Improving on Perfection (Friday Devotional)

His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

- 2 Peter 1:3

When the iPod first came out, people were amazed by all its features: hundreds of songs in one portable device! ten hours of battery life! all your songs digitally sorted by album, artist, and even genre! There was no doubt, the iPod was a game changer.

But as the novelty wore off, nitpickers found something they didn’t like. The “shuffle” feature, which played songs in a random order, didn’t seem to be working correctly. Too often, songs from the same album would play one after the other, or three songs in a row by the same artist. What was so random about that?

As you might suspect, the iPod’s shuffle algorithm was ensuring the songs were played in a random order—but, just as you can flip a coin and have it come up heads 10 times in a row, so too was the shuffle feature occasionally producing truly random clusters that nevertheless looked suspiciously patterned. The shuffle algorithm was providing perfect randomness—but clearly that wasn’t what people had in mind. So Steve Jobs and Co. wound up bowing to the pressure of their fans, tweaking the algorithm in order to produce results that were less strictly random but seemed more so. As Jobs himself put it, “We're making it less random to make it feel more random.”

As the iPod’s shuffle controversy proves, sometimes even perfection doesn’t satisfy us. One of the least attractive things about our fallen nature is our tendency to pick apart and criticize even the most beautiful things in life, from the sunrise obscured slightly by clouds to the solo with one missed note. Instead of appreciating what we’re given, we can’t seem to help looking for the flaws.

Amazingly, this goes even for how we regard the almighty, gracious, forgiving God of our salvation. When we are tempted, we wonder why He doesn’t intervene; when we stumble, we question whether He cares. Even when we thrive, it can feel emptier than we expected, leaving us to wonder why God didn’t make discipleship just a little bit easier.

When you find yourself nitpicking God’s presence in your life, the words of 2 Peter 1:3 are useful to remember: “His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” In other words, in Christ we have been given everything we need and far more than we deserve. His Word and his Spirit, to say nothing of his grace, are more than enough to get us through any circumstance.

There will undoubtedly be times when it feels like God’s perfect will doesn’t cut it—when His grace doesn’t feel gracious enough, when His power doesn’t feel powerful enough, when His love doesn’t feel loving enough. In those times, pray for the discernment to tell the difference between the appearance of perfection and the reality of it. God has given you what you need to do His perfect will—now it’s up to you to stop looking for the imperfections and get to work.

February Reading Log

February was a short month, but I made time for plenty of reading: sermons, kids' comics, and postmodernism. Take a look!

3 Articles I Like This Month

"The Will of God" by John Spong, Texas Monthly. 25 minutes.

A tribute to writer John Spong's father Will, an Austin-area Episcopal priest, professor, and grief counselor. A beautiful reflection on pastoring, loss, grief, fathers, and sons. I read the last paragraph through tears.

"Everywhere and Nowhere: A Journey Through Suicide" by Donald Atrim, The New Yorker. 35 minutes.

A gripping and haunting account of mental illness and depression, told from the perspective of someone who was on the verge of suicide numerous times.

"How Cities Make Money By Fining the Poor" by Matthew Shaer, The New York Times. 25 minutes.

In 48 of the 50 states (including Texas), one of the ways city governments keep taxes low, revenues high, and the streets "clean" is through civil and criminal court fees, which results in poor defendants being jailed for inability to pay those fees. In other words, in 2019 in the United States of America, debtors prisons still exist. A fascinating, discouraging article on an issue that the Texas Legislature is looking at this session.

THE CHERRY LOG SERMONS by Fred Craddock

Fred Craddock was the Joe DiMaggio of preaching. I say that not so much because he excelled at what he did, but because he made it look effortless. I've tried preaching in his inductive style several times. Trust me—it's incredibly hard.

The first time you heard a Craddock sermon, you would wonder midway through, "Is this going somewhere? He just telling stories." And that was certainly how it appeared. Weaving between observational humor, anecdotes from everyday life, legends he'd read somewhere, and, of course, the biblical text at hand, he'd bounce not between points, but stories. There was usually a moment where you wondered what this was all about. And without fail, that was the moment when it would all come together in his conclusion, when every story would suddenly coalesce into the Big Idea of the message. And then, with a thunderous whisper, he'd leave you with the last line of his sermon, a line that would leave you begging for more even as you realized he'd given you all you needed.

