APRIL 13, 2026

  "The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime." – Babe Ruth

1 SAMUEL 13-14

    8Now he waited seven days, according to the appointed time set by Samuel, but Samuel did not come to Gilgal; and the people were scattering from him. 9So Saul said, “Bring to me the burnt offering and the peace offerings.” And he offered the burnt offering. 10As soon as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him and to greet him. 11But Samuel said, “What have you done?” And Saul said, “Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the appointed days, and that the Philistines were assembling at Michmash, 12therefore I said, ‘Now the Philistines will come down against me at Gilgal, and I have not asked the favor of the LORD.’ So I forced myself and offered the burnt offering.” 13Samuel said to Saul, “You have acted foolishly; you have not kept the commandment of the LORD your God, which He commanded you, for now the LORD would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. 14“But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you.”(13:8-14)

LUKE 14:1-24

25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

28“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’

31“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.33In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.

34“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out.

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

JOURNAL 

Saul's faith was not in God. Saul's faith wavered and and he chose the easier path. Jesus warns his followers of the cost of discipleship.

God had in mind David. But then here is the problem...so it's normal here to try and compare Saul and David. If you make the comparison based on their "sin", then God's favoring of David makes very little sense. David inevitably makes some pretty horrible mistakes...David ends up murdering one of his best friends in order to cover up his own sin and affair with Bathsheba. Looking at it on paper it seems that David is the worst of the two. Saul just seemingly got impatient, whereas David was calculating and committed murder. 

I believe it comes down to what they do "right" rather than what they do wrong. Saul seemed to always try and find the easy way, the shortcut. Whereas David continually sought and won the hard moment. While David did make some horrible mistakes, yet when it came down to it, David would choose right in the end. When Nathan approached him regarding his sin...he owned it, and didn't make excuses, he could have had Nathan executed and no one would have ever known. Instead he chose to admit his sin and humble himself before God...the harder right. 

Jesus addresses this when he warns the people to count the cost of being a disciple. His question here is "where is your heart and what is your true devotion".  This is not a one day in the future, when it's convenient, when I feel like it endeavor. This is a lifetime call to give our best and surrender our hearts to God. Doing so means to live passionately, withholding nothing. It means to moment by moment choose the harder, better "right". It means to not just follow God and obey him when the conditions are favorable, but rather to follow and obey him even when following costs and hurts. 

I really believe that is the secret. God promises that ultimate joy and happiness comes from choosing to follow him regardless of the circumstances. I face those moments every single day...do I seek to follow God in choosing the harder right or do I seek the easier wrong and try and justify it. Is my goal in the end to find comfort and an easier life or is my goal to follow God and glorify him in winning  the hard moments by choosing the harder right? That's the ultimate question!!

1Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

ROMANS 12:1-2

APRIL 12, 2026

 

“What God says is best, is best, though all the men in the world are against it.” 

 ~ John Bunyan

1 SAMUEL 10-12

20“Do not be afraid,” Samuel replied. “You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. 21Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. 22For the sake of his great name the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own. 23As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you. And I will teach you the way that is good and right. 24But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you. 25Yet if you persist in doing evil, both you and your king will perish.” 

LUKE 13:22-35

22Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. 23Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”He said to them, 24“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. 25Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’26“Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’27“But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’

JOURNAL

From Samuel to Christ...the message is crystal clear.  Obey God,  love him with all your heart and therefore love others.  There is no other way.  So what is the problem? Obviously the answer is sin, selfishness, greed, laziness, jealousy and all the toxic ways in which we hurt each other and ourselves. 

In teaching 7th graders it is easier to see how all of this plays out in our lives. The need to assert identity through comparison and shame is a constant theme that continues into adulthood...just in more sophisticated ways.  The ultimate message often is that if we don't stand out and succeed in comparison to our peers then we are somehow less, whereas if we achieve...we are more. Identity seems to inevitably be linked to this message. 

