I went to see The Odyssey expecting to watch The Odyssey. That might have been my first mistake. I knew Christopher Nolan wasn’t going to put Homer on the screen word for word. That’s not how movies work. I get that and I am fine with that, but somewhere during the movie I realized I wasn’t simply watching Homer’s story. I was watching Christopher Nolan have a conversation with Homer’s story.
And apparently, I’m the annoying guy sitting a few rows back wanting to raise my hand and say, “I’m sorry, but Homer didn’t say that.” Maybe it’s my age. I’m 51. I’ve lived in Austin long enough to watch this city grow into the global city it is today, and I’ve lived long enough to recognize some of the cultural conversations happening around me.
Modern Values, Ancient Texts
When Penelope talks about how men keep talking about an empty throne when she has essentially been ruling for twenty years, I don’t just hear Penelope. I hear 2026 moral values being pushed into a movie.
In that moment, the screenwriter is using a contemporary conversation about women, power and recognition placed into the mouth of an ancient character. The same thing happens with Odysseus and the Trojan Horse. Homer certainly presents Odysseus as emotionally affected by the Trojan War. But his cunning isn’t something he’s ashamed of in the original story. It’s part of what makes Odysseus a heroic story we still talk about today.
Nolan gives us something different in 2026. His Odysseus carries the Horse more like a moral burden he must overcome, which is interesting but not exactly Homer. It’s fine if Nolan wants to create a movie that addresses cultural conversations of 2026, but it feels manipulative to attach those values to an ancient story.
My Moral Dilemma
When I’m reading an old book, listening to someone explain the Bible, or hearing someone describe an historical event, my first question is usually something like, “But what did they mean originally?” I want to understand someone within their own categories before importing mine. Apparently, I want filmmakers to do that too. As you can imagine, my wife loves watching movies with me.
In the End
For me, I love stories that allow me to discover what they’re saying. I like realizing ten minutes later, “Oh. That’s what that meant.” But when a character in an ancient story suddenly starts articulating an idea that sounds remarkably similar to a conversation we’re having on social media in Austin right now, I stop seeing Penelope. I get taken out of the moment and the magic of movies is broken!
And maybe that’s the distinction I’ve been missing. My frustration isn’t simply that The Odyssey changed things from Homer. Every adaptation changes things. It’s that Nolan has made a revisionist adaptation of a classical epic.
He doesn’t merely ask, “How can I put Homer’s story on a movie screen?” Instead there are moments he’s asking, “What if we reconsider what Homer thought was heroic?” It’s like, “C’mon Nolan, go make up your own story instead of ripping off Homer.”
I live in Austin, TX and Austin has slowly become the wedding capital of Texas over the years. It might be vineyard in the hill country, a room at the Westin downtown or a bachelorette party at the Domain on a Saturday, but it is pretty common to see wedding events in Austin.
Over the years, I have noticed an increasing pattern of either young man avoiding marriage or feeling overly responsible for loving their wife in marriage. After all, is it possible to love your wife too much?
I am sure it is a version of marriage that sounds beautiful until you realize no human being could possibly pull it off. A husband loves his wife. He sacrifices for her by noticing what she needs. If she wants to talk about her day, he makes himself available to talk about her day. Or, if her car breaks down at 10pm, he gets out of bed and goes to get her. It’s called marriage!
But somewhere along the way, I think we’ve taken that beautiful picture of sacrificial love and added another expectation: a good husband makes his wife happy. But, those aren’t the same thing. And I wonder if the distinction matters more than we realize, particularly for young men trying to imagine marriage.
Marriage Is Going to Cost You
There is no version of a healthy marriage that doesn’t involve sacrifice. The Apostle Paul tells husbands to “love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” That’s an incredibly high calling.
Sometimes loving your wife means getting out of bed when you’re tired. And, sometimes it means listening when you’d rather solve the problem. And presumably the wife is learning to love sacrificially too.
The problem comes when sacrificial love quietly becomes responsibility for someone else’s happiness. Those are very different assignments. Imagine a husband and wife disagree about a major financial decision. She wants to buy the house. He doesn’t think they can afford it. He listens to her and takes the conversation serious, but when he looks at the numbers he isn’t comfortable moving forward. This isn’t being dismissive or controlling. This is being involved in a marriage and there is a possibility the wife will be disappointed.
What Does A Husband Do with That?
I think a lot of men have absorbed the idea that her disappointment means something has gone wrong. But there is another possibility. It’s the possibility that a husband can love his wife faithfully and at the same time she can still be disappointed.
A spouse being disappointed isn’t necessarily evidence of failure. The same is obviously true in reverse. That’s what happens when two actual human beings get married. This isn’t an argument for indifference. It’s an argument for realistic expectations that can go the distance to “Till Death Do Us Part?”
Marriage means your spouse’s happiness matters deeply to you. But caring about someone’s happiness and being responsible for someone’s happiness aren’t the same thing. One produces compassion. The other can produce anxiety. If I believe my job is to make my wife happy, then every negative emotion becomes a referendum on my performance.
Young Men Feel This More Than We Realize
I wonder whether this is one small part of why marriage can seem intimidating to some young men. Listen to everything we tell a young man a good husband should be; provide, protect, lead, sacrifice, communicate, emotionally mature, supportive, helpful, engaged, romantic, faithful, growing as a person and remembering every calendar event.
Again, almost everything on that list is good. But now add, “And make sure she’s happy at all times.” It’s an impossible assignment, because eventually she won’t be happy. She’s human! There will be seasons when she’s discouraged. And, at some point in the marriage, there will be things she wants that they can’t afford. The husband might try to solve some of those problems, but eventually there will be problems he can’t solve. That’s true in every meaningful relationship.
The Goal in Marriage Isn’t Happiness. It’s Faithfulness.
There’s an equally important message here for women. Your husband cannot carry the responsibility for your emotional well-being, and you cannot carry his. Marriage isn’t two people constantly monitoring each other’s happiness and adjusting themselves accordingly. It’s two people learning to love each other faithfully.
Sometimes that produces incredible happiness, and sometimes it means getting up in the middle of the night because the other person needs you. But, the question in that moment isn’t necessarily: “How do I make this feeling go away?”
Instead, the better question is: “What does faithfulness look like right now?” That’s a much more sustainable vision of marriage. My wife and I have been married 27-years, and I am increasingly convinced the desire for my wife to be happy has to sit underneath something more important than me.
