These are crazy times.

With COVID-19 growing from a local outbreak to a regional epidemic to a global pandemic in a matter of a couple of months, our lives as we know them have been turned upside down.

During the last few weeks, many procedures have been implemented worldwide that some of us may never have thought we would have to adopt within our lifetimes.

Healthy? Practice physical distancing. Shelter at home. Avoid close human contact.

Ill? Self-quarantine before a governmental body does it for you.

These disruptive measures, though crucial to stem the spread of an uncommonly contagious virus, seem foreign to most of us. In times like these, our natural response is to cling to the ones we love; now, in a physical sense at least, we are being asked to do the opposite. Put distance between ourselves and the people we care about? Isolate? Avoid physical contact? These regulations, though important, strip away much of what makes us communal beings. They feel cold. Lonely. Unfamiliar. Empty. Novel.

Truth be told, though, this isolation is nothing new. Whether we are aware of it or not, we have been quarantining our entire lives.

We consistently shelter ourselves from those who are different. Those we disagree with. Those who take too much of our energy, our money, our time. Those we see as less worthy, less holy, less like us. Now, Facebook algorithms even take care of distancing for us, ensuring that we mainly encounter views and opinions that most closely resemble ours.
Consciously and unconsciously, we associate with those we see eye to eye with. Religiously. Politically. We even tend to surround ourselves with those who share our affinity for a particular sports team. It turns out that Yankees and Red Sox fans don’t hang out together too often.

So often, too, we the church, though in principle believing we are called to love and love unconditionally, seek to quarantine ourselves from the world, from anyone unrighteous, from anyone whose sinful habits and words might infect us.

We quarantine because it keeps us safe. Keeps our tidy little belief systems intact and unchallenged. Keeps us unblemished, untried, untempted.

Yet, this self-preserving, self-isolating approach could be the Enemy’s biggest temptation of all.

We serve a God who did, and does, the complete opposite. A God who created this world knowing full well the decisions we would make, the sickness of sin we would choose to become infected with. A God who did not self-isolate away from our planet, or tuck this fallen world away in an out-of-reach corner of the universe, but rather a God who entered the danger zone, born a helpless human who would grow up to become our disease.

This God, this Jesus, regularly did the unthinkable. He touched lepers while they were still unclean. Let a prostitute wash and wipe his feet with her hair. Hung out with tax collectors, drunkards, and sinners. Sinners much like you and me.

Though Jesus was a spotless lamb, he became a serpent lifted high (John 3:14). Though he knew no sin, he became sin for us. He drank our cup, taking upon himself the very thing he could not look upon, be around, be a part of. Instead of reaching for his mask and hand sanitizer to safely avoid our disease, he became it, so that he could cure it forever. The cure he offers is the only cure we will ever need, and our disease doesn’t stand a chance against it. John 1:5 puts it this way: "The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out."

The God who knows no quarantine does the same thing in our messy lives today that he did on a cross long ago: he draws close to us, as contaminated as we are. He doesn’t ask that we get tested for our sickness; the Great Physician knows our condition better than we know it ourselves. He doesn’t wait for us to cure ourselves, to rid our souls of every symptom of sin, but jumps right into the heart of our circumstances, our crimes, our calamities. He doesn’t demand that we isolate from him, but calls us to him, sick and sinful as we are. His hands-on approach is exactly what our lonely, locked-up hearts have been waiting for.

Jesus knows no illness he can’t cure. No heart he can’t heal. Nothing broken he can’t restore. He doesn’t merely offer hypothetical hope of a vaccine yet to be developed; rather, he is the cure. No amount of self-medication, of self-help, or of self-doctoring could ever offer the total heart transformation that Jesus does. He doesn’t just want to eradicate our disease, but wants to bring us back to health. Back to life. As his light casts out our darkness, as his wholeness pushes out our brokenness, we become like him. Pure. Healthy. Whole.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him."

We are sick. We are going to die. The only cure is a cruel cross, and a Savior who did not, does not, will not, spare anything to bring us from death to life.

He will never quarantine us. He will never isolate himself. He will never hold our sickness against us, for our Judge and our Savior are one.

In these times of uncertainty, of physical distancing, and of isolation, God defies any separation our guilt or shame could ever try to put on him. He has broken down every wall between himself and us. He refuses to give us, his prodigal sons and daughters, six feet of separation or an elbow bump, but instead runs down the road to greet us with arms wide open, welcoming us home.

As long as this earthly pandemic continues to escalate, it’s important to follow the rules of shelter and separation set out by governments and health agencies. But, though the battle rages against this devastating, deadly disease, we can be still and know that when it comes to the sickness that is killing our souls, the fight has already been won. We serve a God who is not bridled by rules of sin or separation, by regulations of space, time, guilt, or shame.