So yeah, I'm a fan of Fred Craddock. But I've learned not to try and imitate him, because his was a homiletical style honed over decades of preaching and teaching, and it looks a lot easier than it is. So in reading The Cherry Log Sermons, a collection of twenty of his messages, I read purely as a devotional exercise rather than an instructional one. The sermons cover the Old Testament and the New, but (like most preachers) Craddock had a soft spot for the gospels.

There's nothing I can say that will do Craddock's sermons justice. Just pull up a comfortable chair and enjoy the stories—and prepare your heart for the moment they suddenly go from entertainment to edification.

IMAGE AND WORD: REFLECTIONS ON THE STAINED GLASS IN THE PAUL W. POWELL CHAPEL, edited by Todd D. Still and W. Dennis Tucker, Jr.

The chapel at Truett Seminary is one of the most beautiful spaces on the Baylor campus, largely due to the beautiful stained glass windows on the east-facing wall. These seven windows, accompanied by a smaller round window on the back wall and the large stained glass depiction of Christ above the pipe organ, are admirable works of art even if you just glance at them, but a closer look—which I've been known to take during a boring lecture—reveals that each of the windows carries a theme. From service to preaching to counseling, each window calls upon a story from both the Old and New Testaments to illustrate the theme.

So in 2008, nine of Truett's professors preached from the stories on those stained glass windows, reflecting upon the themes they are meant to call to mind. The result is a series of insightful messages, as well as a reminder that, when constructed intentionally, a worship space can help contribute to your theology and your worship; a sanctuary can be more than just a room.

The sermons vary in tone and style (you can tell which professors preach regularly and which devote their energies to research), but all are worth reading. If you only pick one though, go with Hulitt Gloer's message entitled "________," a phenomenal message on what preaching is, why it matters, and who does it. Note: The book is out of print now, but you can find a copy for free on the third floor of the seminary. I'll snag you a copy if you ask nicely ;)

BREAD OF ANGELS  by Barbara Brown Taylor

After starting the month with a collection of Fred Craddock sermons, moving on to a collection of Barbara Brown Taylor sermons was a natural progression. Taylor's style is similar to Craddock's, heavy on the stories and light on the three-point deductive style of many preachers (including me.) Bread of Angels contains 29 different sermons, all short (4-6 pages each) and all valuable.

One of my favorite things about Taylor is her ability to get you to read a biblical text in a way you'd never thought about it before. For example, in talking about Peter's aborted attempt to walk on water toward Jesus, which is typically portrayed as a failure of faith, Taylor looks at it differently. She points out that Peter, before stepping on the water, called out to Jesus, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." As she describes it, Peter was doubting from the get-go—while the other disciples were continuing to fight the wind to row toward Jesus, Peter wanted an exception made for him, to be a spiritual superhero for a moment. So the message then shifts from Peter's incredible but limited faith to one about the disciples' slow and steady faith.

Like with Craddock, I can't adequately describe or praise Taylor's preaching. You'll just have to read for yourself. You'll be glad you did.

THE SAYINGS OF THE DESERT FATHERS

In the fourth century, Christianity experienced a phenomenon of asceticism, with devout Christians following the example of biblical figures like Elijah and John the Baptist (and, for forty days, Christ himself) by retreating the desert for fasting and prayer. While most Christians did not follow this way of life, those who did were held in high regard and have since come to be known as "the desert fathers." This volume collects the proverbs which were passed on to the church, first orally and eventually textually.

It's not an easy read, and in my opinion not an especially profitable one either. The desert fathers, like other monastic communities, prized holiness and humility as crucial spiritual virtues, to the point of isolating themselves from society. Based on their sayings, however, this sometimes became asceticism for asceticism's sake, fasting and isolation for the sake of punishing yourself instead done to grow closer to God.

