Most people want meaningful relationships, but relationships take work. Many of us want children, but parenting can bring some of the deepest joy and deepest pain of our lives. We want meaningful work, but work can exhaust us. We want community, but then we discover community involves people…and people are messy! Why is that?
Genesis 3 Gives Us the Answer
In Genesis 1–2, God creates the world and calls it good. Adam and Eve are created in His image, brought together as husband and wife, and given meaningful work. Everything is as it should be.
Then sin enters the story. By Genesis 3:16, God tells the woman: “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, in pain you will bring forth children; yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Suddenly the very things God created as good become difficult.
Something Isn’t Right
Pain in childbirth isn’t God randomly deciding to make life miserable. It’s His judgment and our sin has consequences. But it isn’t final judgment. Adam and Eve are still alive. God is still speaking to them. Children will still be born. Marriage still exists. God’s purposes for humanity haven’t disappeared. Even in judgment, there is grace.
But, the difficulty in humanity becomes an alarm ringing through creation: Something isn’t right. We weren’t created to live apart from God. That’s one reason the things we love can sometimes become the places of our greatest frustration. We keep discovering that we can’t make life work exactly the way we want it to. And sometimes that difficulty is the very thing God uses to draw us back to Himself.
Even Our Pain Can Point Us Home
One verse earlier, in Genesis 3:15, God had promised that the woman’s offspring would eventually defeat the serpent. Then, thousands of years later, the Apostle Paul writes:
“God sent His Son, born of a woman.” (Galatians 4:4)
Do you see it? The very place where we see the consequences of sin becomes the place through which God brings forth the One who becomes the answer to our sin. His name is Jesus!
In a previous blog we discussed different types of spiritual formation to help us sharpen our faith as followers of Jesus. You can find that entry HERE and HERE.
I’ve noticed an interesting pattern among followers of Jesus regarding these areas of spiritual formation. We discover an approach to a spiritual formation that seems to provide something we’ve been missing. In the beginning, we’re excited about this new discovery. We experience some vitality in our spiritual life. We discover some areas of our spiritual life that were neglected. It’s great!
But, then eventually we discover its weaknesses. Soon we become disappointed. And sometimes we begin looking down on the very thing that once helped us. But, then we discover something new and the process starts all over again. It can be exhausting!
“This Is What I’ve Been Missing”
John Mark Comer is an author who has recently become popular. Most of his writings are around monastic parts of our faith, so Comer is tapping into the part of the soul that feels hurried, exhausted, stressed, and anxious. Enter Comer!
There’s nothing inherently wrong about creating some structures to our life where we practice spiritual discipline of solitude, fasting and hearing from the Lord. It’s a consistent part of our faith throughout Scripture.
But give it a few years. Eventually those practices will start to feel like a normal part of our faith. Sometimes we mistake the energy of discovery for the power of the practice. And, it’s possible those practices could lose some of their vitality, so that over time we can get stuck in this cycle of jumping from one spiritual formation to the next and not actually growing in our faith.
Discovery Isn’t the Problem
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with discovering another Christian tradition. In fact, it can be incredibly healthy. Sometimes another part of the church has been preserving something our tradition neglected.
A doctrinal Christian might genuinely need to rediscover prayer. A revival Christian might genuinely need to rediscover ordinary faithfulness. A contemplative Christian might need to rediscover mission. A justice-oriented Christian might need deeper theological foundations. A relational Christian might need solitude. We should be able to learn from each other.
The problem isn’t discovering something new. The problem is the story we sometimes tell ourselves afterward. “I used to believe that because I was immature. Now I understand what Christianity is really supposed to be.” That’s where spiritual growth can quietly become spiritual pride.
We Rewrite Our Own Spiritual History
Instead of saying: “My doctrinal background gave me a deep love for Scripture, but I needed to grow in prayer and dependence upon the Spirit.” We say: “I grew up in dead evangelicalism or my revival background focused too much on experience and emotion.”
