I heard once that many of us are more interested in looking good and feeling good than in doing good and being good. We’re all about making an impression and cultivating an image through social media and other outlets, so that others will see us the way we want them to.

We’ve perhaps forgotten that people will quickly forget the impressions they had of us but not the difference we’ve made. And that is the difference.

To make an impression is me-focused, getting people to look only at us. Making a difference pushes the focus away from me to the transformation and the change. If we truly make a difference in the eternal sense, the focus will be on the God who does the transforming and changing.

The impression you make dies with you, but the difference you make will outlive you. It will be the ripple in the pond that continues outward long after the stone you’ve thrown has sunk to the bottom.

“I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world” (Mother Teresa).

If you don’t like how your story is going, it’s good to remember that you are not the author of your story. God is. Also, if you keep trying to snatch the pencil out of God’s hand, you’ll miss some of what God is writing.

I think you and I get into trouble when we see ourselves as the star of the story. We lose sight of the big picture of the grand narrative God is telling. Jesus is the central focus and we get to be a part of what He is doing in the world. When we see our story in the context of the Bigger Story, we can be less anxious about where we are and where we think we should be.

Trust the Author and let Him tell your story. You will not be disappointed.

I sometimes wonder if we think we’re above idolatry because we don’t literally bow down to little statues made of stone or bronze or gold. We don’t genuflect to an image carved into a block of wood or embroidered onto fabric.

But an idol is anything we value above God, anything that we give more time and attention to than we give to God. Idols can be just about anything from careers to children, from money to marriage, from status to sex. It can be the need for approval and affirmation. It’s often taking something that started out as good and expecting it to be a god, functioning in the true God’s place.

In the first scenario, we’re golden. In the second, we’re all idolaters to some degree. The only cure is to look to Jesus.

It’s like the old story about the treasury department. You would think that to be able to detect counterfeit currency that you would study all sorts of different fake bills. But that’s not the case. You study the real thing and become so familiar with it that you memorize every detail. That way you can easily spot a fake that doesn’t match up.

If we get to know the heart of God and know His character well enough, we can better know that those counterfeit gods are phonies. We know they’re nowhere close to the real thing. The cure of idolatry isn’t so much about abstaining from little gods as it is adoration of the real God. It’s making so much of the big G God that there’s no room for little g gods.

When our hands become His hands we let others see the cross. When we work together, we become the visible body of Christ in this world for people to see and hear and touch and know.

I heard once that while one person might read a Bible, ten will read the Christian. They will watch your interactions, your reactions, your responses. What they hope to see is not perfection but authenticity. They want to know that you really believe what you preach and that your belief isn’t confined to your head but reaches through your heart to your own hands and feet.

And the best representation of Jesus in the world is not when we act solo but when we serve in context of community and fellowship. They want to know Jesus when they see how much we love and serve each other and by how much we love and serve them.

It’s amazing how much we worry. Especially after you consider the fact that the vast majority of what we worry about and that keeps us up at night never happens. Typically, the outcome is way less than the worst case we envision.

Once you add in the fact that nothing can separate one of God’s children from His love, that takes away the ultimate worst case scenario. Anything else is doable. Anything else you can survive because God is with you.

The truth of the matter is that even if that dreaded worst case scenario came to pass, you’d still be in good hands. God is not taken by surprise at anything that happens to you or that happens because of you. He factored in our stupidity when He set His plans in motion. And no, I don’t mean that we are stupid but man oh man, do we do and say some stupid stuff sometimes.

I love that nothing that could possibly go wrong can derail God’s plans for you. Not angels or demons or anything else in all the world. Not even you. Not even the dumb stuff that you and I are capable of doing. Nothing.

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So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us” (Romans 8:31-39, The Message).

I think this came from Max Lucado. If I’m not mistaken, it’s from his book When God Whispers Your Name, which I highly recommend.

I sometimes wonder how much we want to know God. How much we want to follow Jesus. Is it enough for us to allow ourselves to be inconvenienced? It it enough for us to give up creature comforts? Is it enough to cause us to say no to other things — possibly even good things — to make room to hear from God?

I read earlier this week that maybe we shouldn’t complain about not hearing from God when are Bibles are closed. Maybe we shouldn’t wonder that we barely know Jesus if we barely make an effort to get to know Him. And by we, I mean me.

