Grace saves us—we don’t deserve it, can’t earn it, and have no grounds to boast about it, as Paul makes plain in Ephesians 2:8–9—so what does it look like when a community of undeserving people actually lives that out together as the church God is building?
All that anticipation, all that preparation—and then it amounts to nothing. Do you ever feel like your life is like that? That’s exactly where Ecclesiastes begins, with a preacher who achieved everything a person could want and still found his toil was vanity, a striving after wind.
We want God’s wisdom, yet often what we really want is an advantage—something that makes us look right, strong, and worthy of respect. In James 3:13–17, wisdom from above takes a startlingly different shape: meek conduct, mercy, gentleness, and a willingness to be taught. What does that wisdom ask of us as we wait for Jesus to return?
We all load our suitcases for life with what the world promises will make us wise—predictions, solutions, human answers—yet when Revelation calls for wisdom to understand the beast, it’s asking something far more unsettling: whose wisdom are we actually following?
We like life easy, so when following Jesus brings bumps instead of the smoother path we expected, we wonder what went wrong. Luke 9 reminds us that Jesus never promised following him would meet that expectation.
On Easter, we celebrate God’s great reversal, yet many of us still carry wildernesses where things feel anything but right. Mary Magdalene was in such a wilderness in John 20 as she wept outside of the tomb. In the wilderness, we often cannot see when Jesus is right in front of us.
We’ve always been better at hailing the leader who delivers what we want than trusting the one God has actually sent. Way back in Numbers 12 and 16, even Moses’ own family turns on him for not being the kind of leader they expected. Can we see God’s working any more clearly than they did?
When fear and uncertainty close in, we don’t just want comfort—we want control, something solid we can hold onto. In Exodus 32, Israel melts down the very gold God gave them in Egypt to cast a god they can see, and the impulse driving that golden calf is closer to our own hearts than we’d like to admit.
What looks successful is not always healthy, especially when everyone depends on one gifted leader. In Exodus 18, Jethro watches Moses carry the people’s disputes from morning until evening and warns that both Moses and the people will wear themselves out. How does God actually intend his people to serve together?
We forget so quickly—and when we forget what God has done, we start to feel alone. That’s exactly why, in Numbers 9, God tells Israel it’s time to keep the Passover: not because the exodus needs to happen again, but because his people need to taste his faithfulness again.