“So, what do you think,” exclaims Paul in Romans 8:31-32, 39. "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? Absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love."

This is the God who knows no quarantine.

This piece originally appeared in The Compass Magazine.

All Bible verses quoted are from The Message, by Eugene H. Peterson.

Being God is an unenviable job.

As George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many more are murdered for the color of their skin, as systemic racism abounds in a country that purports to offer liberty and justice for all, as hundreds of thousands die from COVID-19, as countless others suffer financial hardship as a direct result of the pandemic, our hearts break for the injustice and suffering around us. As each of our hearts breaks, God's heart breaks eight billion times.

Don’t get me wrong: there is joy in being God. Joy in the beauty of a hopeless person who finds hope again. Joy in turning our evil into good, our wrongs into rights. Joy in entering into a relationship with those he has created. Joy in knowing that someday every tear will dry, every broken heart will be mended.

Yet, there is an immeasurable sadness. Sadness in the pain, suffering, discrimination, and death so many of his children must face. Sadness at the evil he must allow in the name of giving us freedom of choice, freedom of will. Sadness when we so often blame the very one who died to make things right.

No wonder Jesus was called the Man of Sorrows.

Jesus wept. He wept at death when his good friend Lazarus passed away. He wept over Jerusalem’s imminent destruction, because its people failed to choose the path of peace. He preached about injustice, inequality, and servitude. He spoke out against violence, even while his own life was being sold for thirty pieces of silver.

God is the God of the broken heart. His heart breaks when we choose power over peace. It breaks when we choose violence over love. Discrimination over acceptance. Anger over forgiveness.

Does what breaks God's heart break ours?

A little over a week ago, I attended a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest in The Dalles, Oregon, a town not known for its particularly progressive views. Before we marched down to the police station, we assembled in a park while several African-American members of the community spoke over a PA system about their experiences, their fears, and their hope for change. 

After being moved by their message, I was surprised to see a white man, dressed in a suit and tie and holding a Bible, walk up and grab the microphone. I held my breath as he began to speak. “If you would have told me four years ago that I would be speaking at a Black Lives Matter protest, I would have laughed at you,” he said. “I’m a conservative Christian, a Republican, and the last thing I wanted was to be aligned with a bleeding-heart liberal cause.”

He didn’t stop there, thankfully. This Lutheran minister, from a small church in a small town, got it. His heart had been broken by the things that break God’s heart.

“I have come to realize that this isn’t about politics. It’s about human lives, about my brothers and sisters of color. It’s about caring about the things Jesus would have cared about,” he continued. “And so, I’m here to stand with you, here to help bring about change for some of God’s children who are being oppressed.”

Does what breaks God’s heart break ours?

If it does, our hearts will break when we see injustice. Racism. Discrimination. Misogyny.

If it does, our hearts will break when we see anyone who is created in his image being treated like anything less than the sons and daughters of God that they are.

If what breaks God’s heart breaks our hearts, we will work tirelessly to enact the change that he, and we, want to see.

Yes, we have free will to do evil, to cause pain, to show prejudice. However, the flip side of the free will coin is that we also have the freedom to do good. To love everyone, regardless of the cost. To protest peacefully. To petition lawmakers. To give of our time and money to causes that champion those who are being oppressed. 

I pray that your heart, and my heart, are broken by what breaks God’s heart, and that out of that brokenness comes the resolve to bring about lasting change.

If you find your heart being broken, though, by things that don’t break the heart of Jesus, I would like to gently suggest that you head back to the Gospels to read and re-read the words of the Son of God. If the sign that you bring to a protest is one of hate, one of judgment, or one of condemnation, I hope you can ask yourself if the Jesus who knelt and washed his disciples’ feet, who touched and healed lepers, who hung out with a Samaritan woman, and who partied with sinners would be seen carrying the same sign.

Jesus was a Middle Eastern refugee, belonging to a group of people that far too many of his followers so easily turn their backs on today.

Jesus didn’t judge a prostitute who others were ready to stone to death. He attended dinner parties with everyone from dirty fishermen to despised government officials. He told parables extolling the virtues of Samaritans, hated by the Jews for their ethnicity and their religion. He treated women like the equals they are, not possessions like those around him did. He praised the less fortunate, the weak, the child, the outsider. He said the last shall be first.

The only people Jesus judged while on earth? The Jewish religious leaders. Pharisees and Sadducees who would rob the poor. Who would make money off of religion. Who would discriminate based on someone’s ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic class. Who were far more concerned with religious rules than with loving their neighbor. Who wanted nothing to do with change if it meant losing power, losing control.

