The fundamental premise is that the early church were peculiarly patient people. In an empire based on drive, immediacy, and constant expansion, a little band of outsiders quite simply outlasted their opposition. They imitated the patience of their Lord (2 Pet 3:9) who works in timelines across millennia to accomplish His purposes, and they simply stayed the course of faith in an extremely impatient world.

Every single day is an opportunity from God to revel in the love of the son of David. Don’t miss out through pretense.

Every single day is an opportunity from God to marvel at the extraordinarily ordinary means of grace that God gives us in the presence of fellow image bearers. Don’t miss out through judgment.

I am so thankful that God created seasons as part of the rhythmic pulse through which we measure the passing of years. In His creative genius, God knew that we would benefit from mile markers on the highways of our collective journeys, as if nature itself offers us sacred reminders of the ground our lives have covered, and the distance we have yet to go before we make it home. Their repetition and regularity help to break up the seemingly random onslaught of joys and sorrows that we inevitably encounter, and comfort us as we attach markers to memories and ever nearer horizons to futures.

Hope that is deferred makes the heart sick. Hope needs to be applied in the here and now to whatever it is that you face today, in the very present tense, in the immediacy of all of life’s interruptions. Living in the constant deferred hope of some form of sanctified self and world where I am who I hope to be and the world works as it should creates a constant, restless, longing that can make the heart grow sick.

Pray for the church in Ukraine. May the Lord give them supernatural bravery and protection. Pray for the church in Russia. May the Lord use them as peacemakers able to speak boldly and persistently to those in power. Pray for world leaders who are able to influence future outcomes. May the Lord give them wisdom, humility, boldness where needed, and a heart for the good of the people they serve.

We often worship wrongly because we assume that God thinks like we do, but tucked away in Psalm 147 is some great news about the kind of people that please God. He measures differently to the way that we do. He isn’t impressed with physical strength and major earthly achievement. Verse 11 tells us that He takes pleasure… yes pleasure, in the faithfulness and trust of ordinary people.

Sometimes we just need a reminder of who is with us. When life beats us up, and when failure abounds, and when we are too scared and too ashamed to ski down the hill to face our own weak failures, then we too need to remember God’s Spirit has been promised to the church, and that He remains in our midst, which means we are never alone, and we never have truly justifiable reason for unbridled fear.

I love what G.K. Chesteron said about the importance of marking these moments when he said … “The first fact about the celebration of a birthday is that it is a way of affirming defiantly, and even flamboyantly, that it is a good thing to be alive.”

You see, prayer is a wonderful declaration of weakness, of need, of humility. By its very nature, prayer declares that we are not God, and that we need someone stronger and wiser than us to help. It also declares, in that moment, that the God of the Heavens is that one that we need, and we anticipate that we will be met by Him with mercy, gentleness and love.

Next year though, just you wait and see. I am going to be a whole new person. A person who does Iron Man races and doesn’t just watch Ironman movies. I am going to learn Spanish and maybe some Mandarin, and I am going to write poetry, and memorize Scripture, and cook pastries, and journal regularly (maybe even in Spanish), and avoid carbs (even after cooking said pastries), and drink gallons of water, and stay off coffee, and … well … you get the point. I have aspirations to be a much better version of myself, a version that is considerably more godly and more disciplined than my current iteration. In the meanwhile, though, I will either just pretend, or I will push into the incredible and scandalous grace that is available for a sinner like me.