Even as he heals you. Discomfort is often the raw material of wholeness.

Like spit made into mud and then pasted onto your eyes. Like being told to go wash in a pool that you cannot see the way towards. Like the tentative responses of those from whom you ask directions, who aren’t sure if they should say anything about the mess on your face. Like the moment you splash the cool water on your face and rub your eyes, awkwardly focusing your vision for the first time. Like the brightness of the sun that blinds you in a more shockingly beautiful way than the darkness ever had.

The Gospel of Comfort is no gospel at all.

Is different from working in the light. Doing something for God is not the same thing as doing something in God. In my experience, both in my own life and in observing others, it’s quite easy as a Christian to work for the light while living in the dark.

Doing just about anything in the dark is hard. At best it will be shoddy work. At worst someone might get hurt. Even the smallest flicker of a candle can make all the difference. The brighter the better, of course.

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.