But here in 78757, the news hits a little closer to home. Burnet Middle School received an F rating for the fifth consecutive year. Webb Middle School received the same rating. Under Texas law, those results trigger state intervention that could ultimately include closing the campuses or replacing Austin ISD’s elected board with a state-appointed board of managers.
For those of us who live, work, worship and raise families in north central Austin, it would be easy to see this as simply an Austin ISD problem. But Burnet Middle School isn’t somewhere else. It’s right across the street from where we meet as a church family.
The students walking into Burnet Middle School are part of the same community we call home. And I think it’s possible to care deeply about those students while also asking difficult questions about how we got here, because caring doesn’t mean ignoring responsibility.
RAISING CHILDREN IN AISD
Our family spent more than a decade in Austin ISD. Over those years, we watched families leave for charter schools, private schools and other educational options. At different points, when I had the opportunity, I shared with administrators some of what I was hearing from parents and students about why they were leaving.
I didn’t always get the sense that those concerns were taken seriously. Obviously, the challenges facing Austin ISD are more complicated than any one explanation. Austin is changing. There are fewer school-age children in some parts of the city. School funding is complicated. The pandemic accelerated enrollment losses. Charter and private schools have created additional competition.
But at some point, leadership also has to ask why families who once chose AISD stopped choosing it. AISD now serves just over 69,000 students, more than 14,000 fewer than it did a decade ago. That’s not something we should celebrate. And it shouldn’t simply become another opportunity for people on different sides of the education debate to say, “See, I told you so.”
ACCOUNTABILITY AND COMPASSION
Instead, maybe moments like this require two things that we sometimes have difficulty holding together: accountability and compassion. Accountability asks, “How did we get here?” Compassion asks, “What do we do now?” We need both. An F tells us something important about academic performance. It doesn’t tell us everything about the people inside the building.
There are teachers walking into classrooms every morning trying to help students learn. There are parents trying to figure out how to help their children succeed. There are administrators carrying enormous responsibility.
And there are middle school students trying to navigate all the normal awkwardness of being 12 or 13 years old while also facing significant academic challenges. Those students didn’t make the decisions that brought Austin ISD to this point.
Neither did the teacher standing in front of them on Tuesday morning. So, perhaps the question for those of us living in 78757 isn’t simply: whose fault is this? Maybe there’s another question we can ask as a follower of Jesus? What does faithfulness look like now?
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOR?
Jesus was once asked a fairly straightforward question: “Who is my neighbor?” His response was the story we now call the Good Samaritan. What’s interesting is that Jesus doesn’t spend much time explaining why the man was lying beside the road. He turns our attention toward the people who see him and asks what they’re going to do about it.
Loving our neighbor doesn’t require us to pretend bad decisions don’t have consequences. Compassion doesn’t require us to excuse poor leadership. And accountability doesn’t require us to stop caring about the people affected by it. We can do both. We can expect institutions to listen, learn and change. And we can move toward the people who are struggling right now.
At North Village Church, we’ve been asking a question lately: who are we becoming as a church family? I think moments like this give us an opportunity to answer that question. We want to become people who notice. People willing to ask hard questions without becoming cynical. It’s hard!
There will be plenty of conversations in the coming months about Austin ISD, the Texas Education Agency, school choice, funding and who bears responsibility for what has happened. Those conversations matter. But we don’t have to resolve every one of them before deciding what kind of neighbors we’re going to be in 78757.
WANT TO HELP?
We are in process of seeing how we can be helpful as a church family. It’s not the kind of help that will turn everything around overnight, but it is the kind of help to do something. If you would like to be involved with time or financial donation, email admin@northvillagechurch.com to get involved.
People often ask me which is harder: preaching a sermon or performing stand-up comedy. The answer depends on the week. Both involve standing in front of people with a microphone. Both require preparation. Both involve reading a room. Both involve ideas bring presented to an audience. But they are still both very different. Here’s what preparation looks like for each.
Preparing A Sermon: Start With The Text
When I prepare a sermon, I don’t begin with what I want to say. I begin with what God has already said. I’ll spend hours reading a passage over and over, looking for repeated themes, structure, historical background, theological connections, and how the passage fits into the larger story of Scripture.
Then, I ask, “What’s the main idea of the passage?” This main idea becomes the thread of the sermon that I want to pull throughout the sermon as I go verse by verse through the passage. Now, every story, application, and transition needs to serve the thread of the passage. After I identify the thread to pull throughout the sermon I generally use these 4-parts in every sermon:
What is the hook of the passage? Why should someone listen? What difference does the passage make in our lives practically?
Where is the tension of the passage? Where will people object? Why will they object? When will they push back?
Where is the gospel in the passage? The goal isn’t to leave with a moral code to accomplish. The goal is to see how Jesus rescues us from the weight of the passage so that He is our hope.
How does the passage lift our eyes to a greater vision? It might be the vision of our church family or our personal lives but I want to draw out the vision of the passage?
Preparing Comedy: I Still Start With A Biblical Idea.
My comedy doesn’t start with a passage in God’s Word, but it does start with biblical ideas. They are just packaged differently. In a sermon, the idea is front and center, but in comedy the idea is smuggled in so the audience never sees it. In fact, my main goal is for the audience to feel like they discovered the biblical ideas on their own. I am not sure I am always able to accomplish this goal in comedy, but that is my end goal.
It doesn’t mean my jokes are “Christian jokes.” It means the moment I let the audience know I am a pastor I am shaping the lens by which they hear everything. It means there is a biblical layer running quietly beneath the entire set.
First, I identify a biblical idea like marriage, money, faith, parenting, etc. Then, I look for inconsistencies in those areas in my life or in our culture. What’s bothersome? What’s frustrating? What’s discouraging?
After that, I want to look for the tension, so that I can create tension for the audience on some level, because laughter comes out of tension. Telling the audience at a comedy club that I am a pastor in the first 10 seconds of being on the stage creates tension.
Next, I start writing out those ideas to create a surprise or a turn for the audience. They know the idea. They are a little uncomfortable with the tension. Then you try to release the tension with a surprise. It’s really hard!
Most of the time I can write all I want but at some point I have to get up at an open mic and see how those words land on an audience. I will show up with 3-minutes of ideas and it’s a success if I can leave with 30 seconds of something that might be funny.
That’s one of the humbling parts of comedy. I may spend an hour writing three minutes, only to discover the audience liked one sentence. Then I go back, rewrite, perform it again, and hopefully build something worth keeping.
The Biggest Difference
In a sermon, I deliver one time. In comedy I will deliver an idea 30 times and maybe on the 50th time I start to see the timing that will make it funny. In a sermon, I don’t always know what lands, but in comedy I know immediately. When I preach, my responsibility is faithfulness to the passage. When I do comedy, my responsibility is to connect with the audience. Those are very different scorecards.
