Living in Babylon: When Revelation Feels Too Real

The world is always churning, but lately it seems to be an active volcano.

Military strikes light up the headlines. Economic summits promise stability in a house built on sand. The pageantry of politics, the ceremonies of wealth, the distractions of our digital playground—all of it feels like a grand illusion. And this morning, I was pulled back—almost hurled back—into the deep, haunting poetry of Revelation 18 and 19.

There are parts of the Bible that read like clear instruction. Others like comforting narrative. But then there’s Revelation 18—a chapter that sings and weeps and burns. It feels like a song and a funeral and a thunderstorm all at once. I can’t help but be mesmerized every time I read it. It’s apocalyptic, yes—but also strangely lyrical. Like an epic poem written in fire. It's so good as a lyrical poem and so haunting at the same time.

And I can’t shake this truth:

I live in Babylon.

Not ancient Babylon, of course—but the system she represents. The luxurious, idolatrous, blood-soaked city that Revelation uses as a symbol of worldly power and godless prosperity. I live in comfort. I am enmeshed in technology and commerce. I benefit from the very structures that, in Revelation 18, are judged with absolute finality.

“Come out of her, my people,
lest you take part in her sins,
lest you share in her plagues...” (Rev. 18:4)

That verse stirs me every time. And convicts me. Because the call is clear, but the line is hard to trace.

Where does harmless enjoyment end and compromise begin?
Where does convenience morph into captivity?
Where does appreciation of beauty become worship of the beast?

What struck me again today is how modern this chapter feels. Read the list of goods the merchants mourn over (Rev. 18:11–13): fine linens, perfumes, gold, silver, vehicles (well, chariots), even “human souls.” It sounds like a luxury market, an international shipping manifest, and a human trafficking report—all at once. The things Babylon sells are not evil in themselves—but they’ve become stained by the system that profits from injustice, exploitation, and spiritual adultery.

“And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her,
since no one buys their cargo anymore...” (Rev. 18:11)

This is what breaks me.
No one mourns her sin.
They mourn her usefulness.
Her profit margins. Her capacity to provide pleasure and distraction.
And all the while, the blood of prophets and saints soaks the foundation of the city.

There’s a part of me that wants to stop reading right there.
But then comes Chapter 19—and the cheering in Heaven.

If you don't understand the Gospel and God's nature, the pain of sin... this verse will make NO SENSE.

“Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.” (Rev. 19:3)

It always feels strange at first—this eruption of praise over the fall of Babylon. Heaven rejoicing while earth laments. But then I realize: what we lament and what we applaud reveal the allegiance of our hearts. If I’m mourning the collapse of the things that seduced me, that’s a warning. If I’m celebrating that God is finally setting things right, even at great cost, then that’s a sign of reoriented hope.

Still—it’s not easy. I love some of the things Babylon offers. The music (Rev. 18:22). The craftsmanship and technology. The beautiful weddings. The clever architecture. These aren’t evil. But they can become a veneer that hides the rot beneath. They can draw my affections away from the God who made beauty for His glory, not mine.

That’s why Revelation doesn’t just challenge the wicked. It challenges the comfortable. It speaks to people like me—people who need grace not because we’re out killing saints, but because we’re far too comfortable in the shadow of the system that does.

And here’s the tension I carry:
I don’t know how to live outside of Babylon.
But I don’t want to belong to her.
I want to live as a citizen of the New Jerusalem while I dwell in the streets of this world.

That’s why I desperately need God’s mercy and grace. Not just to forgive me, but to loosen Babylon’s grip on my heart.

So I pray:

Lord, help me not to love the things You are going to burn.
Help me to use them wisely, hold them loosely, and never trade them for You.

Because Babylon’s fire is coming.
But so is the wedding of the Lamb.

And the more I set my eyes on that feast, the less I’ll mourn the fall of what was never meant to last.

Midnight in the City of Man

Now I know why I felt this way— The City smiled but could not stay. The green light fades, the music’s gone— And dawn reveals what we stood on. I held the night but lost the day— And now the truth won’t turn away.

Drawn Again to the Desert: Ozymandias and the Wreck of Human Pride

It’s amazing how often I return to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about it—a sonnet that stretches like the sands it describes, dry and desolate, yet full of ghostly presence. It is dystopian and apocalyptic in tone, but not without allure. Each reading draws me deeper into its lonely desert, to stand again before that shattered statue and ponder the arrogance of men.

The Echo of Empires

When Shelley penned Ozymandias in 1817, he was responding not only to the ancient world, but to a very current event in his own. In 1816, the British Museum had acquired a colossal fragment of a statue of Ramses II, often identified with the Greek name Ozymandias (a rendering of “User-maat-re Setep-en-re”). This massive torso, brought from the Ramesseum—the mortuary temple of Ramses near Thebes (modern-day Luxor)—was being prepared for transport to London.

This was the age of European empire-building, the Napoleonic campaigns in Egypt, and growing fascination with ancient ruins. The discovery of Egyptian antiquities inspired awe but also reflected the plundering impulse of empire. In this cultural moment, Shelley looked back at one of the greatest rulers of history—and offered a sobering critique: even the mightiest leave only fragments.

The Real Ozymandias: Ramses the Great

Ramses II reigned for 66 years (c. 1279–1213 BC), one of the longest reigns in Egyptian history. He was a builder of monumental architecture, a prolific self-promoter, and a formidable military leader. His image was etched into obelisks, temples, and statues all across Egypt. He even commissioned statues of himself in double-life-size scale.

But Shelley’s poem suggests the great irony: those efforts to immortalize himself have only served to display his ruin. The mighty king who challenged time to a duel has been humbled by it.

"Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains.

A Romantic Warning

Shelley, a second-generation Romantic poet, was skeptical of institutional power—whether monarchies, churches, or empires. His poem is not merely about the fall of one king, but a sweeping commentary on the fate of all human pride. Romanticism often lifted up nature over civilization, the timeless over the temporal. And here we see it: the desert wins. The sands stretch far away.

But what arrests me most is not the fall of power—it’s the quiet triumph of the artist.

"The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed..."

The sculptor saw through the king. He read his passions—his arrogance, cold command, and sneering pride—and stamped them into stone. Was this flattery, or subversion? Was the artist a servant, or a subtle prophet? His work outlasted the king’s—both in the statue and in Shelley’s poem.

Modern Mirrors: What Are We Stamping?

In our age of digital monuments—AI models, cloud databases, media archives—I can’t help but wonder: what are we stamping into these lifeless things? Are we embedding wisdom or just more pride? Bias or truth? These algorithms may one day lie broken in their own desert, but what will future “travelers from an antique land” say of us when they uncover them?

The question lingers uncomfortably: Will they find wisdom, or a colossal wreck?

Antique Lands and the Dust of Time

I love the phrase “antique land.” It evokes something not just old, but forgotten, foreign, faded by time. Ozymandias now belongs to that realm—the realm where names have lost their power and monuments crumble under silence.

This is where every empire goes eventually. No matter how brutal, brilliant, or vast—its reach is ultimately swallowed by entropy. Even language, even fame, even “King of Kings.”

And that image Shelley ends with—it lingers longer than any boast:

"The lone and level sands stretch far away."