It's not that we shouldn't aspire to do our best and often that can mean we are in competition with another person. But I think we always need to remember the ultimate judge of whether we have really done our best is not whether we achieve more than another person. That is truly between us and God. 

Because the message that we take from scripture is that all of our striving really boils down to whether or not we have relationship with God and then our striving and effort becomes our act of worship rather than striving to validate our existence.  Jesus death and resurrection proved that relationship with the creator through humility, is really the key. It also relieves us of trying to compare ourselves with other humans. Man...that so changes things...if only we really believed it and then lived it!!

 6And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. 

LUKE 14:25-27

APRIL 11, 2026

  “The biggest lie promoted by various of our social institutions-and this in some ways plays into our human nature and our sin of laziness-is that we're here to be happy all the time.”  

- M. Scott Peck

1 SAMUEL 7-9

6But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”...19Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We must have a king over us. 20Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to judge us, to go out before us, and to fight our battles.”21Samuel listened to all the words of the people and repeated them in the hearing of the LORD.22“Listen to their voice,” the LORD said to Samuel. “Appoint a king for them.

LUKE 13:1-21

10On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.14Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”15The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”17When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

JOURNAL

Everything in life comes with a cost, but more than that, everything meaningful comes through resistance. We are not designed for a life of ease, even though part of us constantly craves it. The lie that we are here to be comfortable or happy all the time quietly pulls us away from the very thing that gives life its depth. What I am seeing more clearly is that the joy of life is not in escaping problems, but in stepping into them, working through them, and becoming someone stronger, wiser, and more alive on the other side.

This is why competition draws us in. It is why we enjoy games, puzzles, and challenges. Even in rest, we choose forms of struggle. There is something built into us that comes alive when we are required to think, adapt, endure, and overcome. That is not accidental. It is design. We are made to engage difficulty, not avoid it.

The Israelites asking for a king is such a clear picture of this tension. They wanted someone else to fight their battles, to carry the weight for them, to make life more predictable and manageable. They were willing to trade the direct leadership of God for something that felt easier and more like everyone else. But underneath that request is the same temptation I feel in my own life...the desire to be relieved of responsibility, to have someone else fix things, to avoid the strain of walking things out in faith.

I can see now that this desire is not just misguided, it actually strips life of its meaning. If everything is solved for me, if there is no resistance, no uncertainty, no challenge, then there is no growth, no engagement, no real joy. It becomes empty. In my early faith, I wanted God to remove the problems, to take away the discomfort, to smooth everything out. But that kind of life would not produce anything lasting. It would not shape me.

God does not operate as a genie removing obstacles. He invites me into them. He walks with me through them. And somehow, in that process, something changes. The difficulty itself becomes the pathway to joy. Not because the pain disappears, but because purpose is found in the middle of it. There is a satisfaction, even a quiet excitement, in facing something hard and leaning into it with trust.

Jesus healing the woman on the Sabbath shows this tension again. The religious leaders wanted structure, control, and predictability. Jesus moved toward restoration and freedom, even when it disrupted their system. He was not avoiding the problem, He was stepping directly into it. That is the pattern. Life is not about maintaining comfort, it is about participating in redemption.

Carrying the cross is not just about suffering for the sake of suffering. It is about willingly stepping into the challenges set before me, trusting that on the other side of obedience and endurance there is something deeper being formed. It is about understanding that the struggle is not in the way, it is the way.

And the strange, almost paradoxical truth is that when I stop trying to escape difficulty and instead embrace it, there is a kind of joy that shows up. A grounded, steady sense that this is what I was made for. Not ease, not constant happiness, but a life fully engaged in the process of becoming who God created me to be.

25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 

LUKE 14:25-27

APRIL 10, 2026

 “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” 

 - Virginia Wolf

1 SAMUEL 4-6

 10So the Philistines fought, and the Israelites were defeated and every man fled to his tent. The slaughter was very great; Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. 11The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, died.

LUKE 12:35-59

49“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

JOURNAL 

This word  is extremely disconcerting. First of all God allows the Philistines to capture the Ark...then Jesus here claims that he came to bring division, not peace. What do I do with such difficult words?