The desert fathers have faded into semi-obscurity due to the paucity of their writings and the rise of other monastic orders, especially within the Roman Catholic Church. While the monks of the desert certainly stand as examples of humility and self-sacrifice to this day, their writings indicate to me that we have more to learn from the Franciscan and Benedictine monks than from their Eastern forebears.

UNDERWORLD by Don DeLillo

Postmodernist novels arrive at truth in a nontraditional way—rather than telling a single story, it tells several at once, with those stories often only loosely relating to one another. It is only as you reach the end of the novel that you are able to see how all these strands form a web, not of plot, but of a theme. When done well (e.g. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace) this makes for a challenging reading experience, but one that feels refreshingly like life: multifaceted, complicated, and unable to be tied neatly with a bow. In lesser hands, postmodernist novels become unwieldy beasts which, even after you start to "get it", feel directionless and burdensome. Underworld, often regarded as Don DeLillo's opus and a hallmark of postmodernist fiction, fell into that latter category for me.

Underworld, published in 1997 to critical acclaim, is ostensibly a novel about fear, waste, and uncertainty in the post-Cold War world. Spanning decades, from 1951 to the turn of the 20th century, it tells the stories of a bomb maker, an artist, a teacher, a nun, and others, with cameos from real-life figures of the time, from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to Frank Sinatra to comedian Lenny Bruce. The event which loosely connects all these figures is Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World," the home run he hit off pitcher Ralph Branca that won the pennant for the New York Giants—hit on the exact same day that the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb, the home run ball comes to serve as a symbol of security and exceptionalism throughout the book as it passes through the hands of the characters.

If you're like me, that all sounds pretty interesting. And, to be clear, DeLillo is an excellent writer—for example, the book's prologue, which narrates Thomson's homer through the eyes of various attendees to the game, is a masterclass in storytelling. But over the course of the book's 800+ pages, it's hard to find something to hold onto as you read. The plots don't connect in any sort of especially satisfying way and, more importantly, the characters are not especially compelling. In other reviews I've seen DeLillo accused of having a sterile writing style, and I tend to agree as it regards the portrayal of his characters—the writing is good, but there's just not a lot of blood going to the heart.

I spent most of the month plowing through Underworld, and the truth is that by the end I was compelled more by stubbornness than satisfaction. If postmodernism is your thing (I'm becoming convinced that, when it comes to novels, it's not mine), this is the K2 to Infinite Jest's Everest—just as difficult to climb, with a lesser payoff.

ESSENTIAL RAWHIDE KID by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Dick Ayers, et al.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was more to comics than superheroes—much more, in fact. While Superman and Batman were still selling pretty reliably for DC Comics, the medium contained a cornucopia of genres, from war stories to monster tales to romances. But, mimicking Hollywood, nothing was as popular as westerns.

Marvel's most popular western magazine was Rawhide Kid, of which nineteen issues are collected in this Essential volume. A typical issue contained four stories: two ten-page tales featuring the titular character, one five page short story that often featured a legend of the Old West, and a two page prose story...and all for 12 cents!

The Rawhide Kid himself was a prototypical gunslinger character, a strong and silent type with preposterously good aim—aim so good, in fact, that his bullets suspiciously always seem to hit opponents in the hand or shoulder, ensuring his duels never turn fatal. Turned into an outlaw due to a misunderstanding, the Kid roamed from town to town, righting wrongs in the vein of the Lone Ranger and wooing lovely ladies just in time to leave town (for their own good, of course.)

It all makes for good clean fun, albeit repetitive stories—Stan Lee has admitted that he found writing these stories tedious, and it shows; if you've read five issues of Rawhide Kid, you've basically read them all. I enjoyed these stories more than I expected to, but wouldn't have minded if the volume was half as long either. A nice change of pace from the usual superhero fare, and a chance to see Stan Lee and Jack Kirby collaborating outside their more famous work for Marvel.

