“Twin girls, Brielle and Kyrie, were born 12 weeks ahead of their due date. Needing intensive care, they were placed in separate incubators. Kyrie began to gain weight and her health stabilized. But Brielle, born only 2 lbs, had trouble breathing, heart problems and other complications. She was not expected to live.

Their nurse did everything she could to make Brielle’s health better, but nothing she did was helping her. With nothing else to do, their nurse went against hospital policy and decided to place both babies in the same incubator.

She left the twin girls to sleep and when when she returned she found a sight she could not believe. She called all the nurses and doctors and this is what they saw. As Brielle got closer to her sister, Kyrie put her small little arm around her, as if to hug and support her sister. From that moment on, Brielle’s breathing and heart rate stabilized and her health became normal.”

That’s a powerful example of how two are better than one, as the verse in Ecclesiastes says. Christianity is not and has never been an individualistic faith. It’s meant to be lived out in community from start to finish.

The reason that the Church exists is not for us to have something to do for one hour a week on Sundays. It’s a place for us to acknowledge our weaknesses and to be strong for each other in areas where they’re weak, just as someone else can be strong for us in the places where we’re weak.

Christians fall and fail because they isolate. They withdraw from other believers in times when they need other believers the most. In some cases, believers have been ostracized from community instead of seeking to bring them to healing and restoration.

The best witness is still how much we love each other. It’s when we forgive each other instead of cancelling each other like everyone else does. It’s when we offer restoration instead of revenge and retaliation. It’s when we love those among us who deserve our love the least but need it most. It’s when we love each other like Jesus loved us and gave Himself up for us.

Let’s love those God has placed in front of us. But most of all, let’s love each other like our very lives depended on it (as The Message puts it), because sometimes that may just be the case.

I saw this little sign at my dentist office last week. I can’t think of a better way to relax on a Saturday morning.

“I’m caught up in Your presence
I just want to sit here at Your feet
I’m caught up in this holy moment
I never wanna leave

Oh, I’m not here for blessings
Jesus, You don’t owe me anything
More than anything that You can do
I just want You

I’m sorry when I’ve just gone through the motions
I’m sorry when I just sang another song
Take me back to where we started
I open up my heart to You

I’m sorry when I’ve come with my agenda
I’m sorry when I forgot that You’re enough
Take me back to where we started
I open up my heart to You

I’m caught up in Your presence
I just want to sit here at Your feet
I’m caught up in this holy moment
I never wanna leave

Oh, I’m not here for blessings
Jesus, You don’t owe me anything
And more than anything that You can do
I just want You

I just want You
Nothing else, nothing else
Nothing else will do
I just want You
Nothing else, nothing else
Nothing else will do

I just want You
Nothing else, nothing else
Nothing else will do
I just want You
Nothing else, nothing else, Jesus
Nothing else will do

I just want You
Nothing else, nothing else
Nothing else will do
I just want You
Nothing else, nothing else, Jesus
Nothing else will do

I’m coming back to where we started
I’m coming back to where we started
When I first felt Your love
You’re all that matters, Jesus
You’re all that matters
I’m coming back to what really matters
Just Your heart
I just wanna bless Your heart, Jesus

I’m caught up in Your presence
I just want to sit here at Your feet
I’m caught up in this holy moment
I never wanna leave

And oh, I’m not here for blessings
Jesus, You don’t owe me anything
More than anything that You can do
Oh, I just want You” (Cody Carnes/Hank Bentley/Jessie Parker Early).

How many times have I been a kind of Martha, too busy doing things for Jesus to simply be with Jesus? How many times have I been so focused on my wish list of needs and wants that I forget to listen to what He’s speaking to me? So many of my prayers have been so one-sided because I almost never leave room for silence and listening.

Sometimes it’s good not to ask for anything. Sometimes it’s good not to even say anything or do anything other than putting yourself in a posture to hear from God. Being still and silent may be the hardest discipline for most of us whose minds are like computers with 15 tabs open at all times and music coming from some mysterious source.

I think that it’s not something you learn how to do in one setting. It will take lots of times where all you hear are your own thoughts. Gradually, you learn to let your mind rest and then you can discern the voice of God. But it is a discipline, and that always takes practice and time.

I’m so thankful that God wants to speak to me more than I want to listen. I’m more thankful that He’s more persistent in speaking than I am in listening. Again, I say with all the saints, “Speak, Lord, for your servants are listening.”

“Lord, teach me to be generous. Teach me to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that I do your will” (St. Ignatius).