Although none of the characters in the Bible knew how it all was going to work out, I do...I get to see the finished story, I get to see how God flips the tables on what most often seems to be doom and gloom.  I know that God redeems the Israelites, that the Ark is returned without a fight. I know that Jesus is crucified and comes back and comforts the disciples and gives the gift of the Spirit.

As Christians we are to seek and bring light into this world. We are to look for it in the darkness and that includes the darkness of another's life. We are here to be encouragers not detractors. It's easy to point out the darkness, often it's way harder to find the good and the light. Yet that is our hope, that is our belief and that is how we are to be different.  Life is hard at times but the message could not be more clear... "Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;" (Proverbs 3:5)

"4Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5Let your gentleness be apparent to all. The Lord is near.6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

PHILIPPIANS 4:4-7

APRIL 9, 2026

  “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

1 SAMUEL 1-3

6“The Lord brings death and makes alive;

he brings down to the grave and raises up.

7The Lord sends poverty and wealth;

he humbles and he exalts.

8He raises the poor from the dust

and lifts the needy from the ash heap;

he seats them with princes

and has them inherit a throne of honor.

“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;

on them he has set the world.

9He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,

but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.

“It is not by strength that one prevails;

10those who oppose the Lord will be broken.

The Most High will thunder from heaven;

the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.(2:6-10)

LUKE 12:1-34

Do Not Worry

22Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.24Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life^b ?26Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

27“Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! 29And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. 30For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. 31But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

32“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

JOURNAL 

Today feels different. Not because anything around me has changed, but because I am more aware that this day was never guaranteed. Today is my birthday, and that alone is enough to stop and recognize what an unbelievable gift it is simply to be alive. Another year was not owed to me, and yet here I am, breathing, thinking, feeling, remembering. Out of the thousands who did not wake up today, I did. 

What overwhelms me even more is realizing that I did not arrive at this day on my own. My life is the result of countless people who have carried me, loved me, protected me, corrected me, encouraged me, and at times pushed me when I would not have moved forward on my own. Family who sacrificed. Friends who showed up. Coaches, mentors, teachers, even strangers who crossed my path at just the right moment. There were people who spoke truth into me when I was drifting, people who believed in me when I doubted myself, and people who challenged me when I needed it most. Every one of them is part of the reason I am here today.

And over all of it, I can see the hand of God. In the highs and the lows, in the moments of clarity and the seasons of confusion, He was present. The same God who raises up and humbles, who gives and takes away, who guards and guides. When I look back, I see protection I did not notice at the time, redirection I did not understand, and provision I certainly did not earn. It is humbling to realize how much has been held together for me.

Jesus’ words about not worrying land differently today. Life really is more than all the things I tend to chase or stress over. If God feeds the birds and clothes the fields, then how much more has He already taken care of me. I can see it now, not just in theory, but in the evidence of my own life. Every year, every season, every breath has been sustained by something far greater than my own strength.

There is also a deeper weight to this birthday. Not pressure, but purpose. If today is a gift, then it is not meant to be wasted. It is meant to be lived fully, honestly, and courageously. I have been given everything I need. The same Spirit that empowered men throughout Scripture lives in me. That means I am not lacking. I am not waiting on something else to begin. Today is the day I already have.

So today is not just about looking back with gratitude, though there is plenty of that. It is also about stepping forward with intention. To live in a way that honors the people who poured into me. To live in a way that reflects the God who sustained me. To love better, to give more freely, to act with courage, and to stop holding back out of fear or comfort.

I am grateful for every year, every lesson, every joy and every hardship that shaped me. All of it mattered. All of it was used. And somehow, by grace, I get another day.

Today, I do not want to hide the light I have been given. I want to live it openly. Not perfectly, but fully. Not for myself alone, but in a way that brings something good into the lives of others. Thank you, God, for this day. Thank you for my life. Thank you for every person who has been part of it. And thank you that the story is not finished yet.

33“No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light." 

LUKE 11:33