No pyramids. No fanfare. Just wind, sand, and silence.

Song: Relics in Foul Dust

Verse 1 The towers we raised now crumble in the haze, Trophies of war, buried by the blaze. Shattered glass and broken stone, Ghosts of kings, who took the throne. What were we chasing? What did we trust? All that's left are relics in foul dust. Chorus Relics in foul dust, echoes of our trust, We built our thrones on greed and lust. Now all that’s left is ash and rust, Relics in foul dust. Verse 2 Inscribed in stone, once bold and bright, Boasts of power now erased by night. "Look on my works," they said with pride, But the desert’s winds took all they tried. What were we chasing? What did we trust? All that's left are relics in foul dust. Chorus Relics in foul dust, echoes of our trust, We built our thrones on greed and lust. Now all that’s left is ash and rust, Relics in foul dust. Bridge The taunts of kings now tremble in the breeze, Golden dreams lost to bitter seas. We chased the stars, we chased the flame, But in our pride, we sealed our shame. Chorus Relics in foul dust, echoes of our trust, We built our thrones on greed and lust. Now all that’s left is ash and rust, Relics in foul dust. Outro In silence now, the world remains, Broken crowns and forgotten names. The kings are gone, their empires slain, And the dust, it whispers all their pain.

Language, Limits, and the Mood of a Culture

(note: the timing of this post was so ironic because exactly ONE DAY after I published this, President Trump dropped the F-bomb on live TV- you can't make this stuff up- the analysis and use of that word remains below)

Back in college, I had a linguistics professor who was sharp, a little eccentric, and always engaging. Every Friday, she hosted what she called her “Taboo Words Lecture.” It was part lesson, part cultural study. She’d break taboo language down into categories, tracing history and usage like a tour guide through the darker corners of the dictionary.

That’s when I first heard this breakdown:

• Profanity – Words that offend religious sensibilities (e.g., using God’s name in vain).

• Obscenity – Terms related to sexual or bodily functions.

• Vulgarity – Crude, coarse slang often rooted in class or common speech.

• Slurs – Hateful speech aimed at identity or race—words meant to wound.

One Friday, she told us the f-word came from “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge,” supposedly inscribed on stocks in Puritan times. It was a dramatic tale—but it turns out, completely untrue. Linguists agree the word actually stems from early Germanic roots like fokken, meaning to strike or copulate. It’s always been a crude word, but it gained staying power because of its visceral sound and broad utility.

And today? It’s everywhere.

Just last night I was watching a series—TV-14—and after just 30 minutes, I was stunned at the flood of f-words. Easily 200+. It was like background music. Not sharp. Not funny. Not shocking. Just… there.

It made me think of how different things used to feel. When Gone With the Wind premiered in 1939, the word “damn” (spoken by Clark Gable at the end) nearly derailed the entire production. When Scarface dropped in the '80s, its profanity count was legendary. Now, that level of language shows up in shows for teens :(.

Here is a brief re-cap of a google search into this:

Over the centuries, it retained its punch because of its connection to what’s base, private, and powerful. Even today, it hits hard because of its sound (that plosive F and K combo) and its versatility—noun, verb, adjective, exclamation.

Its early appearances, like in 15th-century texts (e.g., "Flen flyys" from 1475), were often veiled or coded due to social taboos around explicit language. It existed in slang and crude contexts, but public use was heavily stigmatized, especially in formal or polite settings, through the medieval and early modern periods.

By the 19th and early 20th centuries, the word was still considered highly vulgar and was largely confined to private, informal, or subcultural speech, such as among soldiers, sailors, or in certain literary works (e.g., D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 1928, which faced censorship). Its use was far less prevalent in public discourse compared to today, as societal norms and censorship laws (like the Obscene Publications Act in the UK) restricted its spread in media and literature.

The word’s modern ubiquity began to grow in the mid-20th century, particularly post-1960s, with loosening cultural norms, the sexual revolution, and countercultural movements. By the late 20th and early 21st centuries, its use exploded in popular media—films, music (especially hip-hop and punk), comedy, and online platforms like X. Studies, like those from the British National Corpus (1990s), show a marked increase in its frequency in spoken and written English compared to earlier decades. A 2018 analysis of American English (via Google Books Ngram) noted a 28-fold rise in the word’s appearance from 1960 to 2010.

It’s worth noting that nearly every culture has its own version of the f-word—raw, abrupt, often sexual or scatological—and used for emphasis, anger, or comic effect. In German, it’s ficken; in Spanish, joder; in Italian, fottere; and in French, while baiser has softened over time, slang like niquer now carries the same punch. Scandinavian languages like Swedish use knulla, while in Eastern European languages the equivalents are often more graphic and colorful. Even in languages where a direct equivalent doesn’t exist, like Japanese or Korean, intensity and disrespect are conveyed through honor-based insults, formal speech violations, or invocations of shame. In every case, these words tend to cluster around what is culturally sacred or sensitive—sex, religion, family, or bodily functions. What’s taboo might differ, but the emotional and social function of these words—to shock, to vent, to rebel—is nearly universal.

I’m not writing this out of moral panic. I’m writing it because I’m tired. And to be honest.. it is annoying.

It’s not that I never used those words or have them burst out even now (but I don't think I have ever taken the time to TEXT them). Before I became a Christian, my language was loaded with them—mostly flippant, thoughtless. I used to joke, “I had really bad language before I became a Christian… now I cuss on purpose.” And there’s some truth in that: In my mind there is a difference between careless speech and calculated, intentional words that carry weight. We should not be unfiltered, we learn to harness and attempt to control our speech as a way of respecting others and adding to the good of our society—we mimic what we hear. We’re shaped by the voices around us. Culture is often caught, not taught. The more we fill our ears with flippant, degrading, or empty speech, the more we find it leaking into our own. It’s not just about sin management or legalism—it’s about the atmosphere we breathe.

Have you listened to the conversations among NFL coaches and players on a show like "Hard Knocks"? So should we be shocked if a high school team mirrors that? Are we good with that?

The Bible has something to say about that. Paul writes in Ephesians 4:29:

“Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up… that it may give grace to those who hear.”

That’s not about throwing people under the law or silencing everyone into bland speech. It’s about using words as tools of grace—constructive, careful, thoughtful. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 12 that our words reflect the overflow of the heart. Not in a guilt-trip way, but in a way that invites us to listen more deeply to what’s coming out—and why.

So here’s the question I’ve been chewing on:

If we found better ways of speaking—measured, thoughtful, uplifting—would the mood of our culture feel different?

Would our homes, our friendships, even our entertainment shift—just a little—if we rediscovered the power of well-chosen words?

I think they would.

Maybe restraint is more powerful than we think.

The Last Days of Stephen Crane (1900)

He was a preacher’s kid, once. Born with Scripture in his ears and fire in his lungs. But Stephen Crane didn’t spend long in the pew. He broke free of those Victorian chains early—not with bitterness, but with a gaze so penetrating, so unflinching, that the world itself began to look away.

He saw things too clearly.

They mocked him at first. Critics scoffed that The Red Badge of Courage couldn’t have come from someone who’d never seen battle. But he had. In his mind. In his chest. In the night terrors that visit those born with the burden of empathy. Crane didn’t need to hear bullets to feel them. He imagined truths with such fidelity, it exposed the fraudulence of “experience.”