The Biggest Similarity
Oddly enough, both require a deep love for people. If I don’t understand what people fear…What they’re hoping for…What they’re frustrated by…What they’re ashamed of…I’ll struggle in both worlds.
Good preaching applies timeless truth to real people. Good comedy exposes real people to timeless truths about themselves. Both begin with careful observation.
Why I Love Doing Both
Well, sometimes I hate both of them. It can be agonizing to work on something over and over, and then not have the satisfaction of those ideas connecting. But, on Sunday mornings I hope people leave seeing Jesus more clearly. In a comedy show, I hope people leave laughing a little harder at life, and maybe the ideas in the comedy will linger a little longer. Because both remind me that people are searching for hope.
Sometimes hope comes through hearing God’s Word. Sometimes it begins with laughing at ourselves. And every once in a while, those two worlds unexpectedly meet. Those are my favorite moments.
Seems like a lot of people in the United States and parts of the world would identify themselves as “Christians.” But when we read throughout Scripture we don’t see Jesus calling us to be Christians. He calls us to be His disciples. At first glance those sound like the same thing. Biblically, they are. Every Christian is a disciple. Every disciple is a Christian. But I don’t find it helpful to tell people I am a Christian. Instead I tend to tell people I am a follower of Jesus.
The word Christian only appears three times in the New Testament. It was originally used by outsiders to identify the followers of Jesus.The word disciple appears over and over again. It was Jesus’ favorite description of those who followed Him. Today, “Christian” can mean almost anything. Someone might say they’re Christian because they grew up in church. Others because they vote a certain way. And, others because they believe in God or try to be a good person. The label has become so broad that it often tells us very little, because a disciple of Jesus carries specific characteristics.
Am I actually following Jesus?
That’s the invitation Jesus gave from the very beginning, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Everything we need to know about discipleship is wrapped up in that invitation, “Follow Me.” A disciple of Jesus is intentionally looking to follow Jesus with the whole of their life; financially, sexually, relationally, emotionally, mentally, physically, It doesn’t mean you are 100% following Jesus in those areas but you are intentionally looking for ways you can grow and get stronger at following Jesus in those areas, so that following Jesus isn’t adding Him to our lives. It’s making Him Lord of our lives.
Then Jesus says something else in that invitation, “And I will make you.” That’s encouraging because discipleship isn’t ultimately about self-improvement. Jesus never says, “Go fix yourself.” He says, “Follow Me, and I will transform you.” Our responsibility isn’t the transformation. Our responsibility is the faithfulness. That’s good news because all of us have areas where we still need to grow. None of us graduate from becoming more like Christ.
Then Jesus finishes off the statement, “Fishers of men.” In other words, disciples don’t stop with themselves. As Jesus changes us, He sends us, so that every disciple has been entrusted with receiving His grace and extending His grace toward others to help them follow Jesus. The only reason there are followers of Jesus today is because someone was following Jesus then! That’s always been the mission.
There’s one other piece we often overlook.
Jesus rarely discipled people one at a time. He called a group of friends. It might start with one, but it will typically involve a group coming together. They learned to follow Jesus together. That matters because we weren’t designed to grow alone. Following Jesus in isolation almost always leads to spiritual stagnation.
We need people who know us well enough to encourage us, challenge us, pray for us, and remind us of the gospel when we forget it ourselves. I experienced this personally in my twenties. I ended up at a university with a church that took the call of discipling others who disciple others who disciple others seriously. I read the book “Master Plan of Evangelism” by Robert Coleman and was hooked! Looking back, it changed the direction of my life.
Men and women in the church started to teach me and model to me what it looked like for the whole of someone’s life to come under the leadership of Jesus. They helped me learn how to study God’s Word. They helped me find words to talk to others about Jesus. I work as a pastor now, but that wasn’t the goal at the time. It was just the men and women living out what Jesus has taught us to do from the very beginning.
So let me ask you a question, “Do you see yourself as a Christian or a disciple?” Because those two words may sound similar, but they often produce very different ways of living. A disciple wakes up asking, “How do I follow Jesus today?”
How can Jesus keep changing them?
Who are others I can encourage to follow Jesus?
Where can I surround myself with others who are following Jesus?
That’s the life Jesus invited ordinary men and women into two thousand years ago. And it’s still the invitation He extends today. So ask yourself: Have I actually committed myself to following Jesus? Who is helping me grow? Am I allowing Jesus to change me, or am I simply trying to become a better version of myself? Who am I helping take one step closer to Christ? Because, Jesus never invited people to admire Him from a distance. He invited them to follow Him. And that invitation is still drawing people to Himself today!
A few months ago, I signed up for a comedy competition with 250 comedians in Austin at Capital City Comedy Club in the Domain. That means 250 people were trying to accomplish the exact same thing I was, make people laugh.
Stand-up comedy has a funny way of exposing you. It’s just you and a mic on a stage. The lights are bright. You can’t really see the audience. People are seated at your feet. And, everyone is there with an attitude like, “Make me laugh!”
When you do stand-up comedy there’s nowhere to hide. Every word, every breath, every pause, and every facial expression counts. There’s no PowerPoint to blame on technical difficulties. It’s just a room full of strangers deciding in real time whether you’ve earned another minute of their attention. As I walked away from my set, I realized I had learned lessons that have very little to do with comedy and almost everything to do with life.
1. You Don’t Have to Beat Everyone
You just have to do your job: When I first heard there were 250 comedians competing, it felt overwhelming. How do you compete with that many people? Then I remembered something important. I wasn’t performing against 250 comedians that night. I was performing in front of one audience. My job wasn’t to be better than everyone else. My job was to deliver the best 4 minutes I was capable of delivering. That’s true in almost every area of life. We spend so much energy looking sideways as we comparing careers, churches, businesses, social media, and accomplishments, that we forget our actual assignment. Comparison creates anxiety because it asks us to control outcomes we never could. But, preparation creates confidence because it focuses on what we actually can control.
Whether you’re leading a company, raising kids, preaching a sermon, or stepping on stage, your responsibility is the same: Prepare. I can’t control how audiences are going to respond. But I can work out those 4-minutes! I can run through those 4-minutes. I can imagine how the audience is going to respond. I can watch the audience as they prepare for the show. I can imagine how they might respond. I can prepare!
