Yes, you’ve got problems, but you are more than a problem to be solved. Yes, sin may very well be behind your visible brokenness, but your brokenness is not an opportunity to play the blame game. Yes, you were born at a disadvantage, but that doesn’t mean your future is as dim as your vision has been.

No. Your story must be told differently. The way Jesus tells your story.

If you’re trying to contribute in any meaningful way to the world, there will at some point be an angry mob picking up stones to throw at you. You’re going to say or do something that someone without any self-control or human decency doesn’t like. It’s not cowardice to protect yourself from them.

Walk the other way. Hide. Smile and nod while proverbial lay sticking your fingers in your ears. Turn off your ringer. Block the DMs. Don’t read the comments.

Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years—these are necessary human constructs that help us navigate our world. But they do not control or cause or even determine anything. They only measure our experience.

As a wise philosopher once put it,

“People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it’s more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly… timey wimey… stuff.”

Doctor Who

That said, we can expect certain things to happen “on time,” as it were. The sunrise and sunset. Birthdays. The weekend. High school graduation. Album release dates. And such is the purpose of time—to help us measure what has already happened, and then help us measure our expectations for the same or similar events in the future.

Not from the outside. Self-congratulation is suspect. You cannot pin praises to yourself and expect them to stick. Making a big deal about yourself will eventually end up proving how average you are. You can think the world of yourself, but it’s wisest to keep that to yourself.

Self-promotion is the drug of our age. Seeing ourselves staring back at us through filters and frames is intoxicating. Literally. Every like and comment gives our brains a little hit of dopamine, and furnishes our soul with another fig leaf to hide behind.

Is a good question to ask Jesus. It is quite possibly the question to ask Jesus. Your tone and intention, however, matter a great deal. There is a healthy way and an unhealthy way to ask such a question. Whichever you choose will determine your ability to clearly hear his answer, and maybe even determine the kind of answer he gives you.

Do you ask with skepticism or receptivity?

With arrogance or humility?

With incredulity or trust?

Charles Baudelaire famously wrote, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” (The Generous Gambler)

If that’s true, then the second greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that other people are demonized.

Which is a good strategy, to be honest. If, as the devil, you encounter someone who insists on believing that you exist, you might as well convince them that you exist within someone else. Evil is always within the other, never within ourselves. This is quite on brand with the devil, satan in Hebrew: “the Accuser.”

Might be the most important thing about you.

Our individualistic Western mindset balks at this idea. But we have been lied to. We have been told that in order to find our true selves that we must go inward, that who we are is self-identified from the inside out, independent of anyone else. We resist being defined by anyone else—by any other individual, by any group, by any system. But our resistance to others in our process of self-understanding means that we also resist the clarity that comes in community.

There is a degree to this idea of the inner-self that I whole-heartedly agree with. In the end, only I can know and see and understand my true self. The thing is, my self-perception is skewed; it is impossible to see myself in any truly objective way. My self-perception will always be blurred, so I need to see myself through others eyes as well.

The native language of God is Truth. The native language of the devil is Lies.

The difficulty for us as humans is that while we were created in the image of God, ultimately destined to live with him forever, we are growing up in a foreign land ruled by a different father. We have all been raised in a world where even the truth is often spoken with a lying accent.

Over and against all other gods who are therefore wrong. Although, in the early days I certainly claimed such things. I’m not saying that I don’t think there’s some validity to that idea, only that Jesus’ rightness wasn’t the initial draw for me. The honest truth is that my young and quite-unaware self was actually more excited about me being right rather than about Jesus being right.

And I don’t believe in Jesus because he is clear. God knows he isn’t much of the time. Although, again, in my early days of following him I was thrilled by certain aspects of Jesus that had become suddenly clear to me. But after reading the Gospels countless times, and after nearly 30 years of following him, it seems that ambiguity is something of a hallmark of Jesus. I don’t mean that as a bash against his teaching or leadership style. It just is what it is. I’ve learned to be OK with the non-clarity. Even to accept it and lean into it.

Family traits are hard to deny. It’s uncanny sometimes how family members, with all their individuality and diversity, still end up with a similar laugh. Or a similar gait. Or a similar taste in food or music or art. Or a similar lens through which they see the world. Or a similar way of dealing with difficulties. Part of what makes a family a family is this web of shared nuances of being human that are unique compared to any other family.

Family traits are hard to escape. For everyone on earth, there are likely family traits that they enjoy, or are at least just fine with, but there are also those traits we spend our entire lives trying to break free from. Addictions. Unhealthy patterns of communication. Hurtful non-communication. Manipulation or control. Bad habits when it comes to finances. An inability to talk about things that really matter. Families impart to us blessings, and they also impart curses. And maybe that’s just part of the deal.