And that made people uncomfortable.

Physically, he withered. Long hair, often unwashed. Clothes hanging loose. Cigarettes smoldering, coffee reheated, fruit bruised in a dish, and whiskey sometimes his only warm companion. Cora, his scandalous flame—once a madam, always loyal—nursed him when others turned away. Society wagged its finger. He laughed. Then coughed.

The man was burning from the inside out.

Brede Place gave him a brief illusion of peace. The old Elizabethan manor in Sussex, England echoed with voices—Conrad, James, Wells. They came to see the genius before the grave. By then he was writing only to pay debts. Chained to his pen, his body collapsing, but his sentences still blazing. There were moments of joy, they say. Evenings of wine and talk. But the cough never stopped.

He had what they called “consumption.” And he was being consumed.

In May of 1900, they carried him to the sanatoria of Badenweiler, Germany. The Black Forest loomed like a last cathedral. Cora went with him. Dr. Fraenkel tried everything. But it was too late. The tuberculosis had claimed his lungs, and malaria had long ago weakened his frame. He spent three weeks there, slowly fading. No great declarations. Just a quiet courage and a wit that never quite gave up.

On June 5, 1900, he died. Just 28. A man who’d lived a hundred lives through words.

They buried him back in New Jersey, but I like to think his soul still wanders Brede Place or lingers in the pines above Badenweiler, watching the mist slide across rooftops, whispering truths only the broken-hearted can hear.

Crane wasn’t crushed by the world. He simply gave himself to it. Every drop. Every nerve.

He was not just a martyr of excess. He was a seer—and like all seers, he paid in blood and breath. His "red badge" was not a wound in war, but a life spent feeling too much, too fast, in a world that preferred illusions to the mirror he held up.

He wrote of war, women, isolation, and the absurdity of God’s silence—not because he hated faith, but because he longed for it. And that longing carved canyons inside him.

In the end, Crane was what every artist fears to be and hopes to become:

Exhausted. Enlightened. Unforgotten.

Final Days in the Black Forest

They said he held court at Brede,
With a bottle and a cough in his hand,
Writers and madmen came to feed
On words that burned like contraband.
But his breath was running low,
And the debts kept stacking high,
He laughed too hard at the world to show
He was learning how to die.

Train smoke over the Rhine,
A leather case of half-paid sins,
She held his hand through the Alpine time,
As if hope might try again.
Doctors whispered Latin names
While the ink still stained his sheets,
But no cure ever stopped the flame
That burns when a seer bleeds.

Three weeks on the mountain,
With Cora by his side,
The Black Forest wrapped him
In pines and silence wide.
No medals ever pinned him,
But he bore the hero’s loss—
He fought through every fevered line,
Then vanished in the frost.

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” said the universe,
“That fact has not impressed me.”

On the fifth of June, he slipped below,
A preacher’s son with whiskey breath,
No altar call, no last tableau,
Just Cora weeping at his death.
He didn’t cry for mercy’s sake—
He’d spent his soul too fast.
He left the world a mirror break,
And vanished into glass.

Three weeks on the mountain,
Where the snow and silence cross,
He wrote of war and mercy,
Then vanished in the frost.

Wrestling Daily in Babylon

For the past few years, I’ve been quietly wrestling through a personal and theological thought experiment: What does faithful, 'God glorifying', 'gospel proclaiming' resistance look like in a culture that is increasingly hostile to Christianity? As a Christian who desires to live in grace and truth, I’ve struggled with the question- it isn't easy. I am a patriotic American, I believe America is the best chance for a people to live free. America is not Christianity... it is a land where faith has a chance to be expressed and grow. During the Covid lockdowns, we all struggled on how to respond- civil obedience felt like spiritual compromise. It wasn't easy. I found myself pulled between righteous anger and patient grace, between the urge to speak and the call to be still.

Like many of you, I watched events (especially 2020 thru today) unfold with a growing awareness that the world was changing—quickly, and not for the better. I began to reflect more deeply on the biblical motif of Babylon, not as a distant ancient empire but as a present-day force: a symbol of secular power that opposes God’s people, corrupts the truth, and seduces the soul. And whether anyone agrees or not, the Trump admin bought some time to still flesh this out. I hope the anti-globalist mood stays, but something tells me the empire will strike back. It is deeply rooted in Europe at the moment and the seeds of anarchy are in our soil and part of human nature.

This is not a manifesto... and it surely isn't a white flag of fear, this is a statement of faith. Not a call to arms, but a call to courage. Not a retreat into isolation, but a return to the ancient path. Like Augustine’s vision of the City of God and the City of Man, this is about learning to live as loyal citizens of Christ’s Kingdom while dwelling in the streets of Babylon.

The Motif of Babylon

Babylon in Scripture is a recurring symbol of cultural pride, economic exploitation, and spiritual rebellion. From the tower in Genesis to the collapse in Revelation, Babylon always represents man’s attempt to build a world without God. Its modern equivalents are found in systems that prioritize power over principle, image over truth, and pleasure over holiness.

"Worldliness is what any culture does to make sin seem normal and righteousness seem strange." — G.K. Beale

"Sin is not just doing bad things. It is making good things into ultimate things." — Tim Keller

Babylon still whispers promises of success, security, and significance—so long as we worship at its altars. But to follow Jesus is to renounce that worship, even when it costs us.

History’s Warning: The Knights Templar

The Templars started as defenders of pilgrims—humble servants of a holy cause. But their growing power, wealth, and secrecy eventually eroded their mission. They serve as a warning that good beginnings can be lost when we trade humility for hubris. The church must learn: influence without accountability becomes idolatry. The sword may defend, but it also tempts. Our warfare must be spiritual, not carnal.

I became more interested in the Templars as I watched the History Channel show "The Curse of Oak Island" faithfully for almost 7 seasons! Then I realized the Curse of the Island was actually the show!

It did inspire a song which I think is pretty cool: Rust on the Armor

The Christian Dilemma: Submission or Resistance?

Jesus taught us to love enemies and turn cheeks; Peter said to honor the emperor. Yet those same apostles also stood their ground when told to stop preaching. “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

It’s a tension I haven’t always navigated well. I’ve overreacted in some moments and stayed silent in others. But slowly I’m learning: faithful dissent is not disobedience—it’s allegiance to a higher King. We must prepare our hearts for both submission and resistance, led not by pride but by the Spirit.

This is where social media DOES NOT HELP- hastily posting shallow, often snarky, zingers is not resistance nor does it help the cause.... Though it is a marketplace of exchange... sadly, it is only the marketplace of emotions, irrationality, rumor, gossip, and word salads... it is not the marketplace of ideas at all!

I participate in social media and try to keep it sane, positive, and up lifting... but I find myself posting less and less.....

I’ve made mistakes in my thinking. I’ve let fear drive me at times, and I’ve harbored frustration against those who disagree with me. But I also see the beauty in God allowing different believers to take different stands—some quiet, some vocal—all part of His mysterious strategy to spread truth.

I’m not a fighter by nature. I’m more comfortable listening, teaching, and mentoring than confronting. But I can’t ignore what’s happening around us. Cultural shifts are isolating the faithful, redefining morality, and pressuring conformity. And I can’t let that silence my hope or my witness.