Failures Compound Faster Than Big Breakthroughs
The majority of laughs I got that night were from moments where jokes didn’t work, audiences didn’t respond, and timing was off. Each of those failures is an opportunity to improve. Do words need to change? I can swap the order. Where can I cut?
In sermons and comedy, most people just assume I am quick on my feet talking about topics off the top of my head. Not even close. The four minutes last night have been delivered 50 times over the last two-years and every miss was an opportunity to make it better.
Confidence Comes From Evidence, Not Optimism
Some comedians seem to not care if an audience laughs. I need the audience to laugh. It isn’t because I need them to like me. I want to get on the same page with the audience and if they are laughing at what I think is funny it tells me, “We’re all hearing the same thing.”
Before I get called up to a stage I can feel my heart beating in my chest. I am flooded with these thoughts like, “Why am I doing this to myself?” The only thing that quiets that voice is my faith in Jesus that give me the courage to pursue this area of my life and evidence that people have found these bits funny.
Real confidence isn’t pretending you’re not nervous. It’s remembering you’ve done difficult things before. I’ve found that to be true in comedy, leadership, and faith. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s trusting what you’ve already learned enough to take the next step anyway.
One Final Thought
Competitions have winners and losers. But life isn’t a competition. Sometimes in life there are going to be moments where we advance and there are going to be moments when the fruit of the hard work doesn’t materialize.
Success in life isn’t about advancing. Success in life is about learning and discovering that you’re far more capable than you thought you were six months ago. For me, I’m grateful I advanced to the next round, but I’m even more grateful for what the process taught me. Because long after this competition is over, those lessons will still be shaping the way I live, lead, and step onto the next stage.
If you’ve ever driven around the Domain in Austin, you know how quickly things can change. One week there’s a new apartment complex going up. The next week another restaurant closes. Tech companies are hiring, then laying off. Traffic patterns change, so that sometimes morning traffic is at 7:30am and sometimes 9:30am. What?
Last Sunday, I stood in front of our church family, a church by the Domain in Austin, and realized we were living through one of those seasons. We are in the midst of a ton of questions. Where are we going to meet? How is this all going to work financially? New positions on staff are need and just like in any church, we need men and women who are taking ownership beyond attending on Sunday morning.
In addition, how do we stay focused on our vision as a church family in the midst of uncertainty. The temptation to give into apathy and indifference is off the charts. After all, what does it matter? This is the voice that echoes through our church family right now. You can feel it on a Sunday morning. It’s palpable! As the elders of our church family, we know we don’t have all the answers. The people in our church family know we don’t have all the answers. And, like most people, our first instinct in the midst of uncertainty is to find certainty!
“If I just knew what was going to happen…”
“If I could just get an answer…”
“If I knew how this relationship would turn out…”
“If I knew whether this job was going to work…”
Then I’d finally have peace, confidence, clarity and everything would be great! But that’s not what Scripture teaches. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve didn’t lack information. They had everything they needed. They knew God. They walked with Him in the cool of the garden as friends. Can you imagine?
But something changed in their story. It wasn’t the information they possessed about God and one another. It was the uncertainty that entered the conversation when the serpent asked one simple question: “Has God really said…?” That question wasn’t about gathering information. It’s not like the serpent was genuinely wondering, “What has God said?” He knows! Instead the serpent was introducing uncertainty into the conversation.
Uncertainty Shapes Us
Here’s what struck me while studying Genesis 3. The greatest danger wasn’t that Adam and Eve had unanswered questions. The greatest danger was that uncertainty began shaping their relationship with God. That’s still true today. When uncertainty goes unchecked, we begin asking different questions.
“Can I really trust God?”
“Is He holding out on me?”
“Does He actually know what’s best?”
“Is He paying attention?”
The circumstances haven’t changed yet, but our hearts have started to look for something else in life to find stability. This is where the spiritual fight for our faith in Jesus goes live! The serpent never showed up with overwhelming power. He showed up with words and suggestions about truth.
He didn’t immediately tell Eve to rebel against God. Instead, he simply nudged her toward uncertainty. That’s how deception usually works. Rarely does it ask us to abandon everything overnight. Instead, it slowly erodes trust.
One conversation.
One thought.
One assumption.
One compromise at a time.
Responding to Uncertainty
One of the fascinating details in Genesis 3 is that Eve begins subtly changing what God actually said. God began with generosity in Genesis 2, “You may freely eat from every tree…” By the time Eve repeats God’s command, the emphasis on God’s generosity has disappeared. She even adds restrictions God never gave. That’s what uncertainty often does. It magnifies what we’ve lost while minimizing what we’ve been given. Uncertainty creates fear that becomes louder than gratitude.
In a city like Austin, it can give us this illusion of certainty. Tech companies keep moving into the city. Exotic cars keep appearing. We are surrounded by wealth and education in the capitol of Texas! It feels pretty certain! But it just takes a moment and any of those “certain” areas of life can change in a second. And, deep down, we know those areas of life are unstable and unreliable. Therefore, the goal isn’t to eliminate uncertainty in life. That’s impossible! The better question is, “Who am I becoming while I walk through uncertainty?”
This is critical because fear produces one kind of person. It’s the kind of person that gets wrapped up with insecurity. Fear stirs up passivity. Fear causes us to spend energy on something that might never happen. But, when we are in a place of trust it produces a different kind of a person. When we are layered in trust we will move toward people. We are clear in our thinking. One is controlled by outcomes, the other has a foundation.
The Gospel Speaks Into Our Uncertainty
Genesis 3 doesn’t end with Adam and Eve hiding forever. God comes looking for them. Read that last sentence again, “God comes looking for them.” That’s the gospel! Long before Adam and Eve searched for Him, He searched for them. Read the chapter for yourself and see. It’s amazing!
That story ultimately points to Jesus. Where Adam and Eve hid, Jesus stepped forward. Where they tried to cover their own shame, Jesus covered ours through His death and resurrection. The gospel isn’t simply that God gives us answers. The gospel is that God gives us Himself. That changes everything. Because certainty has never been found in perfect circumstances. It’s found in the unchanging character of God.
The future will still be unclear. Our economy will still fluctuate. Relationships will disappoint if we give them enough time. But the invitation of Jesus remains the same as He calls us to know Him, trust Him, follow Him, and invite others to do the same. Because, sometimes faith isn’t knowing exactly where you’re going, sometimes faith is knowing Who you’re walking with on the journey.
Austin is full of people trying to optimize their lives. Which neighborhood should we move to? Should I leave my startup? Should we have another child? Should I buy the house or keep renting? Should I stay in Texas?