I heard a pastor say once that no one stands at the foot of the cross and argues percentages. You won’t stand before the Savior with scars in His hands and feet to debate whether you tithe off your gross or your net income. In fact, if you have to count percentages, you probably haven’t yet learned the real spirit of generosity.

To be generous isn’t to give of your excess but to give everything like that widow who gave the two small coins that didn’t look like much but were all she had to live on.

Generosity is about more than money. It’s giving of your time, your treasure, and your talents because you believe that the Kingdom of God is like the pearl beyond price that you would give anything to own. Generosity says that real wealth is heavenly treasure that thieves can’t steal, that moths can’t get at, that rust can’t destroy.

Generosity means that you give because you have been given much. Because Jesus gave absolutely everything for you. Generosity isn’t just giving your time, talents, and treasures. It’s giving your life. It’s about giving your very self.

To say that the Tedeschi Trucks Band put on a concert seems almost like an understatement. It was more of an immersive experience. I’ve never been to another musical event where the crowd was so visibly affected. It was very close to what I would imagine a Pentecostal service would be like.

The entire band was on point and at the top of their game. Susan Tedeschi’s voice was as amazing as ever and I was pleasantly surprised to see her put in her fair share of solos and even on a couple of occasions trading solos with her husband and fellow bandmate Derek Trucks.

They definitely carry the mantle of the Allman Brothers Band legacy quite well. I can’t think of many other bands that are as good at sustained improvisations both as individuals and as a collective whole. One of my favorite things about music is when it goes someplace unexpected. I read that good jazz is the sound of surprise, and I think that assessment applies here.

I didn’t have the best seats, so part of the stage was cut off from my viewpoint, but I saw enough to know that every person in the band was having a grand time and that they really enjoy playing with each other.

I can’t go without saying that Derek Trucks might just be the best electric guitar player I’ve ever seen in a live setting. He was astonishingly good. Apparently during the intermission, he ran over to Bridgestone Arena to join in with Billy Strings and his band for a couple of songs before running back to the Ryman for the second half of the concert.

Hopefully, I’ll get to see Tedeschi Trucks Band again — hopefully from some better seats. It was one of my favorite nights in a long, long time.

I went to a Tedeschi Trucks Band concert at the Ryman tonight. It was great. I got back home at nearly midnight, and apparently I’m too tired to sleep just yet. I’m also too tired to be able to properly put down my thoughts about the concert.

Do you ever get so tired that you’re annoyed at just about everything? Including how tired you are? I’m sure there’s a medical term or a technical term for it, but I’m too tired to think of it at the moment.

I’m in that dead zone between being able to function like a normal human being and being able to sleep, also like a normal human being. It isn’t normal. It’s also very annoying.

Still, I’m very thankful for a good night with some good music, followed by what will hopefully be a good night’s sleep.

The end.

“Marriage is not a lifelong attraction of two individuals to each other, but a call for two people to witness together to God’s love. . . . [The] intimacy of marriage itself is an intimacy that is based on the common participation in a love greater than the love two people can offer each other. The real mystery of marriage is not that [two people] love each other so much that they can find God in each other’s lives, but that God loves them so much that they can discover each other more and more as living reminders of God’s divine presence. They are brought together, indeed, as two prayerful hands extended toward God and forming in this way a home for God in this world.

The same is true for friendship. Deep and mature friendship does not mean that we keep looking each other in the eyes and are constantly impressed or enraptured by each other’s beauty, talents, and gifts, but it means that together we look at God, who calls us to God’s service” (Henri Nouwen).

The best relationships, whether marriage or friendships, are the ones that best reflect God’s love for His people. They aren’t generated out of a self-initiated kind of love but a love that is first from above, as in we love because God first loved us. We are lovable because God is love and showered His love on us when we were yet sinners and very unlovable.

I heard that the ideal marriage is not you and me in a perfect setting, i.e white picket fences and 2.5 kids, forever, but two people who have discovered that they can serve God better together than apart. Together, they mirror the love Christ has for His bride, the Church.

True friendships are the ones that make us more like Jesus and spur us on to pursue the things of God — and God above all — more and more the deeper the friendship gets. They never let us settle but always encourage, challenge, rebuke, and restore us to keep keeping our eyes on Jesus at all times in all places.

May we never stop seeking those kinds of marriages and friendships that are a display of God’s love and a witness to a watching world of how that kind of love can save and redeem.

“The Lenten season begins. It is a time to be with you, Lord, in a special way, a time to pray, to fast, and thus to follow you on your way to Jerusalem, to Golgotha, and to the final victory over death.