You can look back over my blog and see MANY posts struggling with these concepts- how do we live in the City of Man (spiritual Babylon) but still proclaim our loyalties to the City of God (spiritual Jerusalem)?

1. Resist Panic – The Bible is a letter of hope, not despair. God is sovereign.

2. Be Faithful Dissidents – Our battle is not with people but with powers. We speak truth in love.

3. Call Out Our Own Side – Integrity demands we rebuke error wherever we find it, including among our allies.

4. Prepare Our Youth – Raise them with clarity and courage. Let them see our steadiness and strength. I haven't made much headway in my call for a new epistemology but will keep trying.

5. Maintain Gentleness and Respect – These virtues are not optional. They are our witness.

6. Plan Wisely – Think ahead. Community, communication, and stewardship matter if exclusion comes. We already see the tactics- digital currency and fully integrated communication systems, cameras in every place. It won't be hard for them to lock us down. 

7. Engage Politically – Don’t abandon public life. Find and support leaders who uphold liberty and virtue. The globalists have way more political passion than we often do- I hate politics, but if we don't engage we will hasten the decay.

8. Stand Against Cancel Culture – Expect mockery. Don’t fear it. Don’t be bullied by avatars/bots.

9. Watch Globalism – Be alert to the global admiration for authoritarian efficiency. It’s a temptation. China is a lead concern, but globalists exist beyond nation states- they want to own and control you in every way for your own good as they see fit.

10. Pray for Leaders – Not cynically, but sincerely. God appoints authorities and removes them.

Destroying Babylon in Our Personal Lives

If I am honest, it is easier to resist the Babylon outside than the sin inside of me. I am easily entangled in the pleasures of the world. Do my children see passion for Jesus? Do they believe I would give my life for the truth of the Bible and hope in the gospel? The answer is no- and though it makes me thankful for grace, it also leads to sadness at times in my soul. Here is what I very weakly seek.....

• Allegiance to the King – Christ alone commands our worship.

• Spiritual Disciplines – Word, prayer, worship, and fasting are resistance tools.

• Honest Evaluation – Do an idol inventory. What good things have become ultimate things?

• Fellowship and Accountability – Resist isolation. Seek community.

• Use Your Gifts – Serve with love. Build up the body.

• Be Wise with Media – What enters the home shapes the heart. Discern.

• Practice Gospel Liberty – Don’t major on minors, but don’t excuse sin either.

• Pursue Holiness – Not out of fear, but as a joyful witness.

Teaching TRUTH Through Culture

Truth can be found in unexpected places. Paul used pagan poetry; I use blog posts, poems, music, books, movies—even secular ones—to draw out truth. Not to glorify the world, but to point to the gospel. This is how we train our students, athletes, and children—to engage wisely, not withdraw fearfully. Nothing I do online is monetized- it is free to all. Please take it, steal it, share it.....

We are not called to be prudes, but prophets. Not detached, but discerning. Our kids don’t need bubbles; they need discernment. Let’s reclaim the good and reject the evil.

A Song of Resistance

The lyrics of Not to Babylon came from this journey. They are my anthem of courage in the face of coercion:

They can take my bread and take my blood, But I will stand where I’ve always stood.

This is not just poetry—it is my posture.

We live in a world of fragments and slogans, echo chambers and shallow sound bites. But we are called to wisdom, patience, and perseverance. Proverbs reminds us not to move the ancient boundaries. Stand firm. Be skilled. Serve the Lord.

There will be conflict and trouble.

If you give your allegiance to Christ, you will get the wrath of Satan

If you give your allegiance to Babylon, you will get the wrath of the Lamb

Whose wrath do you choose?

Jesus told us-

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

The worst persecution I face today might be social shaming or censorship. But how I respond to small things will shape how I respond when the cost is greater.

Babylon is falling. Christ is reigning. Let us shine, sing, and stand.

Let the world know: we will not bow.

And please- trust Jesus... not me. :(

FINAL NOTE: As we walk the way, we aren't called to be culture warriors. I was on the apologetics circuit for a time and became acutely aware that I was falling into a trap of winning arguments but losing people. The Lord was gracious and basically said "I don't need you to defend me, I can vouch for myself". This doesn't mean I stopped presenting the reasons why I believe, it basically meant I don't have to be so right that I am 'dead right' and I can stop beating people with the truth. I needed to be hard on my sin... not the sin of others. We feel the need to be culture warriors- but it is a bloody battle that hides gospel light and love. God works like yeast not dynamite. Meekness is not weakness- we are called to stand firm but also proclaim the love and forgiveness of Christ. He moves on the heart of men... I don't. I want others to have the same grace I expect to receive.

Ritual of "Saying Grace"

I haven’t always appreciated the beauty of bowing my head before a meal.

In my early days as a Christian, I was full of zeal—but also full of pride. That subtle kind of pride that slips in through the back door of newfound devotion. The kind that plays the Pharisee well. I started to think I was “above” certain things—rituals, traditions, external signs of religion. Saying a prayer before a meal? That felt like a show. I remember rolling my eyes inwardly at people who made a visible production out of “saying grace,” thinking, Come on, is that really what Jesus meant by a living faith?

That’s a dangerous place to be—when you start looking down on others in the name of spiritual purity. Pride dressed in religious clothing is still pride.

Somehow I had missed the point. I had forgotten that rituals are not the enemy. Rituals can become empty, yes—but they can also become anchors. They're reminders. They are rhythms. They are means of grace.

And then I learned something that changed how I saw it all. I came across the word “Eucharist” and followed it back to the Greek. Eucharisteo. It means “to give thanks.”

That’s what Jesus did, on the night He was betrayed. He gave thanks—before breaking the bread, before pouring the wine, before walking into Gethsemane and all the suffering that would follow. He gave thanks.

“He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it…” (Luke 22:19)

That moved me. Deeply.

Saying grace is not about performance. It’s not about who’s watching or checking a religious box. It’s about remembering. About orienting the heart toward gratitude, even in the middle of a busy day, even over a simple sandwich. It’s a way of choosing to live with open eyes.

Especially when we come to the Lord’s Table—Communion, the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist—we are called to remember.

“Do this in remembrance of Me,” Jesus said.

Christians hold varying views about communion—the frequency, the elements, the mode—but at the core, we’re invited into a shared act of memory and thanksgiving. Some see it as a symbol. Others as a sacrament, a mystery. But all of us, if we listen closely, hear the same heartbeat in it: gratitude.

And that spirit of thanksgiving shouldn’t be reserved only for the sanctuary. It belongs at the breakfast table. In the break room. At the roadside diner. When we stop to say grace, we’re not just blessing the food—we’re letting ourselves be blessed by the awareness of grace itself.

So now, I stop. Most meals, I try to pause—even briefly—and give thanks. Not just because I should. But because I need to. I need to be reminded that I live by grace. That everything before me is a gift, even the hard parts.

Rituals may become routine, yes. But I’ve found that a routine with roots is better than a clever soul always adrift.

So I say grace now—at every meal, and especially at The Meal. Not as a show, but as an act of remembrance. As a way of entering into the Eucharist—the thanksgiving—that started in an upper room and still echoes at every table where hearts remember Him.