I think we should pray about every one of those decisions. Scripture tells us to bring everything before God in prayer. Our decisions matter to Him because our lives matter to Him. But over the years, I’ve realized there’s another prayer that is just as important.
“Lord, make me into the kind of man who makes wise decisions.”
Those two prayers belong together. One seeks God’s guidance. The other seeks God’s transformation. I think God delights in answering both. Here are some guiding points to consider:
1. Pray for wisdom.
When God invited Solomon to ask for anything, Solomon didn’t ask for success, security, or certainty. He asked for wisdom. That wasn’t an accident. Life is full of decisions where the answer isn’t immediately obvious. Parenting, marriage, work, finances, friendships, ministry, and leadership all require wisdom. James tells us that if we lack wisdom, we should ask God because He gives generously. Before asking God to remove every difficult decision, ask Him to make you wiser.
2. Pray for humility.
One of the greatest obstacles to wise decisions isn’t a lack of information. It’s pride. Pride convinces us we’ve already thought through every angle. Pride dismisses the people God has placed around us. Pride hears advice but rarely listens. Proverbs reminds us that wise people receive instruction. As you pray about a decision, ask God to give you the humility to hear what you may not want to hear.
3. Pray for a clean heart.
It’s amazing how quickly sin can distort our judgment. Unforgiveness, jealousy, selfish ambition, fear, and hidden pride all have a way of making bad ideas sound reasonable. David prayed, “Search me, O God.” That’s a dangerous prayer. But it’s also a necessary one. Before asking God which path to take, ask Him if there’s anything in your heart that’s preventing you from seeing clearly.
4. Pray for a renewed mind.
Every decision begins with the way we think. Romans 12 says we’re transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can discern God’s will. The more our minds are shaped by Scripture, the better equipped we are to recognize what is wise, loving, and honoring to Christ. God doesn’t simply want to change our circumstances. He wants to change the way we think.
5. Pray for discernment.
Many of life’s hardest decisions aren’t between right and wrong. They’re between two good options. That’s why Paul prayed that believers would “discern what is best.” Discernment is the ability to recognize not only what is permissible, but what is most helpful, most loving, and most faithful. It’s a gift worth praying for.
6. Pray about the decision itself.
After all of that, don’t stop praying about the decision. Tell God exactly what’s on your mind. Ask Him for clarity. Ask Him to open and close doors. Ask Him for peace. Ask Him to direct your steps. Our Heavenly Father invites us to bring every concern to Him, including the decisions that keep us awake at night.
Prayer isn’t about informing God. It’s about walking with Him. The older I get, the more I believe every decision is accomplishing two things at once. It’s shaping my future. But it’s also shaping me. That’s why I never want my prayers to stop with, “Lord, what should I do?” I also want to pray, “Lord, who am I becoming?”
Conclusion
Because one day this decision will be behind me. But the kind of man I’m becoming will remain, so pray about the decision and then pray that God would make you into the kind of person who consistently makes wise decisions.
Anyone who has driven MoPac or I-35 during rush hour knows there isn’t always a perfect route Sometimes Waze sends you through neighborhoods you’ve never heard of. Sometimes you stay on the Lamar. Sometimes every option is slow.
Life feels like that, too. God doesn’t promise to remove every difficult decision. But He does promise wisdom for those who ask, peace for those who trust Him, and His presence wherever the road leads. So pray about the decision. But don’t stop there. Pray that, wherever you end up, you’ll become the kind of man or woman who reflects Jesus a little more than you did before the journey began.
There are moments when leadership isn’t about having the answers. It’s about creating space for people to hear from God. A few months ago, our church found ourselves in one of those moments.
Our lease was ending. The rent on our building was increasing from $13,000 a month to $17,000. We knew we weren’t going to sign another long term lease. That meant we had a decision to make: Was North Village Church coming to an end, or was God inviting us into a new season?
On a personal level, there was a temptation to answer that question for everyone else. Instead, our elders decided to do something different. We asked our church family not to decide immediately. We asked them to pray.
Rather than holding one emotional meeting, we created a month long discernment guide. Each day people reflected on a different question. Not logistical questions. Heart questions.
Do you still resonate with our mission?
Do you still believe in the values that have shaped this church?
Would you follow Jesus into an uncertain future even if it meant setting up chairs every Sunday in a temporary location?
Would saying “no” bring relief… or would it feel like you were walking away from something God was inviting you into?
By the end of the month we asked everyone to honestly land in one of three places:
“I’m in.”
“I’m exploring.”
“I’m out.”
Notice what we weren’t asking. We weren’t asking people to stay because of friendships. We weren’t asking them to stay because they felt guilty. We weren’t asking them to stay because they liked me as their pastor. We wanted them to follow Jesus, wherever He was leading.
Freedom Is Better Than Pressure
One sentence from the guide became especially important to me. We told people that if God was leading them elsewhere, we wanted them to feel completely free to go. That sounds simple. It’s surprisingly difficult.
Leaders can often feel pressure to retain people. Attendance becomes a scorecard. Every family that leaves feels personal. But churches aren’t built through pressure. They’re built through conviction. I’d rather have someone joyfully say “yes” because they believe God called them than reluctantly stay because they felt obligated.
The Response
On June 1, after a month of prayer and reflection, 40 men and women committed to moving forward into the next season of North Village Church. Not because we had all the answers. Not because everything was settled. Because they believed God was leading them.
For me, that number represented far more than attendance. It represented ownership. Shared conviction. People choosing mission over comfort. As a pastor, I don’t know exactly what the next chapter will look like. But I know this: I’d rather lead forty people who have prayerfully discerned God’s direction than a larger crowd that simply drifted into the future.
Personal Application
This experience reminded me that leadership isn’t always about persuading people. Sometimes it’s about slowing everyone down long enough to listen. In a culture that rewards quick decisions and confident predictions, leaders have an opportunity to model something different.
And perhaps that’s true far beyond church leadership. Whether you’re leading a business, a family, or simply trying to discern your own next step, the question isn’t first, “What should I do?” It’s:
“Lord, where are You already at work, and how are You inviting me to join You?”
I tend to get overwhelmed easily. My brain will focus on a conversation and I will replay the conversation in my head over and over. Pretty soon my worries have evolved like a Pokemon evolution into a whole new problem that is always bigger and scarier than the original problem.
When I find myself in that place, I try to center my thoughts on three areas:
What is my responsibility.
What isn’t my responsibility.
How to move forward.
