Every year, I share my top 10 reads of the year via Instagram. It’s become an annual tradition that I’ve come to love. It forces me to reflect and look back on all of the wisdom I’ve gleaned from some of the most beautiful individuals from all walks of life across the world.

Hope this helps!

Cheers, friends.

What would happen if, for just a few minutes, we set aside all of our reservations, all of our excuses, all of our hesitancies, and what if we got curious? What if we simply asked the question, “Jesus, would you teach us to pray?”

How do we experience life to the full? Is it possible? Could we potentially be overcomplicating it? Jesus himself said that, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10b, NIV). But what does that mean? How are we to actually experience this life to the full?

The heavens are vast. The heavens, from our vantage point, appear to be this empty space of nothingness. And yet, the heavens are jam packed with all of these stars radiating unfathomable amounts of energy! And all of this goes to show that this universe could not have been created on accident. That there’s a Divine Orchestrator who put all of this together. A Being so vast, so great, and so powerful that we cannot even fathom—physically—all of the matter that exists.

You ready for some good news? The overarching thread of the Bible is this: Wholeness. Brokenness. Repentance. Redemption. Restoration. And on and on it goes until Jesus Christ returns. The book of Micah begins with what feels like this doomsday message of judgement but eventually, hope is given.

Today is World Mental Health Day. A few years back, I was able to have a conversation with some students regarding mental health. This conversation focuses specifically on depression and suicide. It’s a topic we MUST talk about and take seriously.

Do you pray?

It’s a fairly simple question that often generates a complicated answer. “Well, sort of.” “I mean, I guess.“Sometimes.” Now, I get it. For many of us, our first reaction—if we’re not the praying type—is guilt.

Discipleship to Jesus is misguided at best, pointless at worst, if we are unclear on what exactly it means to follow Him. To be a disciple—in Hebrew—is this word talmidim. A better translation could be, “an apprentice” (more on that in a moment). So what does it mean to follow Jesus?

  In the beginning, God created the heavens… The universe is currently estimated to be circa 7 trillion light years wide and constantly growing. With the greatest technology that humanity has to offer in 2022, we can observe about 0.3% of that, around 93 billion light years away.

God instructs the prophet Micah to proclaim a message of judgement. Judgement. A word many of us are either unfamiliar or uncomfortable with. This message is a clear call that the way the Israelites are living is unsustainable and eventually, God will restore things right.

For just a moment, ponder your relationship with God. Where are you at with Him right now? Honestly assess your soul. Where are you at with God right now?  

What is God’s will for my life? An age old question. But a question that I believe has a clear answer.

Genesis 1:1 says this, it says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Most of us have probably heard that statement before. The Christian creation story is taught and told in all spheres of society. But have you ever tried unpacking that statement before? Sit with that for a moment.

Have you ever found yourself needing to repent? Have you ever been at a point in your life where you’ve deeply hurt or wronged someone, and you knew you needed to apologize? Perhaps today, you’re reading this with the weight of conviction on your shoulder.  

I was 12 when I met my friend Fishback. His real name was Michael, but everybody called him Fishback. It was a typical 90-degree Tennessee Summer Day, and I had made my routine two mile walk from my house to the local YMCA for a day’s worth of pickup basketball.

What if the ability to achieve peace—to take heart—is actually accomplished through slowing down and being still? What if we became a community of people who—in a world addicted to noise and busyness—slowed down and learned silence and solitude? Not isolation. Not being alone while distracting ourselves. Rather, developing the ability to spend uninterrupted time, alone, in silence, with God in an effort to be transformed into people of peace?

I love how Paul says in Colossians 3:17, “Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Whatever you do. It may be hard. It may difficult. There may be suffering, or heartache, or loss, or brokenness involved. But the fact remains, (cue the cliché) God called you to it and He’ll see you through it.

I wonder if in this transient day and age—where at the touch of our fingertips, we can realistically uproot ourselves in a place one day and end up on the other side of the planet the next—if we’re missing out on the best of what the Church has to offer…

Jesus’ invitation to his disciple, Matthew, where he tells him, “follow me” could also be seen as, “Matthew, come and eat with me.” The genesis of Matthew and Jesus’s relationship is actually around the table. In fact, Scripture says that, “many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples” (Matthew 9:9-13).

Edwin Friedman, in his incredible leadership book, Failure of Nerve talks about how when humans are grouped into an unhealthy emotional system, we tend to develop this herd mentality where we get swept up and away in the general consensus of the population without critically thinking and discerning whether what we’re thinking, or acting on is inherently positive, productive, true or good.