here’s one huge advantage of the literal interpretation of Scripture.

Continue reading “Bible Showdown: Literal Vs. Allegorical Interpretation” →

The Bible in 56 Days


I finally finished the Lent Bible Reading Plan (but it took me 56 days instead of 40). Reading the whole Bible that fast brought an entirely different perspective, like I lived a thousand lifetimes watching from heaven, or had read the last will of a million year old sage. I recommend rapid-reading of the Bible at least once.

— J.S.

Does Social Media Really Help a Cry-for-Help?

shatterrealm asked a question:

When Internet strangers rally together to assure a suicidal person that they are loved and precious, are we really helping? Or are we making things worse by arguing with their depression? Should we simply be referring them to professionals?

Hey dear friend, this is an excellent question that I can’t possibly hope to adequately cover, but I’ll offer a few thoughts on this to consider.

– On one hand, if you can save a life with words, do it. I think it’s absolutely a good idea to press in when someone expresses depression, anywhere, every time, all the time. It might really pull back someone from the edge, even for one more day.

I can’t really stop to evaluate the whole thing on whether it’s real or not, or if it’s really helping. That’s not for me to decide right then. If someone is drowning in a river headed towards a waterfall, I don’t ever want to think, “Am I enabling this person to not learn to swim?” I can think about that later. At this very second, I have to throw a lifeline, or I’ll jump in there myself.

– On the other hand, I’m less sure about how this will work for the long-term. It’s the old dilemma: “Give a person a fish for a day or teach them how to fish for life.”

In the short-term, rallying together online can certainly be helpful for a person who cries-for-help. I’ll be the first one there. But at some point, the online world becomes very limited in truly helping a depressed person. It doesn’t go deep enough, and in some cases, can actually be more harmful.


Continue reading “Does Social Media Really Help a Cry-for-Help?” →

The Intense Insecurity of “Being Yourself”


One of the reasons I’m so intensely insecure and self-conscious is because everyone keeps talking about “be yourself” — but the moment you open up, you’re only accepted when “being yourself” is a certain type of self. It’s really romantic that we push a magical version of vulnerable and unique, but the actual opening up part is dang hard and uncomfortable and requires a kind of love that most people won’t muster, since they’ve never really had to. It ain’t like Hollywood, ever.

If you find the sort of friend who truly loves you, I mean the weird obnoxious squeaky sweaty you, however imperfectly, keep them close and forgive them for when they do not understand. Friendship will take more than once and more than the pretty picture in our heads.

— J.S.


The Fearful Moment When Your Faith Is Utterly Shaken

wherethecherryblossomsdance asked a question:

What can we do when we read evidence against faith and our faith wavers horribly? I know this is my case some days, and there are some arguments that my non believing friends bring up, along with comments in these posts that really shake my faith and I realize that I don’t know or have all the answers. What do you think about this?

Hey dear friend, to be truthful, I think it’s a good thing to have your faith shaken sometimes. I mean really, really beat up. Many of us are scared of being scared, but that’s part of life. We can’t protect ourselves from all the terrifying questions. If we avoid every scraped knee, we’ll eventually be too weak when the harder things happen—and so we need a faith that has questioned itself to its barest bones.

Every psych class will tell you that when your worldview is challenged, you’ll experience an actual physiological disorientation in the brain. It can cause nausea, depression, anxiety, and hostile anger. But if you know this is coming and you can work past the emotions, you can rationally approach both sides of the argument without it threatening you.

Continue reading “The Fearful Moment When Your Faith Is Utterly Shaken” →

Holiness, Humility, and How to Give Your Life Away


Hello wonderful friends! This is a message I preached called Holiness, Humility, and How to Give Your Life Away.

It’s about how the holiness of God irrevocably changes us in two ground-shaking ways. Stream below or download here.


Some of the things I talk about are: The two things I hear at every deathbed in the hospital, my body’s crazy involuntary response when I flew over the Grand Canyon, every instance of the Bible characters seeing God and falling over crying, the unseen thankless art of raising children, how to live generously with zero guarantees, and a letter from Belize.

My podcasts are on iTunes here (leave a review if you wish!).

Be immensely blessed, dear friends!
— J.S.

You Won’t Like This: But I Hope You Hear Me

[You won’t like this.]

I hardly ever meet people who can apologize without excuses, or who can handle rebuke with a level head, or who don’t immediately lash out and get defensive when they’re corrected. I only know this because I’m that guy, too.

We do everything possible to avoid the consequences of our actions, to hold on to some tiny frayed rope of self-righteousness, to desperately grab for some centimeter of posture in a tug-of-war. We run to “What-about-you?” as if that cancels out the hurt we’ve caused. Such a sloppy mirror-defense uses someone else’s “tone” or past grievance to wiggle out of being wrong, like some kind of insane free-styling Walter White to proclaim up is left and purple is sky. Every suggestion is shot down by a sniper’s rocket launcher in a walled-up tower of self-pity, without considering the other point of view, the other human being, even for a fraction of a second.

All that energy could be used to hold up the mirror to yourself, to own your part of the problem. But I never see that anymore. I only see the irresponsibility of regurgitating excuses, a rehearsal of Sisyphus in an isolated hell. I only see the comfort zone of yes-men, never stretched or challenged, choking in a bizarre backwards world of fawning and flattery to protect a precious egg-shell ego.

If you think I’m talking about your neighbor or your parents or your boss or that church down the street, I’m not. I’m talking about you. About me. That’s part of the problem. No one wants to think, “I’m part of the problem.” I’m talking directly to you.

I’m just jaded. In the last month alone, I’ve seen even the best kinds of people respond to criticism by throwing f-bombs, fake-crying their way out, and shifting blame to a billion other people, no matter how gentle I am, no matter how soft or loving or coddling. In fact, it appears that grace is hijacked as a permission slip, or a loophole to play dumb, when grace was meant to be a surgical, sculpting love that has to say everything: that must stop you from driving off the cliff at all costs.

Continue reading “You Won’t Like This: But I Hope You Hear Me” →