There’s just something special about being on vacation, especially if it’s a familiar place like Gatlinburg. Sure, it’s gotten way more commercial over the years, but it’s still a location full of memories going back to early childhood for me.

It’s nice to be able to set your own pace and not have to be anywhere at all certain time. You can even sit on the balcony of your hotel room and just be. No agenda, no program.

This time, I didn’t have a list of everything that I had to see and do in order to qualify the vacation as successful. I rid myself of every expectation, and just decided to enjoy the moments. So far, so good.

I’m thankful for the means and the opportunity to get away for a bit, so I can rejoin the normal routine a little more energized and relaxed. Plus, I’m sure my cat will be happy to see me again.

I stole this from a friend’s Facebook post. Hope you like it:

“It helps to laugh … or at least chuckle… when things get stressful….

Under the category… You can’t make this up…These are real names of churches.

Drumroll please …

Entries in the culinary category:

Cookietown Baptist
Bean’s Corner Baptist
Greasy Creek Missionary

Violent-sounding names:

Flaming Sword of Deliverance
Slap Out UMC
Flippin Church of Christ
Hanging Dog Baptist
St. John’s Beheading (in Germany apparently)
Harsh Bible Church

These names are hot:

Saint Matthew’s Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God of the Americas
Fire Escape
Burnout Baptist

Some were just … gross:

Booger Hollow
Swamp Lutheran Church
Toadsuck Baptist

Others I’ll label “really?”

Zion Apostolic Ark Pentecostal Church
Thrice Baptized Three Seed in the Spirit Predestinarian Presbyterian
Hand of God Signs and Wonders

Not surprisingly

St. Nicholas Church in Northpole, Alaska

And finally, there were some that I’ll simply label “no comment”

Licking Christian Church
The Love Church
Big Bottom Missionary

Thanks to Drew Dyck for these”

I stole this from Matt Pearson’s blog post because it’s perfect for this Election Day. He’s on the Substack app if you want to follow him and be blessed with some really good content:

“May you remember that all politics and all platforms and all borders and all leaders are temporary, are here one day and gone the next. All of these are passing away.

May you resist the temptation to place ultimate trust in any person, policy, party, movement, or nation—even a beautiful idea that is embodied by a nation—because no nation-state is eternal.

May you know that your kingdom is not of this world but of the world that is coming to this world.

May you in the same moment grasp that engagement with the things of this world—not escape from its harsher, darker realities—is the sacrificial pattern of Jesus Christ.

May you discover your role in the just and merciful governance of the world God made good and pursue your cosmos-converting vocation with love amid the world’s brokenness; may you see your work in the world—all of your callings and activities—as a participation in bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth.

May you have strength and beauty and determination and wisdom as you love your neighbor and your enemy as Christ has loved you, seeking with all persons to bring justice, mercy, and lasting peace.

May you comprehend that your salvation is not dependent on whom you vote for in an election, even on whether or not you vote; that you are under no biblical or theological or moral obligation to vote for a person or party or proposal or initiative if that vote violates your conscience.

May you have empathy for the political decisions of others that you find troubling—particularly those of family and close friends.

May you have ears to hear what lies at the heart of their political concerns, and eyes to see the noble but imperfect search for goodness that is motivating their choice, especially if you strongly disagree with the candidate, party, or politics they support.

May you be grateful for the opportunity to participate in your government, and if you choose not to participate in the election may you find ways to make that non-participation more than a protest, may you act to help and protect the poor, oppressed, and defenseless who might have been helped or shielded by your vote.

May you realize that the kingdom of God is within you and that the Son of God sets you free even as you vote for whomever your conscience dictates, without anxiety or fear, for the Spirit the Father gives us does not make us timid, but bestows on us power, love, and self-discipline.

May your posture toward every human leader be driven by respectful prayer, and where protest, prophecy, and nonviolent resistance are needed, may you have the courage to speak, oppose, and critique—in humility and charity—their ideas and actions that oppose Christ and his kingdom.