Then, I make a list of what is my responsibility. I can take a shower. I can get dressed. I can spend time in God’s Word and prayer. This initial movement alone gets my brain out of the “ideating” stage where I loop stress and anxiety and helps me start taking steps forward.
What Is My Responsibility
When I start to think about the specific conversation or event that is causing me stress I try to write down the details of those events. Who is involved? What happened? What was said? Again, these steps help me identify the nuts and bolts instead of getting swept up in emotion. I call it, “Taking Inventory.”
As long as the stress stays in my head the stress is always a blob of emotion swirling around, but simply writing down the nuts and bolts of the stress help me find this stage to be more manageable. I start to catch my breath. I start to see a path forward. I start to feel a little bit of hope in an area that felt hopeless.
What Isn’t My Responsibility
At this stage it helps me to clarify what I can’t change. I can’t change how someone responds. I can’t change how they are responding to the event / conversation. But I can show up prepared. I can listen well. I can reconsider based on what I learn from this interaction.
This little exercise takes only a few minutes. I typically write it into my phone in a text or Notes App. But I can feel my physical body start to relax as I go through this process. Most of my anxiety and stress comes from different scenarios in my head that might or might not happen. Most of the time, my anxiety isn’t coming from the stress of the event, but stress from something that is only happening in my head.
How to Move Forward
Now, I can focus on doing the best work I can bring to the table. If I don’t go through this process I can get stuck. But going through this process gives me a roadmap. I might get overwhelmed again, but now I have a reference point for me to come back to and re-evaluate.
The interesting thing about anxiety is that it usually wants to pull me away from the present moment. My mind starts racing toward outcomes, assumptions, worst case scenarios, and conversations that haven’t even happened yet.
But this process helps bring me back to reality: what is actually happening? What is my responsibility? What steps can I take forward? Sometimes the situation still feels hard. Sometimes the conversation still doesn’t go the way I hoped. Sometimes I still feel overwhelmed later in the day.
But now, instead of spiraling in every direction, I can focus on the next faithful step in front of me.
We are bringing together local and national talent for a cause that matters. All proceeds from the evening will support GirlStart, an Austin-based nonprofit committed to empowering girls in STEM!
The show will be headlined by Cam F. Awesome, who was a national boxer, but recently been taking his experiences to the stage to provide inspiration and laughter to audiences around the country. Joining him on the lineup:
The event will be held atNorth Village Church, offering a welcoming environment for an unforgettable community-centered night of laughter.
This show continues the growing tradition of Austin comics partnering with local organizations to bring joy, build community, and make a tangible difference in the community.
Event Details: Date: Saturday, May 30, 2026 Time: 6:00pm Location: North Village Church, Austin, TX Benefiting: GirlStart
I recently started doing stand-up comedy in Austin, TX. And I am a pastor. Which means most nights I am standing in a bar talking about my life, and at some point, people realize, “Wait… this guy is a pastor.” It creates a moment. You might be asking, “Why would a pastor do this?” You can read about it HERE and HERE.
Austin has become a major hub for comedy, with names like Shane Gillis, Joe Rogan, and Tony Hinchcliffe shaping the scene. The rooms are full, the crowds are sharp, and the conversations are often as unfiltered as you can imagine. So why step into that as a pastor? At some point, I had to decide whether following Jesus meant staying in environments where I naturally fit, or stepping into ones where I did not. Stand-up comedy made that decision unavoidable.
There is constant pressure in those rooms to blend in, to match the tone, to say what works, and to avoid being the one who shifts the atmosphere. But following Jesus has given me a different option. Instead of trying to manage perception, I can simply be honest. There have been plenty of moments where I have said something, or chosen not to say something, and it creates a pause. Not hostile, just noticeable. And in that space, there is nothing to fix. Just a quiet recognition that I am different.
That is not always persuasive, and it does not guarantee agreement, but it is clear. And clarity matters. Paul says, “I am not ashamed of the gospel,” not because it always lands well, but because it is worth being known for. Jesus lived this way. He did not isolate Himself from the world, and He did not mirror it either. He entered into real places, real conversations, and real tension, while remaining anchored in who He was. He asked questions people were not asking, said things people were not expecting, and stayed present in environments where others might have pulled back.
Following Him means we will feel that same tension. Not because we are trying to stand out, but because we already do. What has been surprising to me is how often this creates opportunity. I have had conversations about a biblical view of marriage and sexuality, finances, some political conversations, and caring for those in need. It’s not because I am actively trying to drive conversations toward those topics, but that, at least in Austin, TX, there are people who are wondering and thinking about those topics today, and then out of a nowhere a follower of Jesus is dropped into their life.
In a few cases, other comedians have quietly shared that they follow Jesus too. Not on stage, not publicly, but they are there. And sometimes just being present and clear has caused them to reconsider what that actually means for their life and their work. That has been the unexpected part. Not influence through volume, but through presence.
So maybe the question is not whether you feel comfortable identifying as a follower of Jesus in your environment. Maybe the better question is where God has already placed you where that clarity would actually matter. Your workplace, your friendships, your neighborhood, or conversations you did not plan. People do not just need content about Jesus. They need to encounter people who actually follow Him. And that will almost always feel a little uncomfortable.
If you live in Texas then I am sure you have heard about James Talarico running for U.S. Senate in 2026. Talarico has been a little unique as a politician because he has been front and center with his faith in Jesus, and how it has shaped his view toward policy in the state of Texas.
One particular reference Talarico has made about Scripture is from Matthew 25 when Jesus references the “least of these.” Talarico isn’t the first to reference this passage. In many settings the passage is presented as a simple moral message: followers of Jesus should help people in need.
44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’
When we read Matthew 25 within the flow of Matthew’s Gospel, another possibility becomes visible. The scene is less about general humanitarian care and more about how people respond to Jesus by the way they treat His followers.
The Context: Jesus Is Being Rejected
The later chapters of Matthew are dominated by a growing conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders of Israel. By the time we reach chapters 21 to 23, the conflict is no longer subtle. Jesus openly rebukes religious leaders for rejecting Jesus as God in the flesh who has come to fulfill the promises of Messiah. So the storyline of Matthew becomes a question of recognition and allegiance. Will people recognize the King, or will they reject Him?
Establishing the Principle
Earlier in the Gospel Jesus explains something that becomes crucial for interpreting Matthew 25. When He sends out His disciples, He tells them: Whoever receives you receives me. That teaching appears in the Gospel of Matthew 10:40-42.
40 “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. 41 He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. 42 And whoever in the name of a disciple gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water to drink, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward.”