Read Jesus’ words, and then tell me if you can really picture the God who fed five thousand hungry people, who refused to condemn a whore, who told us do good to those who hate us and pray for those who mistreat us--can you see this God angrily counter-protesting at a peaceful Black Lives Matter rally? Refusing to bake a cake for an LGBTQ couple? Upset about Confederate flags and statues being taken down? 

As Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” 

Knowing this, why aren’t more Christians at the forefront of movements that fight for the oppressed? That champion human rights? Equality? An end to violence and police brutality? 

These causes, so important to Jesus, are sadly not worth the time of many of his purported followers.

Yes, God’s heart breaks when we fall short, when we sin, when we fail. His heart breaks not because we have somehow broken his draconian, capricious commands, but rather because he knows that when we sin, we are only hurting ourselves, hurting others. Jesus put it best when confronted by a Jewish teacher of the law about which commandment was most important. The Son of God, the Author of laws but also of life, succinctly summed up his commands thus: Love God, love people. Mic drop.

When we love God and love people, God is happy, because we are happy. When we turn our backs on God and mistreat people made in his image, it breaks God’s heart, because he knows it will ultimately break ours, break each other’s.

Shortly before his death, the Man of Sorrows told a hauntingly prescient story about two ubiquitous farm animals. Jesus, foretelling his second coming, foretelling the day when no heart shall break again, said that when he returns, all the nations will be arranged before him. He will then sort people into two categories: sheep and goats.

What are the criteria for attaining sheep status, you ask?

Simple.

Jesus, in Matthew 25:34-40, sums up the entirety of what our lives as his followers should be about:

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,

I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,

I was homeless and you gave me a room,

I was shivering and you gave me clothes,

I was sick and you stopped to visit,

I was in prison and you came to me.’

“Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’”

Love others. Love them regardless of their race. Regardless of their gender. Regardless of their sexual orientation. Regardless of whether they’re rich, poor, homeless, infirm, incarcerated. This is how you become a sheep.

Want to know how to become a goat? Do the opposite. Judge. Discriminate. Oppress. Stand idly by when injustice is taking place. Worry only about yourself, your rights, your beliefs, your 401k.

I leave you with a warning, though: things don’t work out too well for goats in the end. 

Don’t be a goat.

Let your heart be broken by the things that break God’s.


This piece was originally published by Spectrum Magazine (www.spectrummagazine.org).






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​Life is a journey. A road. A path.

We’ve all heard the metaphors. They abound in song, in prose, in film.

Every day is a winding road. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.

It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Life takes time. Effort. Energy. Blah, blah, blah. I get it.

Metaphors such as these are all fine and good when we’re making progress. When we’re moving forward, no matter how slowly. When we’re able to at least put one foot in front of the other.

But, I ask, what about those times when we’re stuck? When we’re off course? When we’re moving backwards? When we don’t even know what path we’re supposed to be on? What about those times when, instead of being on the road, we’re in the ditches?

Nobody writes songs about ditches, except for that fictitious band Mouse Rat. When you’re stuck in the ditch, chances are you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.

This is real life.

Not Instagram life. Not Tinder profile life. Not Christmas card life.

Don’t feel stuck? Lost? Off course? Give it time. You will. Soon.

It’s so tempting to think of life as a series of goals, of destinations, of social media highlights. And sometimes it is. Sometimes we move forward. Things proceed at least somewhat as planned. Before you know it, though, you take your eyes off the road, and you’re back in the ditch. Maybe you swerve to miss an unforeseen obstacle. Maybe the road itself unexpectedly ends. Maybe your vehicle suddenly breaks down.

Let me dispense with the road metaphors for a minute. Life seldom, if ever, goes as planned. Just when we put out one fire, another one ignites. As much as we try, often convincingly, to portray ourselves as having it together, we don’t. Whether it’s from forces internal or forces external, we often feel like our lives, our happiness, our sense of purpose, our very existence is hanging by a thread.

For every day spent on the road, we spend two in the ditch.

Even our best attempts to stay on the road fail. Whether it’s cancer, or anxiety, or bankruptcy, or a family in chaos, or a dishonest spouse, or falling off a mountain in Mexico, those dastardly ditches beckon.

Sometimes it’s not even a catastrophe that forces us into the ditch. Sometimes it’s a dead-end job. A loveless marriage. A sense of being unfulfilled, of lacking purpose. Sometimes it’s just the day-to-day, the monotony, the routine.

Next thing you know, you’re hopelessly stuck. And, you’re stuck being hopeless.