Instead of receiving something new as an addition, we use it as an indictment of what came before. Then something interesting happens. We compare the best version of our new discovery with the worst version of our previous tradition. Of course, the new thing wins. Until we stay around long enough to discover its problems too. Then the cycle begins again.
Spiritual Formation Can Become Something We Consume
I wonder if there’s something deeper happening. We can end up becoming consumers of spiritual formation itself. We’re constantly searching for the teacher, church, book, practice, experience, theology, podcast, or system that will finally produce the Christian life we’ve been looking for. And every new discovery gives us something…NEW!
New ways of understanding problems we’ve felt but couldn’t explain. For a while, it’s energizing. Then the novelty wears off. And eventually we’re left with the same basic problem: ourselves.
No approach to spiritual formation eliminates sin, suffering, unanswered prayers, disappointment and unanswered prayers. And none eliminates the painfully slow process of becoming more like Jesus. Eventually every system leaves us standing in front of the same invitation Jesus gave to His disciples, “Follow Me.”
Maybe This Is Part of Maturity
Maybe spiritual maturity includes reaching the point where I don’t have to destroy what came before in order to appreciate what I’m discovering now. I can say: “That formed something good in me. This is showing me something I was missing. And neither one is Jesus.” That’s a very different posture.
It allows us to receive something from Christians who emphasize things differently than we do without constantly reconstructing our entire faith around our latest discovery. Maybe spiritual maturity isn’t finally discovering the right spiritual formation system? Maybe it’s becoming mature enough to receive what different parts of the church have to teach us without believing each new discovery has finally solved Christianity?
Because eventually the novelty will wear off. The system will disappoint me. The people will disappoint me. The leaders will disappoint me. But, Jesus invitation will be the same, “Come to Me, follow Me.”
In a previous blog we discussed different types of spiritual formation to help us sharpen our faith as followers of Jesus. You can find that entry HERE.
But each spiritual formation also has something about it that can become unattractive.
The monastic approach offers something many of us desperately need: peace, depth, and intentionality. But taken too far, spiritual formation can begin to sound like lifestyle management.
Revival Christianity offers an emotional connection with God. God isn’t merely someone we study. He’s alive and actively moving in our life through answered prayers. That’s awesome! But taken too far, spiritual formation can be built around emotion and dramatic encounters with God.
Compassion and justice-centered Christianity reminds us that following Jesus should actually make a difference in how we treat suffering people. That’s desperately needed. But it can also turn spiritual formation into activism and political commitments.
Then there’s the doctrinal approach. This is probably the world I know best. Experience and action are important but we need truth, Scripture, and biblical thinking to guide our decisions. But there’s an obvious danger here too. We can become incredibly skilled at evaluating Christianity without becoming particularly skilled at living it.
Obedience to God’s Word is important, but it can also become mechanical. Sometimes we can even feel like we are just making a list of rules of what to do and not do, so that we forget the emotional / relational connection to Jesus.
Lastly, relational spiritual formation is probably the one that shapes our values the most at North Village Church. We love the idea of people getting to know one another, but it can be overwhelming to open up your life to someone at a deep level.
Every Path Eventually Costs Something
Maybe that’s what all these approaches ultimately have in common. At first, each offers something attractive.
The monastic tradition says, “Wouldn’t you like peace?”
Revival says, “Wouldn’t you like to experience God?”
Compassion and justice say, “Wouldn’t you like your life to matter?”
Doctrine says, “Wouldn’t you like to understand what’s true?”
Obedience says, “Wouldn’t you like to develop new habits?”
Relational says, “Wouldn’t you like to be genuinely known?”
But keep walking down any of those roads and eventually something changes. Eventually every serious approach to spiritual formation interferes with the life we would naturally choose for ourselves.
The problem isn’t ultimately finding the perfect spiritual formation system. The question is much simpler. Am I actually getting to know Jesus? And, am I helping someone else follow Jesus?
Am I actually getting to know Jesus?