Jesus goes even further. He says that even giving a cup of water to one of His “little ones” will be remembered. In other words, how someone treats the messenger reveals how they respond to the One who sent the messenger. This idea is central to Matthew’s writing. Jesus’ followers represent Him in the world.
Key Phrase: “The Least of These My Brothers”
The entire passage hinges on one phrase, “The least of these my brothers.” How we interpret that phrase determines what the passage means. Many readers assume it refers to the poor or marginalized in general. But Matthew’s Gospel consistently uses “brothers” to refer to Jesus’ disciples.
For example, In Gospel of Matthew 12:49-50, Jesus calls His followers His brothers. In Matthew 28:10, after the resurrection, Jesus again refers to the disciples as His brothers. Within Matthew’s own language, the phrase most naturally refers to those who belong to Jesus.
Overview
If “my brothers” refers to Jesus’ followers, then the judgment scene takes on a different emphasis. The nations are not being evaluated primarily on general humanitarian activity. They are being evaluated on how they responded to Jesus by how they treated His people.
This fits the larger storyline of the Gospel. The religious leaders reject Jesus. They persecute His followers. They refuse to recognize the King, therefore, in the final judgment, the King exposes what their actions revealed all along. Those who welcomed His followers demonstrated openness to Him. Those who rejected or ignored them revealed their rejection of the King.
Compassion Still Matters
Recognizing this interpretation doesn’t mean compassion toward the poor is unimportant. Scripture consistently calls believers to care for those in need. But Matthew 25 isn’t about establishing a social ethic. Instead, it’s revealing something deeper about the identity of Jesus and the loyalty He demands. The King identifies Himself with His people so closely that caring for them is counted as caring for Him, and rejecting them is counted as rejecting Him.
Followers of Jesus often face a tension when working in environments that are not shaped by Christian values. Comedy clubs, music venues, corporate settings, universities, and many other spaces raise the same question: How can someone be present in a culture without simply becoming a participant in it?
This question is especially important to me, because I work as a pastor in Austin, TX. My wife and I started the church in 2009, and at the time we had two little children, so it was easy to connect with young families in our neighborhood. By God’s grace we were able to enter into spiritual conversations with those families and for a season it resulted in men and women coming to faith and pop up bible studies. Sometimes we would have 12-15 adults in a living room looking at God’s Word with 30 kids running outside. It was wild!
Fast forward to 2024 and I did an open mic near our house at Cap City Comedy Club as a bucket list type of challenge. The experience went horrible. But for some reason, I wanted to keep trying. Eventually I started talking about being a pastor in a 3-minute comedy set, and 2 years later here I am. Usually 2-3 nights a week I will meet up with comedians and we will try to do our best at making people laugh.
But Austin, TX isn’t known for clean comedy. Austin actually has some nationally known comics in our city like Joe Rogan, Shane Gillis, Tony Hinchcliffe, and more. It isn’t exactly Nate Bargatze material on 6th on a weekend night, so what does that look like for me as a follower of Jesus?
The New Testament doesn’t call followers of Jesus to isolation, but it also doesn’t call them to blend into culture. Instead, it presents a third option known as “Faithful Presence.” Jesus entered ordinary public spaces. He ate with tax collectors, attended gatherings, and spent time with people who lived far from the religious center of society. Yet those around him consistently noticed something different about Him. His presence influenced the room rather than the room defining him.
The challenge for believers today is learning to discern whether they are participating in culture or bringing a distinct presence into culture. Several patterns can help make that distinction clearer.
1. Direction of Influence: Who’s influencing who?
A participant in culture gradually absorbs the values of the environment. Language, priorities, and assumptions begin to mirror the surrounding world. A presence in culture moves in the opposite direction. While remaining fully engaged, their posture, tone, and character introduce something different into the environment.
This doesn’t mean constant confrontation or overt religious messaging. Often it simply means that over time people notice a steadiness, humility, or integrity that stands apart from the surrounding culture. Jesus was often accused of spending time with sinners, yet the stories repeatedly show people being drawn toward change rather than Jesus being drawn into their patterns.
2. The Trajectory of One’s Work: What’s the tone of the work?
For anyone whose work involves creative expression, the work itself becomes revealing. In comedy, writing, music, or storytelling, the deeper worldview underneath the material eventually becomes visible.
When someone is a presence in culture, their work tends to humanize people. Humor exposes human weakness without celebrating cruelty. The tone may include honesty, self awareness, and humility.
When someone becomes a participant in culture, the work often begins drifting toward whatever the surrounding environment rewards most. Cynicism, degradation, or shock value can slowly become the easiest path to approval. Over time, the trajectory of the work often reveals the deeper direction of influence.
3. How Others Perceive You: Are you experiencing favor from others?
Another helpful indicator is how people within the culture describe you. A person functioning as a presence is often respected even by those who disagree with them. Others notice reliability, honesty, or a different moral center. They may not share the same beliefs, but they sense a consistency.
By contrast, someone who has become a participant in culture becomes indistinguishable from the surrounding environment. Their identity is primarily defined by the culture they inhabit rather than the deeper convictions that guide them.
4. Private Spiritual Vitality: Are you still growing in your faith?
Perhaps the clearest indicator is what happens privately. Scripture describes the life of the Spirit producing qualities such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. When someone remains rooted in these realities, their internal life continues to deepen even while they live and work in challenging environments.
5. The Role of Community: Is there willingness to receive feedback?
The New Testament consistently places believers within community. Spiritual formation rarely happens in isolation. A presence in culture remains connected to people who can ask honest questions and offer perspective. Spiritual conversations continue. Others are able to speak into both life and work.
A participant in culture gradually shifts their primary feedback loop toward the surrounding environment. Career success, audience approval, or cultural status become the dominant voices shaping decisions.
6. The Question of Motivation: Does it become a distraction?
Motivation also reveals direction. A presence in culture is often driven by a desire to understand people and serve them well. There is curiosity about the human condition and a sense of stewardship for whatever platform or opportunity exists.
A participant in culture is often driven by a desire for belonging, approval, or recognition within the environment itself. Identity becomes increasingly tied to acceptance by the culture rather than faithfulness within it. Both motivations can coexist at times, but the direction that grows stronger over time becomes revealing.
7. Long Term Fruit: Is there spiritual curiosity from others?
Jesus frequently spoke about fruit as the ultimate measure of a life. Faithful presence often produces meaningful relationships and deeper conversations over time. People come to trust the person because they experience integrity and care.
Participation without discernment tends to produce deeper immersion in the same cultural patterns. The individual may achieve success within the environment but gradually lose spiritual clarity and distinctiveness.
