If trust must be earned, hasn't God unequivocally earned our trust with the bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow, your name on the cracked lips.

Every time I surrender to stress, aren’t I advertising the unreliability of God?

In a storm of struggles, I have tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But stress can be an addiction, and worry can be our lunge for control, and we forget the answer to this moment is always yes because of Christ.

How long does it take your soul to realize that your life is full? The slower the living, the greater the sense of fullness and satisfaction.

Satan’s sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are, simply, painfully, ungrateful for what God gave. Isn’t that the catalyst of all my sins? Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren’t satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other.

We can worship Christ in our sanctuaries and we can pray to God on our knees, but how we treat - or neglect - the person next door, the poor, every human being, this is how we truly speak to Christ and this is how we really treat Jesus.

When your ethnicity is heaven, then all adversity offers the gift of intimacy, driving you into the home of His heart.