WeR17;ve all felt stuck in the middle—watching God work powerfully somewhere else while wondering if HeR17;s forgotten us. In Genesis 21 the long-promised son finally arrives and the house fills with laughter, yet Isaac almost vanishes into the background of his own story. Even there, something unseen is still moving.
We instinctively read our circumstances as a verdict on where we stand with God—ease means favor, famine means failure. In Genesis 26, Isaac is stranded in exactly that famine, holding a promise that the land and its people seem to be disproving, and GodR17;s answer to him isnR17;t immediate relief but something harder to trust.
Once the Christmas packages are cleared away, the dark sections of life can become painfully visible again—and we may have no idea how to fix them. Revelation 22 meets that helplessness with a river of life, a tree for the healing of the nations, and a coming day when night will be no more.
Before a new phone reaches stores, case makers stake a yearR17;s work on a mold they cannot verify, hoping every opening lands in the right place. Genesis 15 places Abraham in a sharper uncertainty: God has promised descendants and worldwide blessing, but no son has appeared. What does faithful action look like when the promise is clear and its fulfillment remains invisible?
As we enter into a season of preparation in the weeks ahead of Easter, Ash Wednesday is a time to stop, reflect and place before God those sins and struggles we are burdened by. Join us for a brief evening prayer service that will include receiving ashes, a sign God’s people have participated in since the Old Testament times to express our frailty before God. As we take this time together, we will be reminded of the life He offers us in His Word.
Gaps make us uneasy, so we fill them by hook or by crook—inventing tidy origins for old phrases or forcing plans into place. Genesis 27 opens on Isaac’s household doing the same around the blessing he means to give, each scrambling to close what feels unfinished.
We’re always drawn to the new and the shiny. In Genesis 3, the serpent made the one tree God forbade look irresistable. Wouldn’t it be nice if everything we shouldn’t do just clearly didn’t look right?
We know weR17;re going to die—itR17;s as inevitable as buttered toast landing face-down—but Romans 6:5 asks whether that death has to mean the same thing it did before Christ.
When a mess lands in our lap—whether itR17;s the fallen worldR17;s doing or our own—the natural move is to grab control and start fixing, doubling down on whatever we think will work. In Genesis 28, two sons of the same broken family face that same moment, and the difference between how they respond reaches right into the choices we face today.
Christmas can arrive wrapped in lights and joy while grief, loss, and the sense that this world is deeply broken remain close at hand. The Gospel of Mark opens with “the beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ,” echoing creation itself and pressing an Advent question beneath all the decorations: What kind of beginning can Jesus bring to lives that do not feel whole?