May God grant you grace to affirm the humanity—the image of God—in every political candidate and leader, and civility to impartially and energetically embrace any pursuit of genuine human flourishing they propose.

May you perceive God’s love for creation in sending Jesus to embody a New Humanity, and may you join in Christ’s care for the earth and all its creatures and resources, for we wait with patience not only the coming of the Son in the flesh but his perfect bride, a people who beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.

May you trust that Providence is working behind the scenes of history to draw all things to a good and fitting and proper end with justice and mercy.

Amen.”

“But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
    he who formed you, O Israel:
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
    I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1, ESV).

To think that the very God of the universe knows and loves each one of His children enough to call them each by name. If you feel forgotten or unwanted or ignored, you are not. God sees you. God knows you. God loves you.

Satan loves to remind you of your failings. He wants to keep you feeling defeated and trapped in the continual cycle of addictions and lies. But in Christ, you are not your past. You are not your mistakes, your failures, your sins. You are who God says you are. You are all the promises God has ever made in Christ Jesus.

There’s a beautiful scene in the first episode of the first season of The Chosen when Jesus calls to Mary Magdalene. Instead of calling her by the name she has taken upon herself when she was destitute and demon-possessed, He calls her by her true name. He tells her, “I have called you by name. You are Mine.”

God brings us out of bondage and addictions by calling us by our true names. His voice alone has the power to silence the other voices and all the other names you have given yourself in moments of weakness or failure or the voices everyone else has given you when you weren’t good enough. As we respond in faith, the chains fall away.

You are not defined by the devil telling you your sin but by God calling you by name and then calling you Beloved.

I posted this because it spoke to me way back when (and also because I couldn’t think of anything else better).

I think the part of smiling without selfies speaks to being able to exist without social media. One of my favorite parts of the year is during Lent when I give up social media. Not because I hate it or because I am against it but because I always find how freeing it is to live without it.

I never was into drugs or alcohol, so I can’t really speak to that much. I do think caffeine is my vice. I wonder what it would be like if I had to give that one up. Sure, I’d miss coffee, but I suppose there’s always decaf and hot tea.

I think above all, the idea is to live content and surrendered. To not be caught up in the eternal race of more and never enough is to have already won. To be able to say, “No thanks, I have enough” is to be counter-cultural to a society where being driven into debt to buy what you don’t need to impress those who don’t even know you or to fill a void with more stuff.

I think if you belong to Jesus and don’t just live as someone who marks Christian on religious preferences because of upbringing or whatever is to be radically different. You won’t look or sound like everybody else. Some automatically won’t like you — Jesus said that if they hated Him, they’d hate you as well. But that difference is maybe one of the best parts about your testimony. You have found a better way to live according to God’s ways, and it shows.

I love that Room in the Inn exists. I also love that I’ve been blessed to be a part of it for something like 12 years. It’s an opportunity to serve the homeless in real time and meet tangible needs. I know the Bible says that when you love and serve the least of these, you love and serve Jesus.

I love that the Brentwood Baptist Church chapter of Room in the Inn makes an intentional focus on the gospel. We’re not just meeting physical needs. We know that it’s a tragedy to be clothed and fed and still be spiritually lost. Every part of what we do is centered on these men knowing they can have a real relationship with Jesus.

We offer Bible studies. We don’t force the men to go in order to receive a meal and a bed. They have a choice to go or not. Many opt out, but some attend. Those who show up will hear the gospel shared explicitly. They will have the opportunity to pray to receive Jesus.

I’m already praying for the men who will come through our doors starting on Monday. I know God is at work in their hearts and giving them a hunger that no meal can satisfy. We know we don’t have the power in ourselves to save anyone, but we can point them to the Bread of Life and the Living Water that springs up eternally.

I can’t wait to see what God does during this season of Room in the Inn. I’m grateful I get a front row seat to see it.