And, am I helping someone else follow Jesus?
Because Jesus didn’t simply invite us to know more, experience more, serve more, or develop better spiritual habits. He said: “Follow me.” And I’m increasingly convinced that one of the best ways to do that is remarkably ordinary: Follow Jesus with other people. Then help someone else do the same.
Conclusion
Maybe the uncomfortable part isn’t always a sign that something has gone wrong? Maybe sometimes it’s the very place where spiritual formation is beginning to do its work.
Silence sounds great until I have to sit with what’s going on inside me. Experiencing God sounds great until I have to trust Him when I don’t feel anything. Compassion sounds great until loving someone costs me something. Knowing truth sounds great until Scripture confronts something I don’t want to change. Obedience sounds great until Jesus asks me to deny myself. Community sounds great until someone knows enough about me to ask a question I would rather avoid.
That’s when we’re tempted to look for something else. But maybe the goal isn’t to keep finding a form of Christianity that feels better. Maybe part of following Jesus is staying long enough for the uncomfortable parts to actually form us.
That doesn’t mean every approach is healthy or that we should never change. It simply means disappointment isn’t always evidence that we chose the wrong path. Sometimes it means we’ve finally reached the part where following Jesus costs us something.
If you haven’t heard, I dabble in stand-up comedy in Austin, TX as a pastor. It’s been fairly common when other comics see me do well in a comedy set and win over a room they naturally assume I would bring that same style into Sunday morning. In fact, many of them have said, “If you did that on Sunday morning you would see a lot more people attending your church.” Maybe?
But my goal as a pastor isn’t trying to get a lot of people to attend on Sunday morning. My goal as a pastor is to invite people to be known relationally, so that together we can grow closer to Jesus and eventually help someone else do the same.
Types of Spiritual Formation
Different Christians are drawn to different ways of following Jesus.
Spiritual Formation
Invitation
Practical
Monastic
Less hurried / stress
Reordering life around Jesus
Revival
Experience
Encountering power around Jesus
Justice
Action
Extending care toward others
Doctrinal
Knowing Truth
Articulating a worldview
Obedience
Self-Denial
Dying to self, living to Jesus
Relational
Community
Being known, helping others do the same
Some Christians are drawn toward one approach more than others. It isn’t that one approach is wrong, and another is right. In fairness, most probably involve a little bit of all of them, but it was helpful to me to see them distinguished from one another.
The Cost of Being Known
There are strengths and weaknesses to all of these spiritual formations, but there is something unique to what we are trying to build at North Village Church. You can practice solitude anonymously, you can attend an incredible worship service anonymously, you can protest injustice anonymously, you can read theology anonymously, and you can deny yourself anonymously.
But it’s much harder to follow Jesus with someone who actually knows you. Because eventually they ask a question. And then they remember your answer. And then you are left in a space of, “What happens next?”
When that happens, our faith in Jesus starts to intersect with actual life on life and that is both incredibly attractive and incredibly uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable for the person being asked and it is uncomfortable for the person asking the questions because in my experience our lives don’t dramatically change overnight.
Instead we are all entering into a season of long-suffering with one another as we take multiple “one step forward, two steps back” throughout the life of these relationships. It involves multiple layers of confession, multiple prayers, and sometimes seasons of waiting when we don’t really understand what the Lord is doing in our lives.
The Cost of Knowing Someone Else
And Then It Gets Worse, because eventually spiritual formation at North Village Church isn’t only about people getting involved in our life. North Village Church is wanting to build up a church family that is interested in all of us helping someone else.
This is where our faith in Jesus isn’t only something we consume from others, but we start asking ourselves, “How can I pray, encourage, teach, support, and care for someone?” Someone walked beside me during a painful season, which is great! But also asking, “How can I do that for someone else?”
That’s where a relational approach to spiritual formation becomes “Jesus is doing something in me, and Jesus wants to do something through me.” We need both. Without the first, our faith in Jesus becomes an activity of; schedules, serving, and experiencing without necessarily becoming more like Jesus.
