If there is one word I hope will still describe me when my life is finished, it is real. Not impressive. Not important. Not someone who had all the answers. Real. I have spent most of my life following Jesus Christ, and after five decades as a pastor, writer, broadcaster, musician, and coach, I am still looking, still learning, still discovering a profound truth: Life holds more mystery than I once thought.
That is not simply one part of my biography. It is the place from which I understand everything else.
One of my favorite passages in the Bible says that as we look toward God, we are gradually being transformed into His likeness. Being transformed. I like those words because they describe an unfinished process.
And I am decidedly unfinished.
Along the way, I have become convinced of something: there is more going on in an ordinary life than we usually notice. Meaning has a way of hiding in common places. At breakfast tables. In hospital rooms. In a conversation with a stranger. In something funny. In something painful. In a memory that suddenly comes back after fifty years. Even in those strange little moments when you find yourself wondering, “Why did that matter so much to me?”
Those are the places I like to explore. I believe God is present in them.
You may believe that already. You may be unsure. You may simply have the suspicion that life means more than what can be measured, purchased, achieved, or explained. Either way, you are welcome here.
I write because I notice things, and I hope to help other people notice them too. Grace hiding in plain sight. A question worth asking. A truth we have walked past a hundred times. Evidence that our lives may be connected to something larger than the moment immediately in front of us.
I call that endeavor “Holding everyday life up to the Light.” (And when I speak of the Light, I mean Jesus Christ.)
I don’t expect everyone who reads my words to begin where I begin. But I will always tell you where I am standing.
My hope is simply that something here causes you to stop for a moment, look at your own life a little differently, and perhaps notice something true that you almost missed.
And if, somewhere along the way, you catch a glimpse of God in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday, I will feel my effort for Jesus was blessed by him.
A Classic State of mind.