“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.

So this is me thinking out loud about all that’s been going on with the news of revival at Asbury University. At first, I was completely and uncritically onboard because that’s what I’ve been thinking this country needs is a revival.

I’ve read some things that have got me thinking. Maybe I need to be more discerning. Maybe I need to do like it says in 1 John 4:1 and test the spirit to see if it’s really from God. After all, there are a lot of things that look like they’re from God, sound like they’re from God, but don’t line up with God’s word.

I’m not saying the revival’s a fake.

I am saying that it’s easy to be led astray when we base the entirety of something based on experiences and emotions rather than on whether it lines up doctrinally with the Bible.

I would love nothing more than for a true awakening that involves real confession of sin and repentance. I would love nothing more than to witness large scale people coming to Christ.

I also know that so many of us get bored with the routine and want to chase the next experience, the next emotional fix, the next rollercoaster event. It’s easier to get worked up into a spiritual frenzy than do to the hard work of life change that comes through genuine repentance.

It’s interesting that in the Bible there’s a group of people that tested everything and everyone against the word of God — even the teachings of the Apostle Paul himself! Sadly, we’ve become way less discerning in the present age and even get upset if anyone dares to ask questions, regardless of motive.

I’ve been known to be wishy washy about things and flip flop on what I feel about things. In this case, I want to be spiritually discerning based on what I see over time, not just in a moment of ecstasy and rapture. I want this revival to be real, but I also want it to be biblical.

I read something that struck me. It said that “our hope isn’t in the return of Christian culture. Our hope is in the return of Christ.”

Now that I can get on board with.

“Dear refuge of my weary soul, 
On Thee, when sorrows rise 
On Thee, when waves of trouble roll, 
My fainting hope relies 
To Thee I tell each rising grief, 
For Thou alone canst heal 
Thy Word can bring a sweet relief, 
For every pain I feel 

But oh! When gloomy doubts prevail, 
I fear to call Thee mine 
The springs of comfort seem to fail, 
And all my hopes decline 
Yet gracious God, where shall I flee? 
Thou art my only trust 
And still my soul would cleave to Thee 
Though prostrate in the dust 

Hast Thou not bid me seek Thy face, 
And shall I seek in vain? 
And can the ear of sovereign grace, 
Be deaf when I complain? 
No still the ear of sovereign grace, 
Attends the mourner’s prayer 
Oh may I ever find access, 
To breathe my sorrows there

Thy mercy seat is open still, 
Here let my soul retreat 
With humble hope attend Thy will, 
And wait beneath Thy feet, 
Thy mercy seat is open still, 
Here let my soul retreat 
With humble hope attend Thy will, 
And wait beneath Thy feet”

Chalk up yet another hymn from yesteryear that I only recently discovered. In this case, I was today years old when I read these words that speak a better word about God’s promise to be a safe haven for all who call on Him in faith.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all about some modern worship songs, but there’s something about a tried and trusted hymn that has stood the test of time that can speak to my soul about the truths and promises of God like nothing else can outside of Scripture.

I am forgetful and fearful and need to be reminded daily (and sometimes hourly) of how God can still find me and save me no matter where I am. We need to remind each other every chance we get to keep each other persevering in the faith and to keep each other from giving up instead of holding on.

I believe there is a recent version of this hymn by the group Harvest Collective. Here’s the link if you want to check it out:

It must be hard to be a feline. I mean all these people want to pick you up and cuddle you all the time. People want to stroke your soft fur non stop. Plus, there are so few hours in the day to get in all the prerequisite napping and laying around that cats like to do.

In the cat world, staying awake is apparently a chore. It’s so much easier to just let your eyes close and let the nap take over. Honestly, have you ever seen a cat with insomnia? Have you ever witnessed a cat who couldn’t sleep? Not me.

My cat Peanut would probably get in a lot more napping if it weren’t for all those meddling people — especially me. Sometimes, she’s the Greta Garbo of the feline world — she just wants to be left alone so she can sleep and dream of endless tuna and boneless chickens.

The cat life is so tough.

So apparently sometimes you can go back.

It’s been roughly a year and a half since the last Kairos retreat at Willow Pond, but here I am here again.

This time instead of sleeping on a love seat in the basement, I’m in an actual bed in an upstairs bedroom. It’s glorious.

It’s also an almost entirely new cast of characters this time around. There are very few of us left from the last time. But that’s okay.

The hope is to refresh and renew as we seek God’s heart on the future direction of Kairos. Plus, a periodic change of scenery is good for the soul.

God is good, and I am tired. Good night, everyone.

So apparently sometimes you can go back.

It’s been roughly a year and a half since the last Kairos retreat at Willow Pond, but here I am here again.

This time instead of sleeping on a love seat in the basement, I’m in an actual bed in an upstairs bedroom. It’s glorious.

It’s also an almost entirely new cast of characters this time around. There are very few of us left from the last time. But that’s okay.

The hope is to refresh and renew as we seek God’s heart on the future direction of Kairos. Plus, a periodic change of scenery is good for the soul.

God is good, and I am tired. Good night, everyone.

I didn’t used to like naps. Back in the day when I was a small fry, I used to have to take naps, so I did everything I could to avoid them. I’d fake being asleep so I wouldn’t get in trouble, but I didn’t really and truly nap.

Now I wish I had rollover minutes for all those naps I pretended to take or outright skipped. These days those naps that I had to take but didn’t want to are one of my favorite parts of the day.

There’s nothing like a good nap on a dreary rainy Sunday afternoon. It’s a great feeling when you lie down at first not thinking you’ll really be able to fall asleep only to wake up an hour later like no time at all has passed. I must be getting old because I can pretty much count on my naps lasting just around an hour, even without an alarm to wake me up.

I do think part of good spiritual discipline is the ability to rest. God designed the Sabbath as a reminder that no one was meant to go 24/7 perpetually. Unlike my childhood, naps aren’t required. You can read a good book or listen to music or talk a walk outside or just sit and think.

But in my opinion, nothing beats a good nap when you’re weary.

That’s the best answer I’ve ever heard to the question of why bad things happen to good people. Honestly, none of us are good people. We are fallen people living in a fallen world. It’s not a pleasant or popular truth, but it’s true.

None of us are good enough to save ourselves. None of us are good enough to please God on our own. None of us — including me — deserve anything other than hell.

If we’re honest, we want a lot of what’s not good for us. We think a lot of thoughts that don’t qualify as good. We don’t have to be taught as little children how to be selfish and vengeful and bad. We’re born with a bent toward sin from the very beginning.

But Jesus took all the bad we deserved upon Himself. He actually volunteered to take our place. He took all the wrath of God that we deserved on that cross at Calvary and gave us the goodness that we could never hope to have left to ourselves.

It’s interesting that when the rich young ruler called Him Good Teacher, Jesus response was, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God.” In essence, Jesus was disqualifying Himself from merely being a good moral example and teacher. Either He’s God in the flesh or He’s not good.

And as it turns out, He’s our only hope.