Conclusion
In the end, maybe my comedian friends are right? Maybe I could use some of what I’ve learned in comedy to create more energy on Sunday morning? There’s nothing wrong with that. But winning over a room and forming a people aren’t the same thing. One can happen in ten minutes. The other takes years.
If you live around The Domain, you probably don’t have to go very far to be around people. You can walk through The Domain on a Saturday night and pass hundreds of people between restaurants, apartments, coffee shops, stores, and sidewalks.
You can live in an apartment building with people above you, below you, and across the hall, and still not know their names, so that Austin is full of people. But being around people isn’t the same thing as being known by people.
The Local Church
The same thing can happen at a local church. You can show up on Sunday, worship, listen to a message, grab some coffee, and head home without ever really finding your place. That’s one of the reasons serving on a Sunday morning can be so important.
It might look like you’re giving up precious hours that can be used for other areas of your life that need attention, but something else happens when you start showing up for other people: you start becoming part of a community.
Sometimes taking steps to grow spiritually starts with saying yes to a serving opportunity. It is taking a step of ownership in your faith that says, “This isn’t an observational experience. This is a personal investment in an area of my life that is important.”
Most people don’t start serving because they feel passionate about a specific area. In fact, one volunteer described being intimidated when she first started working with children because she was afraid she might say the wrong thing. But then she discovered something freeing: it’s okay not to know everything. She didn’t have to be an expert. She simply needed to be willing to show up, learn, and care about the kids in front of her.
Over time, something started to change. The children began recognizing her with smiles in the hallways. Parents began to engage her more naturally. She shared common experiences with other volunteers. Faces she might have passed with a polite “Good morning” on Sunday mornings became people she knew.
Serving once a month in a particular area didn’t just give her something to do. It gave her people to know, so that there is a difference between attending a worship service on a Sunday morning and being known.
That’s especially meaningful in a city like Austin. People move here for work. Young adults relocate for jobs with companies around The Domain and North Austin. Families arrive without extended family nearby, so that it’s easy for people to build a life here surprisingly quickly while taking much longer to build meaningful relationships.
Church can accidentally become another place we consume as another task to accomplish throughout the week. We find a service we like. We sit in a familiar section. We listen to a message we enjoy. And, we leave, only to get discouraged over time because we don’t feel like we are growing. But the church was never intended to simply be a crowd of people attending the same location at the same time. The local church at her heart is a family. And families know one another.
One technical volunteer described how serving changed his experience of worship: it wasn’t just about what he got out of Sunday morning but what he was able to offer on Sunday morning.
Counting the Cost
Of course, serving costs something. There will be Sundays when you’d rather sleep longer. Sundays when brunch sounds better. Sundays when you arrive at church and think, I really don’t want to do this today. That’s natural!
But serving others doesn’t something to our soul. It reminds us, even briefly, about the needs of others. In that moment, we stop thinking only about what we need and start noticing the people God has placed around us.
And in a city that constantly invites us to ask, “What do I want to do today?”, following Jesus invites us to ask a different question: “Who can I serve today?” We don’t have to serve the whole city. We don’t have to know everyone at church. We don’t even have to feel particularly gifted. Maybe we just start with one yes? Maybe it starts with learning someone’s name? Maybe it starts with sharing a little of your story? And somewhere along the way, you may discover that you didn’t just find a place to serve. You found a place to belong.
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!
My wife and I have worked in pastoral ministry for over 20-years. My wife has worked in personal counseling as a Licensed Professional Counselor for 10 of those years. A common theme in parenting we have noticed is that the pressure of parenting is at an all time high. That’s why I am so excited to read the book, “The Myth of Good Christian Parenting” by Burt and McGinnis coming out in October 2025.
If you’ve been a Christian parent for more than a week, you’ve probably felt the subtle (or not-so-subtle) pressure that if you “do it right,” your kids will turn out to be your definition of perfect little saints.