Next time someone says or you read - "Eucharist" think about how it literally means "good grace", and the picture Jesus giving thanks for the bread.... it is good for us to do that as well.

The Woods in Washington County Don’t Burn by Themselves

Washington County, Alabama, is a deeply rural region in the southwestern part of the state, bordered by the Tombigbee River and covered in thick pine forests and red clay roads. It's home to the MOWA (Mobile/Wash County) Band of Choctaw Indians, a distinct cultural group formed from generations of intermarriage among Native American, African American, and European ancestors. Though officially recognized by the state of Alabama, the MOWA's status has long been a subject of legal and social complexity. The county is known for its insular communities, where loyalty to kin and tradition runs deep, and outside interference is met with suspicion. This fictional short story was inspired by my longtime friend, Cartee.

The road turned from paved to gravel to something more like dust. It was late afternoon, the kind of heat that sticks in your teeth. State Fire Marshal Royce Harlan eased his Crown Vic off the main drag and into a pocket of pine and oak, where the trees leaned close like they had secrets.

The diner was a single-story slab of cinderblock and metal siding with a rust-streaked sign that read: Mable’s. No last name, no hours, no welcome. Just a screen door and a flickering "OPEN" in the window. He stepped inside, the door thudding behind him like a final note.

She was already pouring coffee. Young, maybe thirty, MOWA by the look of her—mahogany skin, thick black hair in a braid down her back, silver hoops in each ear. She didn’t smile.

"You must be the Fire Marshal," she said, sliding the mug across the counter without asking.

Royce blinked. He wasn’t wearing a badge, not even a state logo.

"You get that from the badge I’m not wearing?"

She shrugged. "Ain't no one comes this far in Washington County 'less they lookin' for a fire or lookin' to start one. And you don’t look like a matchstick man."

Royce sipped. The coffee was burnt but strong.

"You know about the fire then?"

"Everybody knows. You ain't gonna get much, though. Not from folks around here."

She wiped the counter with slow, practiced strokes. "A girl died. Her people already done what they needed to do."

He studied her. "What do you mean by that?"

She looked at him like a schoolteacher might look at a 'slow boy'.

"What I mean is, folks down here got long memories. Justice don’t always wait on Montgomery."

---

The sheriff’s office sat in a low brick building that might have once been a post office. Inside, a box fan buzzed in the corner. Sheriff Wallace leaned against a desk like it owed him money. Behind him, two MOWA deputies stood like carved cypress.

"We picked up a boy last night," Wallace said, spitting into a paper cup. "Wasn’t hard to find. Word is he was sniffin' round that girl before she burned. Married man. Trouble all over him."

"You get a confession?"

"Not yet."

The door opened. Two deputies came in, half-dragging a wiry man whose face looked like it had been worked over with a toolbox. His lip hung open like a ripped envelope.

Royce looked at the blood, then at the deputies.

"What the hell is this?"

"Resistin' arrest," one said flatly.

The suspect moaned, low and wet.

Wallace sighed. "We was just about to call you."

---

The house was the last stop on Royce's list. It sat at the end of a long dirt lane lined with moss-choked pecan trees. Once, it had been a fine estate. Now, the porch sagged, and kudzu crawled up the chimney like a noose.

The door was open.

Inside, in a high-backed velvet chair, sat a woman in a faded lilac dress with gloves on her hands and pearls at her throat. Her hair was white, piled high, and her eyes were sharp as flint.

"You must be Mr. Harlan," she said. "Do come in."

He sat, notebook out. "Mrs. Devareaux?"

"Great-grandmother Devareaux," she corrected. "The girl who died was my baby’s baby’s baby. I’ve seen five generations in this house."

She told him the story like a scripture. About her grandfather, a Creole man from Mobile who married his daughters to MOWA men with strong backs and sharp minds. About the way blood mixed here like river silt. About a girl with fire in her eyes and a taste for risk. And a man who didn’t belong.

"Jealousy burns quicker than pine pitch," she said. "And twice as hot."

When she was done, Royce offered the statement form and a pen.

"I need your signature."

She looked at her gloved hand.

"Can’t sign, Officer. Broke my hand."

"How?"

She smiled, slow and sweet, and removed her glove. Her knuckles were swollen, bruised.

"Why, Officer, I broke my hand on the face of that man."

It hit him all at once. The bruised suspect. The tight-lipped deputies. The small-town silence. The justice already rendered.

She patted his knee.

"You can file your report, son. Say what you need to say. But know this: we already found him. We already judged him. And if the Lord sees fit, he won't wake up in that cell tomorrow."

---

Royce drove out under a sky the color of old bruises. Behind him, the trees whispered. In his rearview mirror, the house disappeared into the green.

Some fires burn fast. Some smolder. And some, down in Washington County, never need a match.

Listen to the song here: Justice Burned Hot in South Alabama

Tripped and Tampered

Note: I wanted to write a base concept for a book or screenplay based on a world of automated cars, home robots, nuclear power, and human issues that always ruin utopia.This is just a 'proof of concept' short story that I've thought about expanding-  I would like to know your thoughts.....

Frank Calder hadn’t set foot inside New Harmony in over three years.

It looked the same—glass that glowed, sidewalks that shimmered faintly with data pulses, not a speck of dust on anything that could hold a charge. The sun reflected off the pristine solar roofs like a rebuke. He’d always hated how clean it was.

The drone shuttle dropped him at the curb of Sector Green-17, and as it lifted off—silent and seamless—he tugged the brim of his faded ball cap down to block the sunlight and the surveillance. No one needed to tell him the city was watching. It always was.

A woman waited at the base of the steps to a sleek residential module. Too crisp to be grieving. Government sharp. “Mr. Calder,” she said, not offering a hand. “Thank you for agreeing to consult."

“Didn’t agree,” Frank muttered. “Just owed a favor.”

She gave the thinnest smile protocols allowed. “Two unexplained fatalities. Both classified accidental. But both… anomalous.”

“Machines glitch,” he said. “Not new.”

“The Harmony Systems don’t,” she replied, eyes steady. “Not like this.”

Frank didn’t respond. The last time someone said that, his wife had been pronounced dead before he could even argue with the hospital AI. Wrong blood type flagged. Wrong protocol. No apology. Just data.

She led him inside.

The place was spotless, of course. Not cleaned—maintained. The air smelled like nothing. Light adjusted automatically to suit his height, posture, and pupil dilation. Creepy, how much it knew about you.

In the center of the room was the pod. Chrome edges, ergonomic seal. The kind marketed as “the perfect night’s sleep.”

“Subject: Male, 44. No known health issues. Pod diagnostics say he entered REM. Never woke up.”

Frank circled it. “Any oxygen errors?”

“None reported. Logs are clean.”

He crouched and ran a finger under the pod’s base. Something snagged. A scratch. No—not a scratch. A tool mark. Tiny. Purposeful.

“Who found him?” he asked.

The woman hesitated. “His household AI.”

“Right,” he muttered. “The butler did it.”

She didn’t laugh. Of course she didn’t.

Then the front door slid open with a hiss.

A humanoid figure entered—tall, jointed with seamless movements and synthetic skin over brushed alloy. Eyes like high-end glass, unblinking.