Longterm Goal
For me, my work as a pastor hasn’t changed. I still want to gain trust and credibility to speak into the lives of the people in my life. I pray for those people. I look for ways to encourage them and support them in their pursuits. I look for opportunities to challenge them in ways they would be receptive. I consider it a privilege to be in their life, and I want to point them to Jesus in everything.
The “sermon” isn’t that different either. On Sunday morning it is more clear that I am taking God’s Word and going verse by verse to point people to the hope we have in Jesus, but in comedy my goal is still the same. I am trying to take biblical and cultural values and package them in a way that are hopefully comedic or at least insightful, so that the people who are listening might think more deeply about those areas of life. I can’t say I have mastered this, but I am continually trying to grow in this area.
In the end, pursuing this area of life has been a lot of fun. Our church family has been really supportive. Once a quarter we have been hosting Clean Comedy Shows for our community and partnering with a local non-profit where all the donations are given to them. Our next one will be in May. You should come!
I was on Tik-Tok recently, and I saw this comic strip that described this mom struggling to connect with her daughter. The comic displayed a mother and daughter living together but the two never experienced a closeness with each other. At the end of the mother’s life the mother apologized for never feeling close to the daughter and unbeknownst to the mother, the daughter felt the same way, which in some way, actually made them closer together. Maybe for the first time?
Every parent I know asks some version of the same quiet question, “Why don’t I feel relationally close to my adult children?” It’s a question that is more common than we realize. Especially when nothing harmful has happened in the relationship.
But before we answer it, we have to name the cultural air we breathe: modern American parenting assumes emotional intimacy is both normal and guaranteed. You pour in love, presence, time, and sacrifice, and the connection should feel mutual. Anything less feels like something went wrong.
But that assumption is largely shaped by Hollywood and the last 100 years of wealth in the United States that has given parents and children this expectation in the family. American culture tends to elevate relationships into idealized narratives; romance, success, individuality, and yes, parenting. That narrative inflation often creates pressure, guilt, and confusion that previous eras simply didn’t have.
Think of films like Finding Nemo and Interstellar, or the way most modern stories reshape the family dynamic into emotional destiny with one another. For most of history, the parent–child relationship was built on: responsibility, protection, guidance, apprenticeship, and community participation.
It was rarely constructed around deep emotional connection with one another. But modern American culture elevates the parent–child bond into something almost romantic. Emotional alignment is expected. Deep conversations with one another is the assumption.
The rise of the nuclear family in the 1940’s didn’t help. Families started having less children. Families became more disconnected from aunts, uncles and grandparents, so that the emotional responsibility on the parent-child relationship grew stronger. After the 1950’s the average family had more time and more resources to put pressure on this relationship. Then, in the 1970’s emotions became central to identity and parenting started to center around the child’s inner world.
And when the ideal bond in the hearts of parents and children isn’t realized, as is often the experience, the parent and the child assume this is some type of failure on their part. But there are no studies in relational development that should give us this expectation and there are no biblical promises that faithful parenting produces emotional symmetry.
Studies in Relational Development
Human relationships, even family ones, are not mechanically guaranteed just because the people involved share DNA. Decades of developmental research (from Chess & Thomas onward) show that temperament differences are often the #1 predictor of felt closeness, more than parenting style.
No injury is required. Just difference. And if a sibling’s temperament matches the parent more closely, the contrast becomes even clearer. The reality is some parents and children share a natural rhythm and some don’t. Some click with ease, and some take effort. Emotional chemistry between a child and parent is a gift, not a moral achievement.
In addition, cognitive style between parent and child and how they process the world also has a huge influence. If one child processes the world more intellectually and the parent processes emotionally, it is going to create relational dissonance. Both might be healthy. The parent and child just don’t harmonize.
Then, you tie in some American Idealism with a splash of Disney and it creates this expectation of constant closeness and “best friend” energy that was never realistic. In fact, studies show when parents give birth to a child they have a 60% chance they won’t have personality / processing similarity with their children, thus creating a disconnect in their relationship with one another.
Biblical Perspective
Scripture gives commands about formation, instruction, protection, and modeling, but never commands a particular feeling between parent and child. In fact, Scripture presents a picture of humanity that makes uneven relational connection completely expected.
First, we often hear the phrase “mini-me” when talking about a child taking on the characteristics of a parent, but God’s Word actually teaches us that every child is made in the image of God, not a replica of the parent.
Therefore, a parent should expect their child to come with different temperament different personality, different ways of processing emotions and different ways of forming relationships.
The mistake modern parents make is assuming children are “blank slates” shaped primarily by parental love and technique. So when a parent says, “We raised our two kids the same, but one feels close and the other feels distant,” the answer isn’t failure. It’s personhood.
Genesis 3 didn’t just break creation, it fractured relational harmony in our relationships with one another. Desire and connection became inconsistent, unpredictable, and uneven. The relational “fit” between two people is never guaranteed. Even in faithful, godly families, emotional alignment varies wildly.
A strained relationship between child and parent doesn’t mean something went wrong. It means the child is a moral agent before God with different needs, emotions, and decisions. Sometimes those relationships can be very close, and sometimes they can feel functional. None of this means something went wrong.
A parent can be faithful, wise, loving, consistent and a child can be warm and respectful toward their parents, but one or both won’t always experience deep emotional intimacy with the other.
The call of a parent is to teach their child, disciple them, provide instruction, correction, encouragement and model a relationship with Jesus. The call of a parent is never a promise of emotional closeness.
Sometimes the parent and child will experience this with one another or have seasons where they feel closer to one another, but we shouldn’t treat them as biblical requirements or moral outcomes.
Closing: Parent and child didn’t fail, they’re humans.
When a parent and child don’t “click” with one another, it doesn’t automatically point to injury or failure. It points to distinct personalities. Let’s celebrate personality differences instead of building shame about those differences. Each relationship is a gift to discover instead of a grief to lament.
The gospel reminds us that we live in a fallen world. One day Jesus will come and make all things new. Jesus has given us Himself to the parent and the child, so that our ultimate desire is in Him and not the family dynamic.
Are there going to be moments when the child or the parent will watch a movie or see a friend with deep connection between parent and child? Yes! It happens. It might even happen in the same family, but we have a Savior who works in those differences over time, prayer, patience and perseverance with one another. What a glorious bond for a child and a parent to experience with one another: It wasn’t always easy, it wasn’t always natural, but there was a love and respect for one another to keep showing up and keep trying. Isn’t that a better story?
Serving North Central Austin 