My life group is going through the book of Ruth currently. I’ve read the book a few times and have heard a number of sermons about it, but I never really thought about how the main character as being a fish out of water.

Think about it. She married one of Naomi’s sons and into a Jewish family. But after Naomi’s husband and both sons died, you would expect Ruth to go back to the old familiar life she knew. But she gave up everything she had ever known for a mother-in-law and a God she knew very little about. She gave up her homeland to go to a land where she was an outcast and a foreigner. Worse, she was a Moabite, one of Israel’s enemies.

She clearly didn’t understand everything about God, but she followed what she knew. She was faithfully obedient to what revelation of God she had. She knew to take care of Naomi and earn her own keep. And God blessed her for it. God brought her into the field of Boaz, who just so happened to be one of her closest relations through Naomi. No one else would have been as protective and kind to her as Boaz was. God saw to that.

Sometimes, we find ourselves in unfamiliar territory. Everything we’ve ever known gets ripped away and what’s left is unknown and a bit scary. The lesson of Ruth is that we don’t have to have a theology degree or a comprehensive knowledge of the Bible to trust and follow God in the midst of uncertainty. We don’t even need to have good grammar or people skills. All we need is the faith of a child.

The more Ruth trusted in the revelation of God she had, the more she saw of God. The more she followed and obeyed what she knew, the more God revealed His plan to her. The same goes for us. If we are faithful where we are, God will move us through the wilderness of uncertainty into a land of plenty. Better, He will be with us the whole way there.

“And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures but he will overwhelm your failures with his generous grace” (James 1:5, The Passion Translation).

I don’t know about you, but what I don’t need is more information. It sometimes seems like we’re overwhelmed with facts and figures and snatches of information from a plethora of sources. I don’t always trust these sources, but I don’t doubt that the information is out there. But it also seems like just having information and facts isn’t enough.

We need to know what to do with this information. We need to know how to apply all this available knowledge to our everyday lives. That applied knowledge is called wisdom. I love the quote that says that knowledge is knowing that tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

Too many believers rely on too many sources other than God for wisdom. We turn to CNN or Fox News. We rely on social media and our little echo chambers of people we’ve chosen who will never disagree with us on anything and only say our thoughts back to us in different words. We rely too much on worldly wisdom, which is limited at best and downright deceiving at times. A pastor that I admire once said, “Don’t let the world teach you theology.”

I believe the best source for wisdom is the maker of wisdom and everything else, God. And the best place to hear God speaking wisdom is primarily through His Holy Word, but also through community with fellow believers and prayer.

Maybe instead of trying to convert other people to our way of thinking about the issues and crises of the day, we should seek God’s way of thinking. Instead of trying to argue people into seeing things our way, maybe we should pray that God would enlighten both them and us to see not our truth or their truth but God’s truth, the ultimate reality. Maybe we need to stay on our knees and not give up wrestling with God in prayer until we get the wisdom that God admonishes us to seek from Him. God loves to honor His promises, but not if we’re not seeking Him consistently and persistently.

I’ll admit there’s a whole lot I don’t know. I confess that in the last 18 or so months, my brain has hurt from trying to figure out all the information coming at me from all sides. This whole pandemic has royally messed me up, but it has taught me plenty.

One thing I’ve learned is that it takes a lot of maturity to say things like “I really don’t know the answer to that” or “maybe there’s still more that I need to learn.” It takes a certain amount of humility to realize that I don’t have all the answers — or anywhere close to all the answers — and that maybe that person over there has something to teach me. Yes, even that person that gets on my nerves.

Humility is posture of a teachable spirit grounded in the true knowledge of who I am in the grand scheme of things and in God’s eyes. I admit that at some point, all the talk about viruses and vaccines and science all started to run together in my mind and it all became a blur. I don’t know what or who to trust when it comes to the pandemic. I feel like you can believe that the pandemic is real, that vaccines (and masks to a degree) work, and also that COVID is being used for political purposes and public control. But I confess that I could be wrong.

Maybe if we all just stopped always trying to win arguments and started trying to reach understanding. Maybe if we stopped trying to talk over each other and started actually listening. Maybe if we finally grasped that arguing with people over social media isn’t going to change anybody’s mind about anything, we’d be better off. Maybe if you and I stopped trying to control everyone else’s behavior and concentrated on working on our own sins and mistakes, we could actually grow and become better people.

The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. To fear the Lord is to see God and yourself properly, and to see where you fit in to the universe. It’s to think way less about yourself and way more about others and especially way more about God.

I also remember how we as a nation rallied and came together on September 12, 2001. I remember we were more unified in spirit and in purpose on that day than we had been in a long time previously, and definitely more than we have ever been since. To be sure, some of the patriotism turned into bigotry and hatred against anyone who even looked like they were Middle Eastern or of Arabian descent, but most of us knew who the real enemy was, and that they didn’t represent Arabs or the majority of Muslims.