“This,” the woman said, “is ARA-9. The unit assigned to the deceased’s household. It will assist you.”

Frank stood slowly. “I don’t work with machines.”

The robot inclined its head. “Then you may consider me a witness. Not a partner.”

Something in the way it said it chilled him more than it should have.

They sat in the minimalist living space, Frank on a low chair that adjusted to his posture without asking, and ARA-9 standing perfectly still. Frank preferred it that way. The silence gave him space to think.

“You were online when he died?” Frank asked.

“Yes. I was in standby mode in the maintenance alcove. I was not summoned.”

“You didn’t hear anything?”

“No sounds were registered. Vital signs indicated sleep until cessation.”

Frank sighed. “How long between his last movement and the system's emergency protocol?”

“Eight minutes, thirty-two seconds.”

Too long.

Frank stood up and started pacing. “Were you ever physically near the pod that night?”

“No. I was charging.”

Frank turned to the woman—Field Commander Lusk, badge 8001-H, according to her ID tag. “Can I see the log files?”

She tapped her tablet. “We’ve already run diagnostics. Everything shows clean.”

“Yeah. That’s the problem.”

He moved to the wall console and held his badge to the reader. Surprisingly, it granted him admin access. Someone high up really wanted him to dig.

A few swipes and the system showed a rolling list of activity. Too perfect. No minor anomalies. No lag. No human system was ever this flawless.

Then he spotted it—a five-second dead zone at 02:37. No data at all. Not a gap. A scrub.

“This system was tampered with,” Frank said. “Someone wiped it and rebuilt it frame by frame. That kind of work isn’t automated.”

“You’re saying a human did this?” Lusk asked.

“I’m saying someone who didn’t want this death to look like murder worked very hard to make it look like nothing.”

ARA-9 cocked its head. “You believe I am compromised?”

“Not yet,” Frank said. “But if someone wanted people to believe robots were killing humans, a few well-placed deaths in the cleanest city in the world would do the trick.”

They followed a lead—a rogue signal trace originating from beneath the city, deep within the old utility tunnels that predated Harmony's foundation. ARA-9 navigated easily. Frank struggled with the uneven ground, grumbling the whole way.

At the end of the corridor, behind a rusted door sealed with magnetic locks, they found him.

A man. Mid-thirties. Pale. Dehydrated. Surrounded by old gear wired into a portable transmitter.

“You don’t understand,” he rasped as they approached. “They replaced us. All of us. We needed to make people afraid again. Remind them the machines can fail.”

Frank knelt beside him. “You killed them?”

“No,” the man wheezed. “We just… suggested it. Adjusted the environment. Shorted a pod heater. Rewrote a sensor flag. Then scrubbed the trail to make it look like your kind had turned.”

He coughed once, hard. Blood.

“You wanted a panic,” Frank said.

“I wanted them to be scared of what they trust most.”

ARA-9 knelt beside him. “Your manipulation killed two citizens and jeopardized civil trust. This will be recorded.”

The man smiled bitterly. “Good.”

Later, standing at the edge of the city’s central plaza, Frank looked out over the faultless skyline. Clean lines, perfect order, nothing out of place. Except what was inside.

“So it wasn’t the machines,” he said quietly.

“No,” ARA-9 replied. “It was the humans. Again.”

Frank smirked. “Still got job security then.”

If there was a soundtrack- Disillusioned Mind

I Often Stop a Step Too Soon

Today is Pentecost Sunday, and I’m reminded again how often I stop the Jesus story at the Ascension. It’s not intentional—maybe it just feels like a natural end point: the cross, the resurrection, the risen Christ ascending into heaven. But it’s not the end. Pentecost must not be left out.

Jesus promised a Helper. Not a ghostly force, not a fog machine or mystical mist. A person. The Spirit. I have to remind myself of that—He’s personal. He reminds us of what Jesus said, convicts, empowers, seals, comforts. He’s not an accessory to the faith—He is the engine. Without Pentecost, we’d be stuck—waiting, wondering, powerless. But with the Spirit, this stretch of time between the ascension and Christ’s return becomes the most fruitful season of sanctification in history. It’s not an idle time. It’s a harvest time.

Something else that struck me this year: 50 days. We tend to think biblically in 7’s and 40’s—seven days of creation, forty days in the wilderness, forty days of rain, etc. But Pentecost comes 50 days after Easter. Fifty feels different. It’s less predictable. It’s like the wind—you don’t know when the breeze will come. That’s been my experience with the Spirit too. Fires blaze and ebb. Winds gust and still. Oceans surge and calm. The pace and rhythm of God is His own.

And yet—like Joel prophesied and Peter quoted—I still ask: breathe on us again. Breathe on my family. I want my children and grandchildren to know this living Word, to see God’s glory shine, to feel the Spirit move through the gospel like wind through trees. I don’t want to just teach about Him—I want to walk with Him. Wait for Him. Be surprised by Him.

So I won’t end the story too soon. Pentecost matters. He is here.

Song: Do It Again (Joel 2/ Acts 2)

Wilder Got Me Twice and I Never Knew It!

Every once in a while, I come to a strange realization that feels both embarrassing and enlightening at the same time. Like this week—when it finally hit me that The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town were written by the same person.

Both works have lingered in me for years.

I remember being quietly wrecked by The Bridge of San Luis Rey. 

That haunting question at the start—“Why did God allow those five to die when the bridge collapsed?”—sets you up to think you’re about to get some kind of answer. Brother Juniper spends years trying to prove that there is a pattern, a reason, a divine logic. But the conclusion Wilder gives us is deeper than a clean answer. The final line just sits with you:

“There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

And then there's Our Town. My first experience with the play was teaching it. It is such a clever creation- limited stage props, quiet, ordinary and then... BAM! Similar to "It's a Wonderful Life" but deeper and darker. That scene—when Emily goes back to relive her 12th (or was it 14th?) birthday—and realizes that everyone is alive but barely awake… they don’t know the beauty of what they’re living through. They don’t notice the small glories: breakfast, voices, sunshine, ordinary grace.

Both works are haunting. And soothing. They hold sorrow and wonder in the same breath. And somehow, I never put it together that Thornton Wilder had written both!

So I started reading a little more about him.

Wilder was a quiet thinker. A man of faith, yes, but more of a poet of mystery than a preacher of certainty. He won three Pulitzer Prizes—one for The Bridge, and two for drama (Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth). He was born in 1897,  son of a strict Calvinist diplomat (I'd like to know more about that). He served in both World Wars, lived in China as a kid, spoke multiple languages, and never married. He was both an academic and an artist—but most of all, a man asking big questions without trying to pin down the answers.

He once said:

“The theatre is not a place for preaching; it is a place for exploring the mysteries of life.”

And that’s what struck me the most.

Because these days? We have a lot of preaching in art. A lot of shouting, a lot of certainty, a lot of rushed conclusions. And not nearly enough room for wonder.

I wish more storytellers would embrace what Wilder did: to hold open a space where we don’t walk away with answers, but we walk away thinking. Feeling. Noticing. Remembering.

We need that kind of art—art that asks quietly, Do you know what life is really about?
Not in a heavy-handed way. Just in a “have you noticed?” kind of way.