I am still so divided. I truly want to follow you, but I also want to follow my own desires and lend an ear to the voices that speak about prestige, success, pleasure, power, and influence. Help me to become deaf to these voices and more attentive to your voice, which calls me to choose the narrow road to life.

I know that Lent is going to be a very hard time for me. The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There are not times or places without choices. And I know how deeply I resist choosing you.

Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able to taste with joy the new life that you have prepared for me. Amen” (Henri Nouwen).

Lent is about self-denial, something that is about as antithetical to today’s culture of self-indulgence and self-fulfillment as you can get. The ultimate example is that of Jesus, who though existing in the very form of God, made Himself nothing and took on the form of a slave, becoming obedient to the point of the worst kind of death imaginable on a cross (see Philippians 2).

My flesh wants what it wants. I know most of the time I have my own desires and wants and dreams, but at the end of the day, nothing I could ever wish for or long for could compare with what God has in store for those He loves. My imagination, my brain, isn’t big enough to dream God-sized dreams.

But Easter is about the journey from equality with God to nothing to death to exaltation above all. The journey to joy often goes through the valley of the shadow of death, but does not stop there. As the song says, Jesus only borrowed the tomb because He never intended to stay there.

May we remember this Easter that while sorrow may last for a night, joy always comes in the morning. Especially on the morning of Easter Sunday.

“The good news of Jesus is not that we get a merit badge for being put together and hope that God ignores our failures. We serve God not only with our strengths, but in our weaknesses. The ones Jesus calls are the weary ones, the ones who snap at those they love after a long day, the ones who battle addiction, the ones who aren’t who they wish they were, the ones who know they are not strong, the ones who wrestle and repent, who fail and fail again. This is the church, these ones through whom Jesus is strong” (Tish Harrison Warren).

It’s Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent. Traditionally, this is when people choose to undergo a fasting period, whether it’s literal fasting from food or fasting from things like social media or television or their smart phones.

It’s not just about showing how spiritual you are by giving up something you really like. It’s taking the empty space left behind from the absence of that thing you gave up to make time for God to speak into the margins of your life. It’s about using the time you would have devoted to Facebook or binging Stranger Things to instead open up God’s word and let it soak in deep as you meditate over chapters and verses.

I didn’t grow up in a faith tradition that practiced Lent. I only learned about it later in life and started my annual fast from social media a few years ago. I confess that I don’t always steward my extra time well. But hopefully, I make room for me to be able to see God working in and around me and to give myself breathing space to hear God’s still small voice.

Lent is also a way to prepare your heart for the remembrance of Good Friday and the celebration of Easter Sunday. It’s a reminder that, like Christmas, Easter isn’t just a one-day event full of candy and Easter baskets, but an ongoing reminder of the purpose of Jesus’ incarnation — to take on the form of a servant and to be obedient to the Father to the point of laying down His life for sinners like you and me.

May you rediscover the true meaning of Easter through this season of Lent as you prepare yourself to receive once again the Lamb who was slain but is now the risen and reigning Lion of Judah.

“And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, ‘If you will, you can make me clean.’ Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I will; be clean.’ And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean” (Mark 1:40-42, ESV).

Tonight at Kairos, the guest speaker was the pastor from The Porch ministry out of Dallas, Texas, He spoke from Mark 1 about Jesus coming down the mountain and healing the leper. He noted that while religion is man’s attempt to climb the mountain to get to God, Christianity is God coming down the mountain to get to man.

It’s interesting that in this account, Jesus touches the leper. He didn’t have to. He could just as easily have spoken the word to heal him or even done the healing from a great distance, as He did with the centurion’s servant. But He didn’t. He touched the leper.

I heard once of something called the great reversal. Basically, in normal circumstances, if you or I touched a leper back then, we would have been unclean. We would have had to do the ceremonial procedures prescribed in the law of Moses.

But when Jesus touched that leper, Jesus wasn’t the one who became unclean. It was the leper who was made clean. It was a signal of Jesus reversing the curse of sin.

Because of the curse, the natural progression is from life to death, but with Jesus, we see Him raising Lazarus from death to life.

The curse means that we are divided from each other and separated from God, but Jesus brings us from division to unity, and from being separated from God to belonging to the family of God.

The great reversal means that every evil, every injustice, every wrong brought about by the fall is coming untrue and coming undone. Jesus is working to restore creation to its original splendor and us to the peace and joy that originated in the garden of Eden.

It shows that Jesus is stronger than leprosy. He’s stronger than any cancer or COVID or dementia. He’s stronger than pain, suffering or death. He’s even stronger than the grave and hell. He has conquered them all, and while they will all pass away, He will not. One day, they will be no more, but He will always remain and He will always reign.