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUPERMAN VOL. 2

There was a time when comics were for kids. Not adults looking for a hit of nostalgia, not teenagers wanting cheap entertainment, but honest-to-goodness children. Prices reflected the audience, with comics available for a dime apiece, and so did the stories. In such an environment, DC Comics thrived, and their unquestioned star was the Big Blue Boy Scout, Superman.

Showcase Presents: Superman Vol. 2 is my second foray into this period for comics's greatest character, and what I found was more of the same silly, charming, wackiness that was present in the first book. Once again, Lois Lane is Clark Kent's suspicious, sometimes-shrewish love interest, eager to trick Superman into marrying her with schemes straight out of I Love Lucy. Once again, Superman's rogues gallery is made up of would-be world conquerors from Luthor to Brainiac to Bizarro, nearly all of whom are conquered not by his strength but by his wits. And once again, none of it should be taken with more than a grain of salt—even in the realm of comic books, some of the tales within are "imaginary stories."

Red Kryptonite, Bizarro World, the bottle city of Kandor—it all makes for easy, delightful reading, the kind of stories you can put in a six-year old's hands, precisely because that's who they were written for. I wouldn't wish for comics go back to this as the default for its major characters, but I wouldn't mind seeing them takes themselves a little less seriously—if Mr. Mxyptlk, an impish prankster from the 5th dimension, was as frequent a villain as Luthor in the 1960s, maybe comics could stand some silliness today.

Grab a Bat (Friday Devotional)

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

- Matthew 5:48

Norm Cash did a lot in his 17 years playing Major League Baseball. He hit 377 home runs, an average of nearly 30 per season. He won the American League batting title in 1961. He received MVP votes in six different seasons, and was a five-time All-Star. Perhaps most meaningfully to him, he was the starting first baseman when his Detroit Tigers won the World Series in 1968.

But for all those achievements, Cash is best remembered today for one at-bat in 1973. On July 15 that season, his Tigers went up against Nolan Ryan and the California Angels, and Ryan was simply unhittable. Having already thrown his first career no-hitter earlier that season, Ryan cruised to his second that day with an even more dominating performance, striking out 17 batters (with 16 of those coming in the first seven innings, before his arm started to finally tire). All of Ryan’s trademarks—a fastball that touched 100 mph, a willingness to throw inside to hitters crowding the plate—were on display that day in a performance that left the Tigers shaking their head in disbelief.

Cash, 38 years and old and in his penultimate season as a big leaguer, was no exception, and he proved it in the 6^th inning. As Cash stepped to the plate, umpire Ron Luciano pulled off his mask to make sure he was seeing correctly. He was—Cash had come to the plate armed not with a Louisville Slugger, but a table leg. Chuckling, Luciano told Cash he’d have to go get a real bat. Cash famously replied, “Why? I’m not going to hit him anyway.”

When you read the words of Jesus from Matthew 5:48—"Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”—it’s easy to feel like Norm Cash, completely outmatched. Jesus’s command comes in the middle of his Sermon on the Mount, immediately after a call to love your enemies and right before a reminder to give, fast, and pray secretly and to value God more than possessions. One teaching after another about life in the kingdom of God makes that life seem all the more unattainable, as impossible as hitting a Nolan Ryan fastball.

And yet, like the umpire on that day in 1973, God calls His children to grab a bat and step up to the plate anyway. As guilty and flawed as we are, as impossible as godliness is on our own, God tells us to try. Instead of walking through life resigned to spiritual and moral failure, instead of compromising His standards—instead of figuratively stepping to the plate with a table leg—God calls us to be citizens of the kingdom right now. Hear the words of Jesus and act on them today. Seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness today.

Is perfection possible? Well, no. All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory; none is righteous but Christ. But being a disciple of Jesus means that, instead of giving up on holiness altogether, you trust him to do what you cannot and you serve as best you can. Godliness is not an attainable goal, but it is an aspiration worth pursuing in Jesus’s name and by his grace. A weary, wicked world needs Christians willing to humbly try the impossible—so grab a bat.

Reading Vertically (Friday Devotional)

You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

- Isaiah 26:3

If you’re reading these words online—which, unless you printed off a copy yourself, you are—then chances are you’re not reading it that carefully. You’re skimming, your eyes racing over the words as quickly as possible so that you can take in the information and then move on to your next task.