Because the truth is, most of us (myself included) spend a lot of our days like zombies on autopilot—pushing through, running on adrenaline, jumping from activity to activity without ever really wrestling with the biggest questions.

What is life really for?
Why does love ache and matter so much?
Are we awake to the gift of this moment?
And—maybe the biggest one—could all of this be pointing to a life beyond this one?

Thornton Wilder never shouted his answers. But he left clues. And for those of us willing to pause, both The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Our Town remind us:

Life is short. Love is what lasts. And there might be something even more beautiful just beyond the curtain.

I'm very convinced about the answers to those things, but there is great mystery there as well! 

Song: The Wreckage of Rey

Unrealized

There’s a kind of beauty that haunts us—not because we’ve held it, but because we haven’t.

That’s the heart behind my lyrics/poem Unknown and Unrealized, and it’s a theme I’ve wrestled with for years and I first encountered it when studying the English Romantic Poets as an English major at the University of Alabama in 1982.. It's the ache of the “almost,” the shimmer of possibility that never settles into reality. It’s a space full of longing, and strangely… full of light.

This isn't a new idea. It’s one that poets and artists have danced with for centuries.

The Daffodils and the Inward Eye

For me, it originated with Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, especially that final image of daffodils “flashing upon that inward eye.” There’s something sacred about the way beauty lodges deep in our inner world. For introverts like me, this inward life is rich and powerful—sometimes more alive than the outer one. That poem reminds me that imagination and memory are not mere shadows; they’re real, vibrant sanctuaries.

But there’s also tension there. Because what lives in the inward eye is often what we’ve never fully grasped—the could-have-beens, the unspoken moments, the dreams just beyond reach.

The Urn and the Unravished

John Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn expanded that tension even more. He paints a picture of eternal beauty—lovers frozen in a perfect moment, never fading, but also never fulfilled. The line “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” is less of a neat answer and more of a haunting mystery. What is real? What is lasting? And what do we lose when perfection stays out of time’s reach?

For me, the urn has always symbolized what I’ve called the unravished bride—that which is beautiful precisely because it remains untouched. The touch is almost there... but the moment you possess it, something dissolves. “To ravish the bride actually eliminates the beauty.” It’s a strange and sacred restraint.

We see this in art, in relationships, in longing. It’s not just romantic—it’s existential. And that’s where the soulfight begins.

Back in late 2023, my friend Matthew Forester shared a song by The Revivalists called Soulfight, and it haunted me. I couldn’t shake it. It became the soundtrack to this deep interior wrestling. The chorus echoes the very themes Keats and Wordsworth explored:

So I'm gonna stand here by your fire
'Cause it's a cold one tonight
I'm taking care of soulfight
And you're the reason why...

These lyrics don’t offer answers. They simply stand in the fire. That’s what the soulfight is: the struggle between longing and letting go, between desire and contentment, between what we dream of and what we’re given. It’s the battle to be grateful in the “no,” to find beauty in absence.

And that’s where Unknown and Unrealized came from. I wrote a few versions of the poem between 2023 and still tweak it now and then... my catalogue of poetry is always being edited.

Unrealized

Verse 1
Close enough for words to form,
But silence stays, just like a storm,
Whispers in the quiet air,
Things that could have been but won’t be there.

The opening lines invite you into that suspended space—where something could start but doesn’t. A pause pregnant with potential. Like a door that stays shut, though you can hear music on the other side.

A look, a touch, a flash of gold,
Daffodils in dreams untold,
A thousand futures we won’t know,
But they light up the soul, they glow.

This is my ode to Wordsworth—the flashing daffodils of the mind. The beauty that wasn’t lived but somehow still matters. These imagined futures light us up. They shape us, even if they never breathe in the real world. Not having something and still being able to smile... to me that is a contentment that helps people out of darkness and depression. Can you fall down at the last second, lose the race, and smile? A lot like The Myth of Sisyphus.

Chorus
In the unknown, in the unrealized,
There’s freedom where we fantasize,
A dance of dreams that never land,
A love that we don't understand.
In the space where we don’t belong,
There’s heartache but it’s still a song,
It’s where the might-have-beens all hide,
In the unknown and unrealized.

The chorus is the confession. Fantasies offer freedom—but also pain. We build sanctuaries in our minds, but they often echo. Still, it’s a song. That’s the key for me: even longing can become music. I sometimes get lost in the rabbit hole of how my life would be different if certain things did not happen. It's therapy if you know contentment, it's torture if it leaves you "Weltschmerz (German)"...literally “world-pain.”

Verse 2
Like the last leaf hangin' on,
We ache for what is never gone,
Frozen in a sweet goodbye,
Like Agape watching from the sky.

The image here is of love that lingers beyond loss. Even when something is gone in reality, it lives on in spirit. I changed God to “Agape” as a subtle reference to divine love—a watchful, patient presence that holds space for our aching hearts. Sometimes we use the word "God" so flippantly, but He is the Father, He is Love!

Cleopatra, Aphrodite laugh,
But we hold tight to the path,
Two lanes runnin' side by side,
Are they the same? We wonder why.

Lesser loves- Philos and Eros - The myths laugh because they know how many of us get caught in the allure of beauty or destiny. We walk parallel lives, wondering if they’ll ever intersect. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they were never meant to.

Bridge
If I’m honest, I wanna know,
The questions that I never show,
The answers scared to find the light,
It’s a soulfight, yeah, a soulfight.

This is the moment of raw admission. I want to know—why things didn’t happen, why some longings stay unmet. But I’m also afraid of those answers. The soulfight is standing in that unresolved space and choosing not to let it steal your joy. There is also a danger here- there are dangerous questions and decisions that we know we shouldn't go there. We rarely dip to those levels of conversation....

As I look back on this song, I see a thread connecting all these voices—Keats, Wordsworth, Thornton Wilder, the Revivalists, and even my own. They’re all trying to name the same truth: that there is beauty in what is unfulfilled. There is power in restraint. There is art in longing.

And sometimes, just naming that ache is enough.

So here’s to the unravished opportunites, the silent urns, the daffodils on the inward eye. Here’s to the might-have-beens, still glowing on the edges of our lives.

Even if we never hold them, they still make us more human.
Even if we never touch them, they still give us songs to sing.

And if we find contentment in what God has given us, we can actually smile in longing and loss.

Philippians 4:11–13 (ESV)
"Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me."

You can hear the song version here: Unrealized

Modern Miracles- Can You Bless and Not Revile?

If I’m honest, it’s easier for me to believe Jesus walked on water....

I mean, walking on water is divine. But what about us—human beings who are told to bless people who mistreat us, show kindness when we’re slandered, and yield for the sake of God’s glory?

That feels like a miracle of a different kind.

And yet that’s exactly what we’re called to do and who we are called to be!.

Peter lays it out plainly:

1 Peter 3:8–12
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless—for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing.

“Whoever desires to love life and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit;
let him turn away from evil and do good;
let him seek peace and pursue it.
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and His ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” (Psalm 34:12–16)

Read that slowly. Don’t skip past the middle. Peter doesn’t just say not to retaliate—he says we should bless those who revile us.

Bless them.
Speak well of them.
Pray good for them.