The Myth of Good Christian Parenting confronts that pressure head-on. The central premise is simple but liberating: There is no magic formula for raising “perfect” Christian kids. You can pray with them, take them to church, memorize Scripture together, and still, they may choose their own path, sometimes far from God.
That’s not a sign you failed. It’s a reminder that parenting is about faithfulness, not control. God calls us to be stewards, not puppet-masters.
Why This Matters:
As a pastor in Austin for 15 years, I’ve sat across from countless parents in my office who were quietly drowning in shame. Their adult child wasn’t walking with Jesus, and they thought it was entirely their fault. This book helps dismantle that lie.
It offers a theological reset:
God is the perfect Father—and even His kids rebelled.
Your calling is obedience, not outcome.
The Holy Spirit does the transforming work, not your parenting techniques.
Caution:
It’s possible someone could read this book and it could evoke bitterness or anger at people or resources who painted a picture of “follow these steps” with “guaranteed results.” But I would caution the reader to tread lightly in this area.
Every parent I have ever met tends to have rose-tinted glasses toward their children. Parents tend to hear what parents want to hear about any resource. The allure of finding the “secret” to parenting is a strong temptation to anyone because we love our children so much and we find great comfort in thinking our approach toward parenting is going to “work.”
Parents also tend to be reactionary. I have found, in my life and others, the majority of parental motivation is “giving our children what we didn’t receive.” It’s an admirable goal. The only problem, the hearts and mind of our children might have completely different needs than us!
Parenting styles aren’t cookie-cutter. What worked for one family might not work for another family. What worked for one child, might be the worst thing for another child. It doesn’t mean parenting is doomed to fail, but it does mean we should layer our attitude toward parenting with more generosity.
Wallow in forgiveness. Instead of wallowing in bitterness, extend forgiveness. Instead of pointing the finger, remember there’s no perfect solution other than Christ! Instead of storing up wrath, remember the Lord gave us the exact parent, child and resources at the time for our good and His glory!
Be careful not to get too excited or too discouraged about parenting. That child or parent might be doing “great” right now or “struggling” right now but in 10-years or 20-years, it might look completely different. I have seen people’s lives change for the glory of Jesus in moments, and I have seen people walk away from Jesus after decades of getting everything they wanted. Our hope is that when we are in Christ, one day we will be raised in glory. Everything else is just ups and downs for a “little while.”
Be on guard against giving up as a parent. The attitude of a parent saying “I don’t want to influence my children” might feel warm and cozy, but it is a cop out. Everything and everyone in the world is trying to engage our children, why not the people who love them the most. This doesn’t mean a parent should try to control their children, but they should definitely step into their role as a parent and try to intentionally speak into their life.
The majority of children are going to get punched in the face with their failures and flaws as they enter into adulthood. The easiest thing for them to do is point the finger at parents, because it feels like, “If they would have done this, I wouldn’t struggle with that.” It can be my parents were too involved, I felt smothered. But it can also be my parents weren’t involved, I felt like they didn’t care. Life is hard. The only perfect place to point our heart and the hearts of our children is Jesus.
Take heart! If you are parenting little ones today, there is likely a challenge coming for our children that we aren’t even aware of as parents. We have no idea what it is like to be those children. We have no idea what it is like to interpret the information they are receiving. How could any parent perfectly speak into the hearts and minds of children 10-years into the future? Therefore, our only hope is that Jesus will speak into our heart and the hearts of our children! Let’s turn our hearts and minds to rest in Him!
If you found any of this helpful, I wrote a quick encouragement in a previous post “Essential Truths for Struggling Parents.” Read through it as you have time! Other than that, remember that children and parents are just people.
Joy to the world, the Savior reigns, let men their songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy
He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove, the glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love, and wonders of His love, and wonders and wonders of His, His love
“Joy to the World” was written by Isaac Watts who was born in 1674 in Southampton, England. He wrote over 750 hymns including, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, This is the Day the Lord Has Made, and Sin Has a Thousand Treacherous Arts.”