Don’t worry, I don’t take it personally—that’s how we read everything nowadays. After years of ubiquitous e-mails, online articles, blog posts, tweets, gifs, and Facebook posts, our brains have been rewired to adjust to the onslaught of words and images put in front of them every day. This deluge combined with the constant distractions of modern life—the chirp of a new text message, the ding of another e-mail, the pop-up informing you of a Facebook notification—have taught our brains that anything worth reading must be read quickly.

Essayist and literary critic Sven Birkerts calls this “horizontal reading,” where your eyes skim along the surface of the words just long enough to receive the necessary information. This kind of reading has always existed, but it was once mostly limited to things like recipes or receipts. Now we read most everything horizontally, and “vertical reading”—where you are reading slowly enough to let the words soak in, where you are so deeply involved in what you’re reading that you lose track of time—requires legitimate effort.

This move from vertical to horizontal, from diving deep to skimming the surface, has an impact on you spiritually too. When you’re used to reading stories just long enough to grasp the plot, it’s tough for the messages of Scripture to penetrate your soul. When you’re used to “multitasking”, i.e. being distracted at all times, focused prayer can feel nearly impossible.

The truth is, growing closer to God is something that takes time, energy, and focus. Spiritual maturity is not something that happens via a 30 second prayer while you brush your teeth or by skimming a devotional while you wait in line at the grocery store. Knowing God better comes by giving Him what we struggle to give anyone or anything: undivided attention.

So as you close this devotional and move on to the next e-mail, or check Facebook, or open up a YouTube video, let me invite you first to find a window of time today when you can set aside all distractions and listen to what God has to tell you. When your eyes are fixed on Him, when you read His Word vertically instead of horizontally, you may be surprised how much you really learn.

Tilting (Friday Devotional)

“Thus says the Lord: Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

- Jeremiah 17:5-8

If you’ve ever played pinball, you’ve experienced it. The lights are flashing, the music is playing, the ball is hitting every target, and your high score is just around the corner. Then in your enthusiasm, you bump the machine ever so slightly and it all comes screeching to a halt. The lights go dark, the music stops, and, most significantly, the buttons you’d been mashing so effectively only a moment ago are rendered useless as the dreaded four letter message flashes across the screen in front of you: TILT. Game over.

Life has a way of “tilting” on you. You’ll have spells where it seems like everything is going your way—you’re excelling at work, your family is healthy, your finances are secure, and the future’s never looked brighter. Then all of a sudden, something unexpected hits—a natural disaster, a severe diagnosis, a layoff, a betrayal—and that bad news sends you tumbling down a well of grief and despair. All the good that came before is suddenly forgotten and inconsequential.

When your life is built upon your own dreams and achievements, the things you’ve built and accumulated, you are just waiting for the tilt, because few of us are strong enough to withstand the harshest blows life can throw at us. So Scripture encourages you to place your faith in the Lord whose power is matchless, whose wisdom is immeasurable, and whose love never ends. Life is unstable and prone to tilts, but God is steadfast.

You can never predict when you’ll be set back on your heels, which event will push you further than you’ve ever been pushed. But when the Lord is your foundation, you have the assurance that nothing can tilt you beyond the point of redemption. Even if you lose a round or two, life with God means you never have to worry about game over.

Filling Your Faith (Friday Devotional)

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

- Ephesians 2:10

A trip to Freebirds World Burrito is always an exercise in decision making for me. The first few decisions come easy: which size burrito to get, which kind of tortilla, which meat. Those choices are easy, and my decision almost never changes. Same goes for the beans, rice, cheese, and salsa—decisions must be made, but they’re not exactly challenging.

But then I get to the crucible of any Freebirds order—what add-ons am I willing to pay for? Their queso is delicious—but it also adds $1.40 to my order. Same goes for the guacamole or sliced avocado. If I’m especially hungry and want some extra meat, that’ll cost me another $2.00. Even extra cheese comes with a price tag of $1.40. If you’re not careful, an eight dollar burrito can suddenly cost twice that—it all depends on whether you want to include the add-ons.