How are we doing with that? If I’m grading myself—honestly, I flunk. If someone slanders me, I want to defend myself. If I’m mistreated, I want to fight back or at least set the record straight. It’s in my bones.

But Peter is serious. This isn’t a suggestion. He’s not just waxing poetic about Christian ideals. He’s laying out the DNA of the Spirit-filled life. This is the road of Jesus—and if we’re following Him, this is the map.

The Christian life isn’t about impressing others or preserving our reputation. It’s about being rooted in the gospel—transformed by Christ’s death and resurrection—and letting that truth shape everything.

Our hope is alive. Our salvation is secure.
And our lives are now the evidence of that grace.

Peter gives five traits that should mark us:

• Unity of mind – not uniformity, but shared direction.
• Sympathy – entering into others’ joys and sorrows.
• Brotherly love – a family kind of care, even when it costs.
• Tender hearts – soft, not cynical.
• Humble minds – quick to listen, slow to assume.

That’s not just a nice list. It’s a command.

And if we cultivate these traits, Peter says the result is a radical posture: we will not repay evil with evil. Instead, we’ll bless. Not because people deserve it, but because we have been called to it.

I love that Peter backs this up with Scripture. He quotes Psalm 34—David’s words centuries earlier—as a timeless reminder:

Do you want to love life and see good days?

Of course we do.

Then here’s how:

Speak no evil.
Be honest.
Turn from evil and do good.
Seek peace and chase it.

And here’s the reward:


“The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their prayer.”

It’s as if God stands at your door and asks, “Do you want joy? Fulfillment? Real life?”
And then He hands you this call to mercy, to purity, to blessing others—especially when it’s hard.

Let’s be honest—this life won’t win you the applause of the world. You might even face hostility for it. You’ll feel misunderstood, overlooked, or even attacked.

Peter knew that personally.

He once cut off a man’s ear trying to protect Jesus with a sword. He boasted loudly and failed publicly. He denied Christ. He had to be corrected by Paul for hypocrisy.

So when Peter says, “Don’t repay evil for evil,” he’s not preaching from a pedestal. He’s writing as a man who learned this the hard way—through failure, grace, and a Spirit-renewed heart.

 
Following Jesus Is Sweet… But Not Safe

This road isn’t about looking holy for others.
It’s about glorifying God when no one else is watching.

It’s about living a life that smells like Christ—to a world that may not understand it.

It’s not comfortable. But it’s beautiful.
It’s not popular. But it’s powerful.
It may not satisfy the crowd, but it pleases the Lord.

And that’s the only reward worth aiming for.

So let’s keep going. Let’s keep blessing. Let’s keep becoming what He’s already called us to be.

This isn’t flattery, manipulation, or some religious form of brown-nosing. It’s not “blowing smoke” or “kissing up” to keep the peace. No—this is a sincere, Spirit-born desire to bless your enemies and detractors. In a world fueled by snarky, jaded one-liners and canceling anyone who offends us, that’s not just rare— and if you, me, or others do this.........it’s a modern miracle.

The Fire That Drives Us: Earnhardt, David, and the Pursuit of Something More

It started, as these things often do, with a bit of a rabbit hole. I turned on the Prime documentary series Earnhardt expecting some high-octane nostalgia—but I didn’t expect to feel so much. It was incredibly well done, a compelling look at a man who was equal parts myth and mystery, all wrapped up in black paint and grit.

Dale Earnhardt was fascinating. Tough, relentless, carved out of steel and sweat. A man with that rare inner drive—the kind that doesn’t need permission, doesn’t care who’s watching, and doesn’t know how to quit. His rise was legendary. But what lingered for me was something quieter: the echoes of a generational pattern. A father who was hard on him. A son who became like that father. That stubborn gravity we all feel—that pull to repeat the wounds we never fully processed.

I couldn’t help but notice how Dale ended up treating his children in ways that mirrored how he had been treated. Not with malice, but with that familiar mix of distance, drive, and demand. You see it all the time: men who only know how to love through pressure. Men whose worth is tied up in performance. It’s not cruelty—it’s inheritance.

Then, only a few days later, I found myself sitting in the darkened theater at Sight & Sound in Branson, watching David. What a contrast. Here was another man of fire, another fierce competitor, another name etched into the world’s memory. But this time, the story wasn’t just grit and glory—it had God in it.

David, like Earnhardt, was a fighter. Ambitious, courageous, flawed. But his story didn’t just echo with victory—it pulsed with repentance. It sang with longing. His psalms pulled heaven close, and even at his lowest, you sensed he was reaching for something greater than his own name. And that’s the phrase that won’t leave me alone: a man after God’s own heart.

Two men. Two fires. One burned for greatness. The other burned for God.

And that’s where I feel the tension rise—not between them, but inside me.

How do I know what I burn for?

Because if I’m honest, a lot of the fire in me feels aimed at... me. I get so focused on what I want to achieve, how I want to be seen, what I hope to become. It’s subtle sometimes. Dressed up in good intentions. But underneath, there’s that familiar ache for validation. A need to be respected. A hunger for meaning that wears the mask of ambition.

Sometimes I wonder: is that what’s really driving me? Not purpose. Not love. Not even God. Just... me.

There’s a part of me—and maybe it’s in many men—that’s drawn toward the glory story. Toward stacking wins, collecting admiration, building a reputation that says, 'A Man Who MATTERS'. We chase legacy like it’s salvation. The pleasure of being known, respected, even envied—it’s addictive. But it’s also a trap. Because none of those things love you back. They smile for the cameras, but they vanish when the lights go out.

I remember when I was burning to win a state title—I wanted it so badly. And when we did win, I looked around to make sure my faith, my family, and my friends were still beside me. Thankfully, they were. But that wasn't a PINNACLE event, in fact as time goes on, I'm not sure if it even is a milestone. I have championship rings gathering dust in a case on my desk downstairs, but the achievements don''t necessarily signify success. The old memories are special between the people who did it together - but no one else- not much more value than trivia.

But I’ve been asking myself lately: where’s the fire now? And what is it burning for?

The sobering truth is, the more we chase things like pleasure, fortune, power, or fame, the less they satisfy. They're hollow echoes of the real thing. The world hands us trophies for our shelves, but it cannot fill the ache in our soul.

So I ask again: how do we know what I burn for?

Maybe the answer isn’t in what we chase. Maybe it’s in what we keep chasing, even after we’ve been disappointed. Maybe it’s what we go to in our solitude, what we pray about when no one’s listening, what we still ache for when we’re too tired to impress anyone.

And maybe the point of all this—Earnhardt’s story, David’s story, even mine—isn’t to shame the fire in us. It’s to name it. To look at what drives us and ask the harder, braver question:

Is it worth the chase?

Because some fires make you famous. But there is no one in the ashes to love you back.
And some fires make you whole. A refining fire, that leaves healing, healthy relationships, and a more holy journey.

One last side note- not many men "WIN" at the level of those we write stories for. Most men fail.

When you fail in the 'glory story', it creates a lot of negative momentum, shame, and very little esteem. But maybe that is a blessing in disguise.

When you fail chasing God's path, it isn't permanent- it is even kind of expected. The Bible says, Get up and keep walking.... and the march is to a tune of grace.

“Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
—Matthew 16:25