The Keener Way

  Credit to Kyle Tennant, formerly the pastor at Regeneration Church in Cortland, Ohio, for originating this message. Most of it is his work, but with some of my own observations mixed in wherever I use some form of I/my/I've/mine/etc. * A talk show host named Garrison Keillor once remarked of Christians, “They really believe in prayer, but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.” Relatable, right? We don’t talk about Bruno. Ever heard the song from Disney's Encanto ? The song is about this family that talks about everything, except a person named Bruno, who mysteriously disappeared. His disappearance is taboo. We don’t talk about Bruno, we don’t go looking for Bruno, but it’s perfectly fine to sing about not talking about Bruno. Because reasons. The movie has been out long enough I shouldn't need to care about spoiler alerts. So the short of it is, Bruno never actually left the house. How does this relate to prayer? Because sometimes we have a tendency t...

  I read an article a couple weeks ago. "7 Strange Questions to Help You Find Your Life Purpose". Quite fascinating, really. And they are questions I think not a lot of people think about much. I certainly didn't. But I've been mulling over them ever since. And tonight, I had a particular epiphany. See, one of the questions was "What is something about you today that would make your eight-year-old self cry?" The idea being, what is something you were passionate about when you were a child and believed you could do anything, but that dream got choked out by adulthood. Tough question. My younger self had more ambitions than could fit in a lifetime. Also he was a selfish prick. But how weird that it specifically asked EIGHT. I remember little of being eight, but there were some big things that happened. When I was eight, my first grandparent died. When I was eight, my youngest brother was born. And what I want to talk about right now is that when I was eight, m...

What do you think of when you think of a tree planted by rivers of water? Specifically in the context of Psalm 1? I always thought of it as big, strong, sturdy, unyielding to the wind and rain, with deep roots and a thick trunk, impervious, unmovable, solid. And I saw my own life as anything but that. August 2022 to August 2023 probably qualifies so far as the most uncertain, unstable consecutive twelve months of my life. A whole lot happened, enough that it felt like twelve years. I watched so many doors close on me. Doors to a couple different relationships. Doors to several different job opportunities. That twelve month period saw me move out of my parents' home in Maryland to take a job in Ohio. And then leave that job a mere four months later and move back home. That twelve month period saw my reputation challenged and scarred. That twelve month period saw me trying to make multiple decisions. And I wavered back and forth on those decisions like chaff blown around in the wind....

Before the second week of August, 2023, no one had ever really asked me about my testimony. And being a mildly trauma-scarred extreme introvert, I never really thought to offer it. After all, what do I have to offer? I wasn’t a drug addict who suddenly went cold-turkey from all my meds cuz I found Jesus. I wasn’t some criminal who stumbled onto the gospel while serving jail time. Why would anybody want to hear my story? But that second week of August 2023, I got asked. Twice. Then a third time. By good friends that I trusted and respected. And if they asked me, they clearly wanted my answer. So, my quest began. A big, long, barely coherent ramble of my whole life. Most of it relevant to the story, but a good testimony shouldn’t ramble that badly. Having had that experience, I decided to write it out a bit more concise. Doesn’t mean it will be short, because the thing is, Yahweh has been showing me how so many little trivial things in life all connect, how one thing leads to the next. I...

  This is gonna be fairly short. More like a tiny snippet of a devotional than an article. But though small, its a powerful message. Mankind has always tried controlling the world around them. From Abraham sleeping with his wife's servant girl, to David killing Uriah, to Peter cutting off the ear of the high priest's servant. We like trying to play God. And I've fallen prey to this myself. Sometimes its subtle. You just get so caught up in trying to follow God's plan that you start doing things without consulting him. And you end up making a bigger problem. I know that experience all too well. But what Abba has been reminding me lately is that he is God, I am not. I'm just his child. I just need to follow his lead. And this morning, my mom mentioned that while getting ready for church, she felt like God whispered to her, "You do you, let me do me." What the particular context is, I don't know. Maybe she needed to hear that for a situation in her life. ...

I had another word from God today. But I should probably explain a few things first, for the sake of context. For the past month and a half, I've been wrestling with a very challenging decision I have to make regarding a trip that I may or may not take. I had already made the decision, but in the aftermath of making a number of errors and misjudgments in a separate situation, there were those who felt I should re-evaluate my choice and not take the trip. The situation where I erred, those errors have since been corrected, and I stand wiser for having the experience. Nevertheless, this decision still had yet to be re-decided. Meanwhile, half a month ago, I had a birthday. And on this birthday, I took up a new hobby, stand up paddle-boarding. So. I was in the agony of feeling like I knew what the right decision was, but feeling like I lacked the logical grounds to back it up. And I felt like I needed more logical grounds to back it up, because even though I've given this decision...

  Scrolling Facebook for hours is not mentally healthy by any stretch of the imagination. I try to do it very little. But every once in a while, some worthy tidbit of wisdom comes through my feed. And today, this is what I saw: "Paradoxically, it is friendship that often offers us the real route to the pleasures that Romanticism associates with love. That this sounds surprising is only a reflection of how underdeveloped our day-to-day vision of friendship has become. We associate it with a casual acquaintance we see only once in a while to exchange inconsequential and shallow banter. But real friendship is something altogether more profound and worthy of exultation. It is an arena in which two people can get a sense of each other’s vulnerabilities, appreciate each other’s follies without recrimination, reassure each other as to their value, and greet the sorrows and tragedies of existence with wit and warmth. Culturally and collectively, we have made a momentous mistake...