When it comes to your walk with Christ, there are certain beliefs you understand to be essential, doctrines which you cannot reject and rightly call yourself an orthodox Christian. You must believe that Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins, you must believe he rose from the grave, and you must believe that placing your faith in him assures you of eternal life with God. These are all things that every Christian, from Roman Catholics to Egyptian Copts to Texas Baptists, would affirm—whatever our other differences, these are fundamental articles of faith. If Christianity were a burrito, these would be the tortilla—you need them just to get started.

Beyond those foundational beliefs, there’s a whole menu of items to choose from as you examine what it means to be a Christian. These questions, as major as the nature of Christ and as particular as how to properly baptize someone, have split the church for centuries. Sorting through all these different doctrines and deciding what you believe God wants is a crucial part of maturing in faith. If Christianity were a burrito, these beliefs would be the meat, rice, and other fillings—they fill out your faith, and you have an abundance of options.

Once you know what you believe, you come to one last step: what you do. How are you going to put your faith into action? Are your beliefs going to change the way you live? Unfortunately, there is a tendency to think of this last step like the add-ons to a Freebirds burrito—as something costly and ultimately unnecessary. After all, as long as I believe the right things, isn’t that enough?

Ephesians 2:10 reminds us that God calls His children to more than just belief. Those who belong to Christ are created in him for good works, and God intends for faithful generosity to be our way of life. Serving others, caring for the needy, bearing witness to the grace of God—these are not optional parts of your walk with Christ, they are the direct result of a relationship with him.

Life in Christ means believing the right things, but we must never forget that it also means doing the right things. As you reflect on your own walk with Christ, may good works not be treated like add-ons—may loving others be an essential part of your order.

Comfort Objects (Friday Devotional)

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

- 1 Corinthians 13:8-13

At some point around their first birthday, almost every toddler starts toting around an object of their choosing—usually a stuffed animal or a blanket—from which they refuse to be parted. Their “comfort object” goes with them in the car, in the crib, and everywhere in between, and woe unto the parent who tries to sneak it into the washing machine when their child isn’t looking. My comfort object was an old pillowcase that I labeled “my number one pillow”; Andrew’s is a lovey that looks like a sheep which we call “Sheepy” (we might have been more creative if we’d known he’d get so attached.)

When children start toting their comfort object around, sometimes it concerns first-time parents. ‘It can’t be hygienic’, mom worries, with visions of future doctor’s visits looming in her mind. ‘And will he ever put it down?’, dad wonders. ‘I don’t want my son bringing a teddy bear to his first job interview!’ The good news is that these toys are a natural part of early childhood development, a transition from infanthood’s total reliance on mom to some measure of independence. Eventually, they grow out of their comfort object and learn how to cope without it.

Maybe it was these kinds of things Paul had in mind when spoke about the “childish ways” that he left behind upon becoming an adult. The church in Corinth was, in Paul’s eyes, overvaluing their spiritual gifts, and Paul sought to remind them that those gifts, while important, were not eternal. Just as their childhood toys were indicative of an early stage of their development, Paul says that spiritual gifts are something that will pass away when Christ returns and God’s kingdom comes. What never ends, however, what abides even when everything else changes, are faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Like a parent or a Corinthian Christian, we still have a tendency to overconcern ourselves with things that are ultimately transitory, while undervaluing those things which are eternal. We’ll browse social media for 45 minutes at a time and wonder where the time went, but lose focus after 2 minutes in prayer. We’ll gladly dole out hundreds of dollars for the newest phone, but resent when the church asks for a special missions offering beyond out normal tithe. We’ll work 80 hours a week when the job calls for it, but get impatient when our child asks to read with us for five more minutes.

In a world that’s always changing, God calls us remember what endures and to build our lives around those eternal values instead of on a worldly narrative that’s long on style and short on substance. So few of the things we consume ourselves with, our grownup comfort objects, will matter when the kingdom comes—perhaps the time has come to start focusing on that which abides forever.