It’s not always as easy as it sounds. It doesn’t always come as quickly as we would like.

Despite our best intentions and deepest longings, sometimes our hearts are just a bit too hard. Sometimes our eyes are just a bit too blind. Sometimes our understanding is just a bit too dull. Sometimes our whole selves are just a bit too something.

That’s the funny thing about faith: What we need most often eludes us. It is outside of our control. It doesn’t always work to turn trust on and off like a light switch, or to turn love on and off like a faucet. Faith is more of a gift than a paycheck: It can be received, but not earned.

Doesn’t mean it’s time to quit. Not necessarily.

If you’re doing good work yet feel unappreciated, if you’re impacting individual lives but the crowds don’t notice, if you come alive doing what you’re doing but no one seems to care, you have two options:

Quit.

Keep going.

Don’t miss your opportunity to take a few steps forward.

In the modern developed world, we don’t often have to think about light. We rarely have to worry about its absence. If we’re driving at night, the car has headlights—including high beams in case it’s extra dark. With the flick of a switch, a room is illuminated. Except of course for the occasional power outage. But even then, we have flashlights stashed in every room. Even our cell phones now have flashlights.

Light is within our control.

Is a failed Messiah. Always has been. It’s why the crowds around Jesus couldn’t make heads or tails of his “Son of Man will be lifted up” talk. They knew that “Son of Man” was a euphemism for the Messiah, and that “lifted up” was a euphemism for crucifixion.

How could one liberate people from the oppression of the Empire if he himself was killed by the Empire? Extreme cognitive dissonance.

Today, Lord Christ, may you drive out
the prince of this world,
from every mind and heart,
from every body and soul,
from every home and workplace,
from every government and community,
so that all people might live free
of tyranny, suffering, and injustice.
There are so many, both seen and unseen,
who vie for power.
May your power overcome all rivals.

Becoming a spiritual person must, by definition, involve learning to discern the voice of the Divine. In a noisy, raucous world, this is a particularly daunting task. But really, the world has always been louder than the voice of God. If it has ever been possible at all, then it must still be possible today.

The challenge, I think, has always been basically the same. Since God’s voice can come to us in a variety of ways—natural phenomena, other spiritual beings, other human beings, our own inner thoughts and emotions, etc.—then it is easy to misidentify him.

Is a natural human drive. At its most basic, instinctual level, it probably deserves a lot of credit for keeping our species alive.

Suffering, of course, can have many degrees and nuances besides physical suffering that might threaten our bodily life. Sometimes it feels more like a difficulty, or adversity. Sometimes it feels more like discomfort or annoyance. The spectrum that runs between great joy and deep suffering is wide and rich. The path from the valley of death to the mountain peak of life is long, rugged, and often not clearly marked, yet we keep climbing as best we can.

Winning and losing are tricky words to define. Because wherever you end with one you must begin the other. And that works both ways.

The winners of the world have built their lives, and entire industries, on their path to apparent success. Which thereby also defines the losers. I’m not meaning to say that the winners are wrong, only that their definition of winning—which is also probably mine and yours, if we’re really honest—is biased against the actual reality of the universe.

Is the same place where everything goes to die: into the ground. Buried in the dark. Hidden from the light of day. No longer a part of the active life of the world.

Now that it is gone, nothing will ever be quite the same. But the death of a dream is not the death of all dreams.

In the dark soil, magnificent and magical processes are at work. Its shell is broken open. It sends out roots. It pushes through the dirt, reaching for the sunlight. It grows leaves, flourishes into blossom, and eventually bears the fruit of possibilities never before dreamt of.

Are the easiest paths. Often getting things done is quicker when you know someone who knows someone. No one is an island; together we are a continent of relationships.

I suppose it can happen, but in 30 years of following Jesus, I don’t think I’ve known a single person who simply came to Christ all on their own. I don’t know anyone who found him in a vacuum. There was always, to one degree or another, at least one significant person that played a role in their path to encountering the divine.