The good news is that God in Jesus wants us to know Him. He knows every single thing about us — even those ugly secrets that we don’t ever tell anyone — and still He wants a relationship with us. Still He reveals Himself if we’re paying attention. Still He chooses us.

Maybe it’s time to start cutting some holes in some roofs and climbing some trees and jumping out of some boats to get to Jesus. Maybe it’s time to open that Bible again.

I once heard a pastor say that if you don’t live it, you don’t believe it. In other words, you can talk about Jesus and believing in God all day long, but if the way you live doesn’t reflect Jesus, then it really doesn’t matter what you say because your words mean nothing.

I think it’s important to have beliefs that line up with the Bible. But it’s more important to have behavior that matches your beliefs. I’m not saying you need to be perfect, but you do need to be consistent. So much of that I’m seeing is people will post on social media about how much they love God, then turn around and post things that don’t reflect God’s values. It’s one or the other, not both.

Above all, the heart that truly belongs to Jesus can’t stay the same. If we’ve been identified with Jesus, we are being transformed into His likeness. We can’t stay the same old sinners we were when we first met Jesus. We can’t continue to live the same old lifestyle if we’re truly saved. Sin robs us of peace and kills our joy, so can those who can keep sinning and feel no remorse or need of repentance really say that they belong to Jesus?

But the beautiful promise is that if we confess our sin, God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. His love for us will never cease, even when we stray or fall short. He will finish what He started in us.

I think I get it now. For a long time, I was baffled at the resurgence of popularity in vinyl. I didn’t get it. I especially didn’t get how suddenly expensive it was to buy a record (or an LP as we cool kids used to call them back in the day).

I have seen the light. And yes, I’ve also seen the Blues Brothers movie where that line comes from. But I totally get the vinyl craze. I can just about count myself in that category now.

There’s something about the hunt, about finding that special album, about putting the needle down on the record and hearing the magical sounds issuing forth. It’s a tangible link back to my childhood.

I’m not a fan of some of the price tags. Then again, I’m not a fan of the price of a lot of concert tickets these days. I guess just about everything is expensive these days.

But money spent on good music is never wasted, I think.

I can’t tell you how this picture perfectly describes what it was like for me as an elementary-aged kid back in the day when I was sick. I never wanted to be sick, but I didn’t hate having a sick day, as long as I didn’t feel too awful.

I had Bob Barker and The Price is Right. I had Three Stooges short films. I had a comfy couch and a sleeping bag where I could convalesce in relative peace. Throw in some saltine crackers and some ginger ale, and I was a happy kid. But not too happy, otherwise Mom would have sent me back to school sooner. I had to play up the feeling bad part so I could milk my illness for all it was worth.

These days, being sick is no fun. You just feel bad without any of the perks. In fact, being an adult has been an overrated experience in my opinion. So many of us are in such a hurry to be grown up, only to spend a lot of time as adults wishing we could be kids again. Oh, the irony.

“’There is no greater mercy that I know of on earth than good health except it be sickness; and that has often been a greater mercy to me than health,’ Charles Spurgeon said. ‘It is a good thing to be without a trouble; but it is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it.’

“It is a better thing to have a trouble, and know how to get grace enough to bear it. And we get grace enough to bear it — when we run into the arms of Grace who bore it all, into Him Who is more than enough.

I run my hand across the page. Gather the manna up into hands, what really is, and all that feeds:

Our cries to the Lord — are what give us communion with the Lord. It’s the dire distress that drives us into the deep devotion.

It’s when all fails, His love never fails — and this is why we are a people who can always give thanks.”

If I’m honest, I don’t like reading about how suffering can be a good thing or how people can view illness and pain as a kind of severe mercy. I’d rather have all the blessings and skip all the hard parts, thank you very much.

I don’t think I need to go asking and seeking for persecution and suffering. If I live long enough and stay true to what I believe, those things will come. Jesus promised that in this life we would have trouble. No mights or maybes or perhapses. It’s inevitable as sure as death and taxes.

But just as sure is the hesed, the lovingkindness of God. Just as inevitable is the promise of God to always be with His children, to never leave nor forsake them.

The persecution won’t last forever. The pain will cease. What will remain beyond both of those and through every other hardship is the unfailing love and mercy of the changeless God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.