Is an essential part of life. Nothing goes on living without being sustained by appropriate fuel sources.

Our bodies cannot go on living without food. Our bodies cannot thrive or perform at their peak abilities without healthy food choices. Filling our bellies to stave off hunger pangs is good for at least temporarily relieving the discomfort. But not just any food choice will do. Some foods can actually kill us, whether immediately or over the long term.

What one has to learn is how to develop and sustain healthy eating habits. This doesn’t come naturally. One has to be taught how to make wise choices. Which is why we have professional nutritionists, for example.

Is the most compelling evangelistic tool at your disposal.

No argument. No clever sales pitch. No kitschy gift. No carefully crafted apologetic. No enthusiastic church service. No light and haze show. No inspiring message from the stage. No meme. No threat of eternal punishment.

As Christians, we’ve tried those and many other tactics over the centuries. They’re all a bit suspect to begin with, and in the end produce questionable results.

What people don’t say can be as instructive as what they do say.

Take for example what Jesus’ disciples don’t say out loud when they walk up on him talking to a Samaritan woman:

“What do you want?”

In their shock at seeing this woman talking with their rabbi—a big taboo—they don’t grill her with questions in an effort to drive her away. Read that question with the emphasis on you. The subtext of such a question says, “Who do you think you are, talking to him? Get!” They were thinking it, but they didn’t say it.

“Why are you talking with her?”

Neither did they address Jesus about why he was breaking multi levels of social norms by engaging in conversation with this woman. They could have easily shamed the woman while also coming across as insubordinate to their master. Read that question with the emphasis on her. What they mean is, “Why on earth would you waste your reputation on someone like her, Jesus?” They were thinking it, but they didn’t say it.

Here’s the math: Thinking – speaking = wisdom.

Let us be silent disciples. Let us not be religious people who serve as Jesus’ self-appointed bouncers. The next time we want to question who is allowed to come to Jesus, or who Jesus is allowed to welcome, let us think it but not say it.

Have been going on for a long time. They still exist. We Christians have a long and inglorious history (that even predates the existence of Christians) of arguing over the nature and practice of worship.

This mountain or that mountain?

Your city or our city?

This building or that building? Or no building at all?

This liturgy or that liturgy? Or no liturgy?

Formal or informal?

Doesn’t exist nearly as much in the Kingdom of God as we’d like to believe. Our world runs on such dichotomies, but not God’s world.

I hesitate to speculate as to why this is, but I have a hunch: It’s because either / or always results in us / them.

Welcome to the club. I do it, too. So does everyone else.

We work hard at keeping up appearances. We carefully curate our public narrative. A lot of human energy is spent in defense against shame.

We’ve made bad decisions. We’ve to We’ve given power to our cravings. We’ve let our emotions explode. We’ve been unfaithful to ourselves and to others. We’ve broken promises. We’ve hurt others, and we’ve been hurt by others. We’ve used others, and we’ve been used by others. We’ve withheld love, and we’ve had love withheld from us.

A woman comes to a well to draw water. Just as she has for her whole life. To the same well that her family line has come to for generations. The kind of monotonous, rote, day-in, day-out task that must be done if one wants to go on living.

But then, one day, she encounters a man (a prophet, she guesses), who says he has water that quenches thirst once and for all. Her response is good fodder for learning how to pray: “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Is your soul thirsty? More than that, are you growing weary of constantly pulling from the same temporarily satisfying well day-in, day-out?

While chaperoning a high school mission trip. We were all working outside in the blazing sun, mixing concrete on the ground with shovels for the new wall we were building at a school. Noble work. Hot as hell, but noble.

I was drinking plenty of water, taking adequate breaks, and keeping my electrolytes up with snacks, but it apparently wasn’t enough. By that evening I thought I had a migraine coming on, which was not unusual for me. But the next morning when I had to keep getting up to leave the church sanctuary for the bathroom to get rid of the few sips of Gatorade I was trying to keep down, I knew there was something else really wrong.

Dehydration is one thing. Humiliation is something else.

Is crucial to getting whatever it is we really need. But knowing is trickier than it looks. We’re not always clear about our actual needs. It’s a common human characteristic to confuse needs with wants. Essentials with desires. Fundamentals with extras.

The first move of grace is to open our eyes to help us see ourselves more clearly.

Grace helps me to spend time with good questions: What is it that I’m really lacking? Where is it that I’m truly empty? What is it that my soul deeply longs for? How am I trying to satisfy myself with things that don’t last? What will more fully satisfy my thirst?

Whom “your people” aren’t supposed to be friendly with. You know who they are. How you identify “those people” depends on who “your people” are. It’s also wise to realize that “your people” are quite likely someone else’s “those people,” whether you realize it or not.

Avoid “those people.”

Go around the area of town where “those people” live.

Don’t talk to “those people.”

Don’t listen to “those people.”

Don’t trust “those people.”