That was also the time when many people flocked into churches, seeking answers and hope. Many of those people hadn’t been inside a church building in a while– some had never darkened the door of a sanctuary. Hopefully, they heard that God wasn’t taken by surprise by this latest act of terrorism. They heard that God wept with those who were grieving, but also He wasn’t just an empathizing God. He actually had the power to do something about this atrocity and work to turn even this evil for good.

I still choose to believe that God is good. Even in the midst of this beautiful but broken world, God is still working His purposes. Evil never has nor will it ever have the last word. One day, God will prevail and make all things right and restore all that has been stolen and lost and destroyed by evil. God will have the last word and hope will at last prevail.

“In prayer we go to our enemies, to stand at their side. We are with them, near them, for them before God. Jesus does not promise us that the enemy we love, we bless, to whom we do good, will not abuse and persecute us. They will do so. But even in doing so, they cannot harm and conquer us if we take this last step to them in intercessory prayer. Now we are taking up their neediness and poverty, their being guilty and lost, and interceding for them before God. We are doing for them in vicarious representative action what they cannot do for themselves. Every insult from our enemy will only bind us closer to God and to our enemy. Every persecution can only serve to bring the enemy closer to reconciliation with God, to make love more unconquerable.How does love become unconquerable? By never asking what the enemy is doing to it, and only asking what Jesus has done. Loving one’s enemies leads disciples to the way of the cross and into communion with the crucified one” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer).

Lately, it seems that there’s a pandemic of rage. People are angry all the time. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been tailgated in the past few days or how many hyper-aggressive drivers I’ve seen do stupid stuff to shave a few seconds off their commutes. You only need to spend a little time on social media to realize how little it takes to get people arguing and name-calling over trivial matters, much less the important topics of our day.

It can be very tempting to fight anger with anger, hate with hate. But that’s not the way of the Messiah. He said you answer anger with kindness and hate with love. The best way is through intercessory prayer. It brings us closer to the Jesus who prayed for His enemies while they were in the very act of crucifying Him.

Never before has there been so much divisiveness and so many issues that seem to create and us versus them atmosphere. The world will tell you to slander and shame those on the other side, but Jesus says to love them and pray for them. He says to be kind to them even when they are spiteful in return. This is not just what Jesus taught; this is how Jesus lived. And if the Spirit of Jesus is in us, this is how we can live as well.

I don’t know if that’s a prairie dog or not, but I feel its pain. I, too, am ready to see hot sweaty weather go away for a while. I actually don’t mind summer. I don’t mind hot weather — if it’s a dry heat. What I despise is sticky hot weather that turns me into a smelly sweaty mess.

According to the calendar, there are 13 days left until fall begins. Us folks in Tennessee know that real fall doesn’t start until mid-October at the earliest. Still, it’s nice to have a few sneak preview days that remind me what I love about fall weather, even if its just a tease.

In the mean time, I say bring on Friday!

“So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.” (Colossians 3:12-14, The Message).

I read something today that was a good reminder — no one was ever argued into a change of heart. Also, it’s not your job to monitor everyone else’s behavior and keep them in line. What God calls us to more than anything else is to be experts at showing grace.

The ultimate display of grace came from Jesus throughout the course of His entire life, but especially on the cross when He was dying for His enemies, forgiving the ones who murdered Him, and making a way for us to know and love the very God we’d rejected.

We’re most like Jesus when we choose to forgive. We’re most like Jesus when we respond to angry words with kindness instead of reacting with more angry words. We’re most like Jesus when we point people to God and show them a better way to live. And how cool is it that Jesus could point to God by pointing to Himself?

I 100% endorse this message. If I could skip mornings and still manage to have a full day, then I completely would. Thankfully, there’s coffee and memes like this one to help me cope with the inhumanity of early mornings.

Plus, who doesn’t like a sleeping Baby Yoda?

This is a fairly good visual representation of what my prayers look like a lot of the time. I’m super thankful for a God who hears and answers groans and sighs too deep for words.

It’s September. The first couple of days have been a bit milder and less humid. So, you ask, what difference does it being September make?

If you live in Tennessee, not much. Almost none. After this brief respite from the heat passes, it will go back to being hot and humid. Even September 22, the official first day of fall, will probably feel like a typical summer day around here.

So what’s the big deal with September?

To me, it’s the gateway month. September may still feel like summer and actually be mostly summer, but that little change in the calendar means that fall is getting closer. And I don’t mean the arrival of pumpkin spice everything. I mean actual fall with actual fall temperatures — the kind that go with sweaters, jackets, and flannel.

There’s something phycological about September versus August in terms of weather. I can truly start counting down the days and getting out my fall wardrobe (which consists mainly of flannel shirts). It means less Hawaiian shirts for a while.

It means my favorite time of year is almost here.