Watts was actually bleeding edge in his time. As a teenager he would always complain about the music and the lack of participation from the people. So, his father challenged him to do something. The following week he wrote, “Behold the Glories of the Lamb” and the people began to engage in the worship as he involved an emotional and theological influence in the worship. Isn’t that fascinating?
Today, “Joy to the World” is the most published Christmas song to date, but until we see the theological truths layered in the song I think we are missing out. Let’s look at Romans 8 to see where this song comes from.
Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
In the context of the passage, verse tells us there is new life in Jesus, there is victory in Jesus, there is freedom from sin, life-changing transformation that is glorious, but in verse 18 it also says, “There is suffering.”
It means there are people all over the world who are enjoying friends and family, having fun, enjoying rest and seeing God do great things in their life, but there are also some people all over the world who are suffering.
How can we sing a song called “Joy to the World” when we are surrounded by suffering? Verse 18 speaks of “glory that is to be revealed.”
This is why the song says, “Joy to the world, let earth receive her king, let heaven and nature sing, let men their songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy.”
This song isn’t just about fuzzy, warm moments around the holidays. The song is about a baby that has come as king, lives a perfect life, takes all sin upon Himself, so that in Him, through faith, we are set free into the freedom of glory that will permeate every part of creation.
But how does the hope of His glory lead to joy? Imagine you are going to put two people in two rooms and give them identical tasks that are menial, boring, and difficult manual labor. You tell them both, “You are going to work 40-hours a week, for 12-months, and no vacations. It is going to be boring. It is going to be tedious, and it is going to be really hard.
To the first person you say, “At the end of the 12-months you will get an annual salary of $12,000.” To the second person you say, “At the end of the 12-months you will get an annual salary of $12 Million.”
The first person is going to go at it for about 3-4 weeks and say, “I quit. This is too hard. This is driving me crazy.” But, the other person is going to say, “Done! Not a problem, 12-months, are you kidding and whistling the whole day, every day, at work.” Why? The tedious trial is being overshadowed by the glory that is to be revealed.
God’s Word teaches us, “We might get to live on this planet for 80+ years, and while we are here we will encounter suffering. There are going to be hard days, but in verse 18 we see, “These hard days are nothing compared to the glory that is to be revealed.”
Where is your joy? Is it in romantic relationships that come and go? Is your joy in the economy that is up and down? Is your joy in how others perceive you? What torture!
God’s Word invites us to put our joy in Jesus. Jesus is the One who is full of power. Jesus is the One who has come to call you His. Jesus is the One who will return again to make all things new.
This is why Isaac Watts writes down the words, “Joy to the World.” It isn’t just what happens at the incarnation, it isn’t just the resurrection, it isn’t just the sanctification, but soon there is coming our glorification for the whole universe.
Do you remember your first memories of church? Maybe it was when you were a child and you remember your parents getting you up early on Sunday for church. Quickly your parents would pull you out of bed, get you dressed, and hand you a pop-tart as you unfortunately walked past the television and morning cartoons to get in the car to go to church. Why were they in such a hurry?
Maybe it was when you were a little older. Maybe elementary age? Church was different. People you didn’t know started asking you really personal questions. You remember waking up every Sunday with this knot in your stomach because people might find out all the bad things you had done that week and they might tell God! It was if they had some hidden spiritual x-ray machine that could read your mind. Why did your parents start going to church? Where did this come from? Had things been so bad that your parents were actually turning to God for help. This can’t be good.
Last night we gathered as a church at our house to pray about personal transformation and city transformation. It is a transformation that only takes place through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and if we are going to even come close to see the church look different it will only happen through Jesus and through prayer.
Because of the amazing iPhone I was able to record some of the worship. It isn’t professional by any means but it is powerful to hear a gathering of people singing out worship and dependency upon Him.
Serving North Central Austin 