The hope that Job expressed was a resilient one. This resilience enabled him to flex under the pressure and not break. And, given time, it enabled him to bounce back and rebuild his life.When faced with unimaginable heartbreak, Job saw the great tests of life as a refining process. When gold is mined from the earth, the ore goes through a series of treatments that remove impurities.Eventually, all...  Read More

How much of our virtue is wasted worrying about the risk of being hurt, the dread of being alone, or the fear of failure?How many years of our lives does anxiety steal from us? I have wasted too much time fearing worst-case outcomes that only exist in my imagination. Would you join me in no longer allowing these false fears to hold us back?Anxiety is the emotional rehearsal of the worst-case scena...  Read More

As a child, I loved the tropical storms that hit the East Coast of Australia. As I lay in my room, I was captivated by the pounding rain and blue flashes of lightning I saw through the window. I was excited to feel my heart jump as loud claps of thunder echoed through the house.While it was fun at the time, I’ve grown up seeing the devastation that storms can bring. Sometimes, the vicious wind of ...  Read More

Let me ask you a pointed question: What if your circumstances don’t change? An even more difficult question to confront is this: What if your circumstances get worse?One of the most revitalizing, hope-building decisions you can make is to forge purpose from your pain.It’s easy to focus on the darker shades of the palette of life. But do we have a full appreciation of the true beauty and majesty th...  Read More

Are you facing challenges in your life that you can’t see a way out of?It may feel like dark clouds have appeared on the horizon, and they’ve set in for a long, cold winter. You don’t yet know how the financial stress will play out. You can’t see a way out of the emotional trauma that has gripped your mental health.What if hope could exist within our mess? Our pain? Our reality right now?A practic...  Read More

Colossians 3:20Children, be obedient to your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord....  Read More

It is helpful to avoid seeing hope as one dramatic decision you make, but rather as the multiplied effect of many very small, individual everyday choices.Choosing to get out of the house and walk the dog, choosing to apply for a new job, choosing to spot new potential and opportunities while still in the midst of your problems—these everyday choices matter.Hope is for now. It is for this very day....  Read More

I’m discovering that life is like a bicycle.Every time you get on a bicycle and ride, both wheels are in motion. The similarity is this: instead of there being seasons where it is only good in our lives and other seasons where it is only bad, we tend to have a mixture of both.We travel on both wheels at all times. Even on the most dramatically good days, we have hardships. And on the worst of days...  Read More

I spent many months searching for a word that shows how good can come from pain.I decided to look back in time, and it was there, in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, that I came across a word that to me is extremely special. It’s unique because Tolkien had to create the word to describe what he saw as central to the story of life.Eucatastrophe is a compounding of the word catastrophe with the Gre...  Read More

I have had doubts about what many have come to believe about hope. These doubts grew as I saw good people— people of integrity, faith, and optimism—go through storms like cancer, death, and family breakdowns.When we understand the good that adversity brings us, it causes us to lean into the difficulties of life.Be real, be authentic, and allow yourself to be human.Don’t put chemicals on the canvas...  Read More

Luke 2:41-52Now His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.  And when He became twelve, they went up there according to the custom of the Feast; and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, but supposed Him to be in the caravan, and went a day's journey; and they began l...  Read More

One typical way of telling Job’s story is to say a man lost everything, had hope, and got back even more than he lost. I’ve come to resist this version of the story, though.It strikes me as almost callous to consider that as a story of victorious recovery. After all, what can replace the loss of ten children? Newer children?His children never came back to life. Job did not recover what mattered mo...  Read More