I have more bad news. Ready or not, here it is: there is no magic formula for getting unstuck. No timely roadside assistance. Navigating this life, its highs and lows, takes patience. Courage. Strength. Faith. You think there’s an easy answer? Think again.

Getting unstuck is not the work of a moment, but of a lifetime.

This isn’t your Instagram feed. This is real life.

However, there are three tangible things you can do to get unstuck. First, stop wishing and start doing. We can’t rescue ourselves from every ditch, but there are certainly some that are shallow enough to climb out of. Feel trapped in a dead-end job? Get a new one. Yes, finding that dream job isn’t easy, but no one ever landed it by simply throwing pennies and resumes into their proverbial wishing well. Stuck in a situation that you can change? Change it. Don’t wait for a better day or a stronger you.

Second, destroy your comfort zone. So often, we feel stuck because we’re unwilling to take risks. Risks that could end in that elusive life on the highway we’ve always wanted, but that could also result in catastrophic failure. Time precludes me from delving deeper into the wisdom of the Einsteins, the Edisons, and the Teslas of this world, for whom failure was a necessary part of invention and growth. You’re never going to learn to swim if you won’t even get in the water.

Third, learn to have patience with the process. Remember that this too shall pass. Yes, I know it’s easier said than done, but take it from me. My 2019 has been one enormous ditch. From dealing with peripheral neuropathy for months, to falling off a cliff and breaking 21 bones, to my spinal fusion surgery and subsequent recovery, to issues I can’t even discuss here, this year has been one son of a ditch. However, I have faith that this ditch will not have the final say. Time heals. Time changes. Time unsticks. Choose to have faith that there is a solution to the problem you’re facing, whether that solution lies inside or outside of yourself. Choose to have faith that that solution will become apparent in time.

Ditches are not our goal in life. But they lie on either side of the road. Waiting. Beckoning. While on the highway, we turn to anything to stay between the lines, or at least help us numb the pain of having lost our way. Lost the plot.

Work. Money. Sex. Booze. Travel. Relationships. Religion.

We even turn to God in hopes that He can make our paths smooth. Easy. Painless.

Unfortunately, that’s not his first priority. Yes, he wants us to be happy. But not when our happiness comes at the cost of our growth. Our faith. Our souls.

I highly doubt that professional drivers hone their skills on straight, flat stretches of highway. If setting the cruise control and keeping your car pointed straight ahead were the only requirements to a successful NASCAR career, you probably wouldn’t see nearly as many fiery crashes, but you wouldn’t see as many skilled drivers, either.

Jesus never said the road would be straightforward. He never even said he would keep us on the road. He only said he would walk with us. Down highways, through ditches. He never said the way would be easy. He only told us that he is the way. The truth. The life. “In this world you will have trouble,” he emphatically declared. Not won’t. Not might. If anything, life will get harder when we hand the wheel to the only One we can trust with it. Ironically, so many lose faith for this very reason: expecting smooth sailing, they balk at the first sight of stormy seas.

Jesus walked our road before us. He was well acquainted with discouragement. With dejection. With doubt. With ditches. Ultimately, his road led him to Calvary. A cross. Some nails. Mockery. Rejection. A cruel death. Why would we expect our road to be any smoother than that of the Son of God himself?

This is real life. Messy, painful, discomfiting. But there is hope. Hope that we don’t have to travel alone. Hope that through highways and ditches alike, we are growing. Changing. Learning. Hope that there is a destination at the end of the road, a destination without ditches, distrust, or despair.

Do you feel lost? I know I do. Are you hurting? Lonely? Scared? Tired? You’re not alone. We are all on this journey together. None of us actually know what we’re doing behind the wheel. So stop comparing your driving, your progress, your abilities to anyone else’s. If you’re in the ditch and someone flies by you on the road, don’t be filled with envy or exasperation. Your time will come. If you ain’t first, it doesn’t mean you’re last.

In the ditch? Don’t spin your wheels. This will only sink you further. Instead, trust that the One who can handle the valley of the shadow of death knows a thing or two about ditches, himself. He is not in the business of quick, easy fixes. He knows that the ditches are where our character is formed, tested, refined. Thus, he may not pull us out on our own myopic timetables, but he’ll give us the patience and strength you need until we’re back on the road again.

Life doesn’t start only when we get back out of the ditch. The hourglass of our lives doesn’t pause while we’re stuck. Time marches steadily onward. So, I encourage you: make the most of the trying season you’re in. Look outward and upward, not inward. You may find that through helping others out of their ditches, you’ve gotten yourself out of yours as well.

This, my friends, is real life.

This piece was originally published on Medium.