Have you ever crawled into bed exhausted, reached for your phone “just for a minute,” and that minute turns into an hour?Last night it was 10:30 p.m. for me. I’d been scrolling Instagram after a long ...  Read More

When I got home yesterday, Jennifer wanted to sit and catch up.“Give me 15 minutes. I need to send two emails and answer some texts. I’ll rest after everyone goes to bed.”Somehow, I’d convinced myself...  Read More

I looked up at the end of last week and realized I hadn't just worked hard, I'd slowly run my soul dry. I took Friday off to just…be.That rhythm isn’t new to me. I get into a groove where I run hard a...  Read More

My life often seems ruled by the tyranny of the urgent and the demands of the monotonous. It’s a cyclic trap we usually don’t realize we’re in, because it feels like “normal,” and normal rarely sets o...  Read More

There’s a particular kind of hurt that isn’t just discouraging; it invades your internal dialogue. It hurts so much that it shakes up your identity. It whispers conclusions while you’re still gasping ...  Read More

Have you ever had a week where nothing “bad” happened… and yet you still felt spiritually drained?Bilbo Baggins described it better than I can: “I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped ove...  Read More

Last night, I lay in bed with my mind doing what it does best when the lights go out…rehearsing.Rehearsing all the failures, all the insufficiencies, all the what ifs, and I should ofs. Failure as a f...  Read More

Type your new text here. There are pains you don’t “get over.” You just learn how to carry them…sometimes poorly, sometimes by sheer grace.In my 20’s, my daughter died. In my 50’s, my son did. And I c...  Read More

When Leaders Fall: What Do We Do With Their Works?A friend pulled me aside at church last week, her face etched with confusion and hurt. A Christian leader she had admired for years…someone whose teac...  Read More

There's a moment that happens almost every Sunday morning at New City that most people miss. It's when Jeniene refills the coffee urn before it's empty, when Gary notices someone standing alone and wa...  Read More

Most of us don’t stand on a literal mountain with a literal knife, but we do live in the tension between what God has promised and what He’s currently asking of us....  Read More

Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, "To love to preach is one thing, to love those to whom we preach quite another."Oof. I saw that quote this morning, and it immediately struck my heart. It reminded me to ...  Read More